This Renton Vote ensures that A River continues to Run Through It

In Renton, the Cedar River not only runs through it, but also underneath the Renton Library, and while you might be arrested by your local Fish & Wildlife agent for attempting to imitate Brad Pitt’s fly fishing efforts from the 1992 film by the same name, you can at least enjoy a good book from the Renton Library while watching the salmon go upstream or the local kids ride an inner tube down to Lake Washington.

Since I grew up in what is now Newcastle in King County, I have great childhood memories from the 70s and early 80s of going to the iconic Renton Library perched over the Cedar River. I remember swimming in the chilly Cedar River under the Library and riding an inner tube from the nearby park, past the library to places further downstream. I enjoyed releasing homing pigeons with my uncles at the next door park, and when I was older in the late 90s, running by the library on the Cedar River Trail. When I later lived in nearby Fairwood with my wife, we would walk to the library from the nearby park pushing a stroller with our oldest son.

The Cedar River Library was built in 1968, in an earlier era when government was a less intrusive force, when environmentalists were not trying to harass the average citizen and they cared about real pollution, and when building iconic libraries like the Renton Library were considered a sign of progress. Times do change.

Now it appears that this library no longer conformed to the modern master plan of the Renton City Council. There was no mass transit nearby, it was costly to upgrade (when was the last time that ever stopped government?), and there was a new Plan for Renton – which required this library be moved to a new location. Of course, when the library is moved to a new smaller location with limited car parking, and no parks nearby everything will be great because light rail and bus stations would be plentiful (have you ever tried to negotiate a stroller with kids and supplies off a train or bus? I have, and it is far from easy). Oh, and it would be a lot smaller too. That was “The Plan,” and all the government elites got on the same page.

What to do with the old building? Maybe it could become a new Environmental Center. Of course! Many local citizens loved their library, and they didn’t want a smaller one built with no parking. The Renton Mayor and most of the City Council wouldn’t listen. The King County Library System wouldn’t listen, and sure didn’t care. The local media sided with the elites. Nobody listened to the Renton residents, and “The Plan” moved relentlessly forward. So, Renton citizens took matters into their own hands and ran a petition drive collecting more than 9,000 signatures to put the decision on the ballot.

Despite the resistance to this effort by the Renton City Council, mayor, Renton staff, local media, and the King County Library System, these citizens prevailed and got it on the ballot. On Tuesday, Renton Residents by a 3 to 1 margin voted to keep the Cedar River Library Over the River and ignore the Central Planning Scheme created by the powerful political elites who knew better. What happens next? As we all know from watching our local governments at work, a close eye needs to be kept on efforts by the King County Library System, the Renton City Council, the mayor, and Renton City staff to undermine the voice of the people. These folk will have sour grapes over this recent election, and there will probably be some effort to drag their heels, and try to get back to the The Master Plan, but for now, citizen activism has made a difference, against the odds, and for a while Renton residents will have the joy of enjoying what our grandparents built with their tax dollars and the Cedar River will still run through it.

Citizens for Cedar River Library (dead link)