Vote on new election center delayed

Should King County create a $23 million election center in Seattle's Rainier Valley or move the election offices into a county office tower about to be built in downtown Seattle?

The Metropolitan King County Council's budget committee, still not sure of the answer to that question, yesterday delayed a vote on the issue for one week.

Committee members want to combine election operations into one facility but said they weren't sure if the Rainier Valley site proposed by County Executive Ron Sims is the place to put it.

Sims last month asked the County Council for $677,000 to study the site in more detail and put down earnest money for its purchase. The budget committee yesterday trimmed the proposed appropriation to $350,000 and sent the matter to the full council without a recommendation on whether to approve it.

Council Chairman Larry Phillips delayed action for one week at the request of council budget Chairman Larry Gossett.

The budget ordinance forwarded by the committee also calls on Sims to figure out how the office building could be structurally strengthened to handle the heavy weight of election ballots and an electronic data center.

Ryan Bayne, Sims' liaison to the County Council, said the budget committee's action was "a good compromise" that keeps the Rainier Avenue South option alive.

Backed by several outside reviews, Sims has touted consolidation of the county's scattered election operations as a way of avoiding the kinds of mistakes that plagued the 2002 and 2004 elections.

He wants the County Council to pay for study of the 1130 Rainier Building as a possible home for the Elections Section and a countywide electronic data center. But Democrats and Republicans on the council have suggested the county could save money by moving Elections into the planned $100 million county office building.

The county's Facilities Management Division last week said the long-term cost of moving Elections and the data center to the Rainier Avenue building would be less than putting them in the office building because it would allow other county offices to move from expensive leased space to the office tower.

Election officials and several members of the Citizens' Election Oversight Committee appointed by the County Council have said the warehouselike building on Rainier Avenue South is better suited to elections than the office tower would be.

In a letter to Sims and the County Council, oversight committee Chairman A.J. Culver said members "strongly urge and respectfully request" that the county put down earnest money on the 1130 Rainier Building.

Culver said the old brick building "appears to be well-suited" for elections because of its large, open floor plan, location near Interstate 90, ample parking, recent seismic and computer-technology upgrades and forklift-capable loading dock.

Elections Director Dean Logan recently said the Rainier Avenue site would be "a facility that's designed for the work flow" rather than a "makeshift facility" in an office building.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com