The Washington City Council met Tuesday evening, (pictured from left) Mayor Sandra Johnson, Millie Youngquist, Brendan DeLong, Russ Zieglowsky and Kerry Janecek. Photo by Sally Y. Hart

The Washington City Council has directed staff to move forward with getting a commercial realtor to aggressively market the former library building. Washington is looking to find more space for the police department, city hall and the fire department and most of the council is in favor of a campus location where a new fire station would be constructed and the current building would be split between the police department and city hall.

The council put a nine month timeframe on the sale of the former library building and some are in support of further looking at putting city hall there if it doesn’t sell. Councilman Brendan DeLong does not support that, saying he feels it is a better use of tax payer money to construct new than to take a chance on the unknowns in renovating the former library. Other members of the council, including Kathy Salazar said there is a feeling of responsibility to not leave a downtown building vacant while potentially constructing new facilities.

The council voted 5-1 to defer the fire station action for nine months or until the building is sold.