POULSBO — In the months leading up to the Nov. 7, 2006 election when Little Norway voters instructed city officials to keep city hall downtown, public/private partnerships were never mentioned.

Now, with Mayor Kathryn Quade and the city’s long-range planning committee heading the project in that direction, some residents question how that might have altered the outcome of the city hall vote.

The advisory vote asked citizens to choose between locations on 10th Avenue or in the downtown area.

That vote led to city council’s reversal of the November 2005 decision to build a city hall building on property near the intersection of 10th Avenue and Lincoln Road. The land was owned by Olympic Property Group, and purchased for $2.1 million.

“I don’t know if it would (have affected the outcome),” said Bill Lockard, who remains a proponent of the 10th Avenue location. “I think 10th Avenue was and still is the best location.”

In the city hall analysis conducted by Parametrix prior to the election, the numbers for building at both locations were roughly the same.

Consultants reviewed the costs for constructing the same building on both the 10th Avenue site and the existing city hall site, the economic impacts of both locations and compared all aspects of the two sites.

The breakdown from the downtown city hall analysis prepared by Parametrix comes with the following qualifier: “There is uncertainty associated with the preliminary cost assessment due to the lack of information on actual development costs, and other cost considerations such as parking and the inclusion of a future police station.”

Even with the estimated costs for both sites, the report states that “based upon a purely qualitative, versus quantitative analysis of the alternatives using the above criteria, it is not possible to arrive at any definitive recommendation…”

Proponents of the downtown location promised they had a plan to build city hall downtown, but now it appears that wasn’t the case at all, Lockard said.

“I also question what their real motive in wanting to build downtown was. Frankly, I’m really leery of public/private partnerships,” he said.

That idea was mentioned prior to the election, but wasn’t part of the voter information, he said.

“I think going that route would take control of our city government from our citizens and empower a few select individuals,” he said.

The city still owns the 10th Avenue property and has a development plan for it, if the city council should reverse its decision and decide to move forward with those plans, Lockard said.

“Most of the engineering had been completed, and we were ready to move forward,” he said.

Now, the city hall project is nowhere near completion and probably won’t be for some time, Lockard said.

On the other side of the issue, Bight of Poulsbo founder Bill Austin said he welcomes the idea of a possible public/private partnership.

“I think it would be good to have ‘professional’ people involved, who understand the risks and can get it done,” Austin said.

Regardless of how city officials proceed, the city hall building must remain downtown, he said.

“It belongs to the citizens. It’s called city hall for a reason,” Austin said. “It’s not the city building across the highway.”