Sometimes making the call isn’t easy. But after running the city through the ringer, questioning its every option, discussion and move on a proposed city hall location, it is the opinion of this paper that 10th Avenue is indeed the correct choice for city hall.

While this won’t go down in history as one of the more popular editorial stances the Herald has taken in its 105 years, the 10th Avenue location makes the most sense outright in terms of what the city is really looking for — a municipal campus.

City hall is just a part of this idea. It also includes courts, the police station and possibly a rec center. Right now, the city’s buildings are spread across Poulsbo. The rec center’s on Front Street, the police station’s on Hostmark, city hall and engineering is on Jensen, public works is on Iverson and the fire station is on 10th.

Will a municipal campus fit on Jensen? That is just one of the many questions that are unanswered about the site.

Another big one is whether city hall truly is the “heart” of Poulsbo’s downtown? Is it? No. Its businesses are.

Opponents to 10th will say that the relocation there will harm the district, taking much-needed dollars from city employees up the hill. Will city employees simply forget their favorite restaurants and shops simply because they’d be five minutes, as opposed to one minute away?

Not likely, yet much of the argument for downtown hinges on this perception. Parking arguments for and against each site are a wash. He said this, she said that.

True, if the existing city hall was sold the city could lose parking, but it doesn’t have to. Poulsbo could just as easily retain much of the parking at King Olaf, thus alleviating some of the parking problems that have plagued downtown for decades.

In their opposition to 10th, downtowners argue that tourists spend $30 million in Poulsbo annually and that keeping city hall downtown will keep that revenue source flowing. But how many of these tourists really make a stop at city hall as part of their visit to historic downtown Poulsbo? Would this change? Would children visiting the scenic district all of a sudden ask, “Enough of these doughnuts and horned hats, can we go to city hall?” Again, not likely.

Several months ago, council was awed by what city hall could be. The proposed 10th Avenue building — much of which has already been designed — and its surrounding municipal campus was getting oohs and ahhs. Now it’s getting boos.

And while council has approved the site, it has since backed off its recommendation in favor of the public will. The consultants’ reports can be skewed one way or the other depending on one’s perception. Folks believing city hall should remain downtown have their arguments and, likewise, those for 10th Avenue can pick and choose data backing their preferred site.

This said, out of the two locations, only 10th Avenue has had the proper studies done, engineering and design work are done. While one can make an argument that a three-story city hall will fit the existing footprint on Jensen, what of the list of unknowns?

By and large, the existing foundation of a new building there is built on speculation.

Will relocating city hall harm downtown, who knows? But what one can also assume is that adding a new business downtown — one large enough to take over city hall — would also generate business for the district.

Speaking of business, in order to do so with several departments in the city, one now has to make several stops around Poulsbo — not exactly the most convenient thing for a taxpaying citizen.

While the big names support downtown, the hard numbers back 10th.

Even so, the Herald anticipates it will be in the minority come Nov. 7 and that’s fine, too. But being a community paper doesn’t always mean following the herd. The Herald took an unbiased look at the issue, the data and the outlook on this one.

Hopefully, citizens will do the same before making their own determination on where they want their new municipal campus built.