COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene owns its public library.

Lake City Development Corp., the city's urban renewal agency, does not.

But in declaring the local ownership dispute null and void, city officials concede that LCDC does own the adjacent parking lot and that the Kootenai County Assessor's Office, which had incorrectly listed LCDC as the library's owner in the county assessor's database, changed its listing last week to reflect as much after city critics said the listing proved that LCDC owned the $6 million, voter-approved library.

"If this adds clarity to those who don't think the city owns the library, we will" make the switch, said Troy Tymesen, city finance director, on the change.

He said the city will be reflected as the building owner, effective for the county's 2012 assessment roll.

The reason LCDC had been listed as the owner on the county's assessment roll was nothing more than a clerical error, Kootenai County Assessor Mike McDowell said. The listing didn't seem to be of grave consequence either way, he said, since assessment rolls don't prove ownership and both LCDC and the city are tax exempt agencies anyway.

"It was the ease of the administrative application," McDowell said of the county's previous listing, which placed it on LCDC's land. That land is adjacent to the city's land upon which most of the library building sits. "There was no other reason than that."

Critics, including state Rep. Kathy Sims, remain skeptical.

The Coeur d'Alene Republican, who told a group of around 75 people last week that LCDC was the library's listed owner, points to the fact that a portion of the building sits upon a parcel of land owned by LCDC. If the building is on LCDC's land, then the agency owns it, she said, unless a legal, signed document states otherwise.

"I'm not going to take a screwup" as an answer, she said. "Whoever owns the property, owns the land."

LCDC does own the roughly one acre parcel of land that comprises the library's parking lot.

LCDC took over as sole owners of that parcel, via a warranty deed, from Library Foundation Inc., in 2007, having originally entered into a partnership for it in 2001. LCDC still owes around $600,000 on it. After it pays that off, it will transfer the land to the city, per the agreement with the city as reflected in LCDC's September 2004 meeting minutes.

The city owns the adjacent 6.8 acres, upon which a majority of the library building sits.

According to maps in the assessor's office, approximately 90 percent of the building is on the city's land, and 10 percent juts onto LCDC's.

But the city has always owned the library, officials said this week.

And it has been listed as a city asset in Coeur d'Alene's audit reports ever since it was built, with voter approval, in 2006. In its most recent audited list of city assets, which shows 4,529 fixed city assets, library components are on lines 925, 926, 930 and 931.

The building is not on LCDC's audited list of assets, although the parking lot parcel is.

Added to the legal documentation is the city bond that voters approved for the library, Tymesen said. When that $3 million, 20-year city bond passed, it put the taxpaying citizens of Coeur d'Alene as the creditors. Typically, if a bank finances a project of that size, there'd be a deed of trust. But with the bond passed, no lien was placed on the library as it comes from the citizens' pockets.

"We would legally challenge any of that," Tymesen said, if an ownership dispute did reach the courts. "And it would be a simple legal transaction ... We are very comfortable by the way these things are packaged."

What the city doesn't have, other than LCDC's meeting minutes, is a contract with LCDC outlining the deal that would turn over the parking lot to the city upon debt pay off.

Urban renewal is a separate legal entity from the city, but a component formed by the city that works in unison with the city on public improvements, Tymesen said. Those agreements were settled as the building and lots were being planned and built, making that written contract unnecessary, and when LCDC's urban renewal district in which the lot sits closes, it turns over to the city automatically.

Still, critics insist a legal contract would go a long way to spell out ownership.

City Council candidate Dan Gookin said he doesn't think the city is falsifying ownership claims or hiding anything related to the library, but should be more careful by writing out agreements between the city and LCDC, since they are separate entities.

"That's the issue," he said. "It's sloppy."

He agreed with city officials and LCDC Director Tony Berns that even if LCDC attempted to list the library as its asset, it wouldn't get the agency very far since banks wouldn't view a library as legitimate collateral if LCDC were to try to borrow money against it, since banks wouldn't want to foreclose on the public building.

Sims agrees with Gookin that a written agreement should be in place. During last week's meeting, she pointed to the assessor's listing on LCDC's property as proof that LCDC owned the library.

City Administrator Wendy Gabriel attended the meeting. Afterward, she asked Tymesen to verify if the county did list it that way. Tymesen confirmed that it did. She then asked Tymesen to request the county switch the library to the city's parcel, which the county did.

She said she was unaware that the county had listed it that way. She took the initiative to ask the county to correct it since it was rectifying a clerical error, which didn't need to be vetted through the City Council or other administrative processes - the latter step Gookin would have preferred.

"I have the latitude to correct anything that needs to be corrected," she said, adding that she expects the change to clarify any confusion. "What we do know is it's a public asset now and forever more, regardless of what the assessor's office shows."