COEUR d'ALENE - If the guard changes, the McEuen Field redevelopment project could be stopped.

While many variables are still undecided - like whether there will be a recall election - the timing says if the recall effort is successful, a new council could take over this fall and pull the plug on the McEuen Field reconstruction project.

"A new council could do whatever they want," City Administrator Wendy Gabriel said this week about the hypothetical fate of the downtown park's redesign plan that has been scrutinized for two years and was the major reason RecallCdA launched its recall effort. "If it's a council that doesn't support the project, certainly they will not go to bid."

Team McEuen is currently drawing construction documents for the estimated $14.2 million park plan.

The goal is to have the project ready to go out to bid by the spring.

A recall election, if at least 4,311 signatures come back certified on Tuesday, would likely be either Aug. 28 or Nov. 6. If a recall election successfully recalls the four incumbents on either date, a replacement council would be in place well before spring. It's the council which ultimately decides to accept a bid or not, so a council that is against the park's reconstruction plan could decide not to move forward with the reconstruction work.

But the city also has plans to take a quasi-first step on the McEuen Field project this fall by starting on a new parking lot south of City Hall. That's an important first step, officials have said, because it would be complete in time so people could still park downtown as the rest of the McEuen Field project gets under way and parking areas are disturbed.

If it's an August election and successfully recalls pro-McEuen Field redevelopment City Council members Mike Kennedy, Woody McEvers, Deanna Goodlander and Mayor Sandi Bloem, a replacement council could come in around the same time as that project gets under way.

What a replacement council would do to that first step is still anyone's guess, Gabriel said, as the timing isn't set in stone.

Meanwhile, city staff is following the orders of the current City Council, and though nearly divided on the topic, the council has ordered the city to go through with the reconstruction plan.

Staff will continue to follow that direction, as long as the makeup of the council remains the same.

"Right now, I have marching orders to do the project," Gabriel said. "That's because the majority of the council has given me those orders. So right now, we're marching to do the project until we're told otherwise."

Team McEuen will share its latest construction documents with the public from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, June 28 at the Parkside Conference Room, 601 E. Front Ave.