The King County Library System will expand the 10-year-old Auburn Library in the Les Gove Park campus.

Plans call for 5,000-square feet to be added to the 15,000-square-foot building, most noticeably in the form of a glass-paneled addition expanding into part of the parking space on the current east side of the building.

Usually that sort of thing would call for Auburn’s property management people to go back and look at the terms of the original lease for the city-owned land and renegotiate when necessary.

But the property management folks couldn’t find the lease as nothing had been written down.

City officials were surprised at that revelation.

“One of the things we found out after all these years is that we never actually did a lease,” Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis admitted last week. “It was back in former Mayor Chuck Booth’s time. Nobody thought to do it.”

On Monday the Auburn City Council made up for the oversight by approving a lease with KCLS.

KCLS does not owe the city back rent.

“It’s a swap, what we get is fair value,” Lewis said. “This codifies the fact that there is a document. This is one of those little things that pops up from time to time. My first reaction was, you’ve got to be kidding.”

City Attorney Dan Heid said it shouldn’t pose legal problems.

“If (KCLS) were a non-governmental entity, it would probably be problematic, but because they are governmental there wouldn’t be,” Heid said. “The problem would be if we were essentially giving a gift of city assets to a non-governmental entity. Because they are governmental, the rules are a little different, a little more lax allowing for some transfers and some conveyances.

“I think what happened is that the City owned the property but allowed the Library to build the building and occupy the premises. They own the building but the city owns the land under which the building is located,” Heid said.

Heid added that it “would make good sense for there to be a lease so that the parties know what they are doing.”

KCLS expects to close the popular library in August and keep it closed for a year.

Among the notable additions to the library:

• An expanded children’s area.

• A new meeting room in the northeast corner of the addition that will serve as a quiet space when it is not a meeting room. Where there’s not a gathering in the current meeting room, it is closed, locked and unavailable. The new meeting room will feature sliding glass doors so it may become a much more interactive, multi-use space.

• The relocation of bathrooms to the west side of the building and an expanded entrance way and media area in the space now occupied by the restrooms.

• A quiet study area that will significantly increase the amount of seating space.

• An automated material handling system that will let patrons check in their books and get a receipt for them.

• Additional spaces for laptops and additional laptops for check out. The library will keep the same amount of fixed computers.