Despite a poll showing better than 60 percent of the public opposed the project, the East Baton Rouge Metro Council fell one vote short of killing a $20 million tear-down/rebuild of the Capitol City’s downtown library tonight.

There were seven votes in favor of de-funding and killing the project. Five council members – Ulysses Addison, Ronnie Edwards, C. Denise Marcelle, Tara Wicker and Alison Cascio – voted to sustain the project. Had any of the five voted to kill it, the project would have been killed.

The Baton Rouge Tea Party and the Tea Party of Louisiana had campaigned vigorously for two months in an effort to kill the downtown library, which both groups argued will be a terrible waste of city-parish funds. There are 14 libraries in East Baton Rouge Parish, and the downtown library is the least-trafficked of the bunch.

The council also voted to de-fund its support of the Bayou Country Superfest concert in Tiger Stadium. Some $300,000 was budgeted to support the event next spring, and that money was shifted to juvenile and alcohol and drug programs.