A group of municipal and county leaders proposed dramatic ideas for consolidating government services Wednesday during a meeting about how Cowlitz County and its five cities can save money.

Officials recommended that cities surrender control of libraries and parks to new metropolitan organizations that would oversee them. They also suggested the adoption of new technologies and sharing staff to reduce costs.

The meeting, hosted at the Cowlitz County Expo Center by the county commissioners, was attended by representatives of Longview, Kelso, Woodland, Castle Rock and Kalama.

The proposals come as officials in Longview and Kelso consider merging the two cities to save tax dollars and create efficiencies. Voters in those cities will participate in a non-binding advisory vote on the idea in November.

Wednesday evening’s discussion, although separate from the Kelso-Longview merger talks, was very much in the same vein.

“How many parks directors do you need?” Commissioner George Raiter asked during an interview after the meeting. “One.”

But commissioner Axel Swanson said during the meeting that the process of even considering consolidating services is slow-going and difficult.

“It’s a very contentious process,” he said, noting that officials discussing the merger of redundant departments could be talking themselves out of a job. “That’s what mergers and consolidations do in many cases.”

Still, discussions Wednesday involved what officials considered novel ideas and, in a few cases, the radical restructuring of the region’s government services.

The ideas include creating a regional library system and metropolitan parks district that would be governed by their own elected boards and funded by separate tax levies approved by voters. Raiter said voters would be asked to approve the new districts and to determine their levels of funding. The new government organizations, he said, would give voters more control over where tax dollars go and a better understanding of how those dollars are spent.

The proposals would also require the city governments that now control parks and libraries to surrender control, Raiter said. In return, they would no longer be responsible for funding those services.

Castle Rock city councilman Mike Mask said a metro parks district might be the best way to save parks across the county, which, he said, have been neglected in favor of other government services.

“Every one of us in government realizes that parks are always pushed to the back burner,” he said. “Parks are not going to be there if we don’t look at this seriously.”

Other ideas include:

• A “metropolitan permit center” that Swanson said would provide “one place in the county that people can go for all their permit needs.”

• A regional motorpool, through which government employees could reserve a car using a Web site or cell phone. The service, which would be small in scale at first, would be modeled after Zipcar, which scatters cars throughout metro areas and allows the public to rent them online.

• Pooling lodging tax dollars to fund new festivals and events that would bring tourists from far afield to stay overnight in the county.

The ideas were the result of discussions among subcommittees who are preparing to present the proposals to city councils across the county. The group is expected to meet again Jan. 13.