MICA ‘public benefits’ not worth it | Letters to the Editor

At the City Council meeting on Jan. 19, council members discussed the Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA) lease.

I hope that any action taken is a decision by council members to resolve all of the “key issues” before the lease is signed. The three “key issues” identified by Kari Sand, city attorney, on Nov. 16, 2015, when council members first discussed the MICA draft lease, were (1) necessary zoning change, (2) need for wetlands protection and (3) lack of parking. All three issues remain unresolved.

But the draft lease includes another critical key issue that council members should resolve before signing — the supposed “public benefits” that will accrue to the city in exchange for (1) the value of the parkland, (2) the expected $2 million donation from the city and (3) any future subsidies necessary to meet annual MICA shortfalls. It is illegal for the city to give land and/or money to a private (or public) group without receiving equivalent value in return, since the money that council members are responsible for spending is from public sources.

Most of the “benefits” listed in the current MICA lease are already available to the public in the former Recycling Center. These include (1) public restrooms, (2) public plaza with waste receptacle, water fountain, flagpole, seating area and landscaped outdoor open space, (3) hot and cold water sinks and electricity outlets for the Mercer Island Farmers Market and (4) on-site storage for Mercer Island Farmers Market equipment. Another benefit listed in the MICA draft lease, “use of the center as a back-up Emergency Operations Center (EOC),” with the qualification that “any additional costs related to such use will be paid by the city,” would be an unnecessary duplication of city services. Such an EOC would be superfluous and a wasteful expense for the city since Mercer Island has an EOC at City Hall, a back-up EOC at the North End Fire Station and a “back-up to the back-up” EOC at the South End Fire Station.

Another “benefit” described in the MICA draft lease is an “outdoor theatre stage that faces the grassy area of Mercerdale Park for public performances.” If the city needs another outdoor theater stage, in addition to the Wooden O Theater in Luther Burbank Park, the pergola at the northeast corner of Mercerdale Park could be roofed (transparently or otherwise), and a stage added there for plays and community music performances, for much less than the $2 million that council members have been expected to donate to MICA. This area is already easily accessible to the public, and already faces the “grassy area of Mercerdale Park for public performances.”

Additionally, another benefit listed in the draft lease is: “providing the city access to the center” for “use of spaces within the center for city-related public meetings,” “city-sponsored art classes” and “other purposes dependent on the needs of the city.” However, space for these activities is already readily available at the Mercer Island Community Center and/or City Hall. Including these uses in the MICA lease as “public benefits” obscures the fact that taxpayers are already paying for city-owned spaces that are currently available, and often under-utilized, for all of these activities.

The “public benefits” enumerated in the MICA draft lease do not justify the enormous gifts to a private, non-profit group of almost an acre of public city park land that council members have provisionally agreed to donate to MICA, plus costs to the city of mitigating and preparing the land for MICA construction, plus the donation of $2 million towards the MICA building fund that MICA expects council members to approve, plus several thousands of dollars annually from our taxes to meet any MICA shortfalls in the future.