“From stumped-filled swamp to urban jewel.” That’s how former Councilmember, Jane Meyer-Brahm, describes Mercerdale Park on page 138 in her book, “Mercer Island, From haunted wilderness to coveted community.”

“From the beginning,” she writes, “… city leaders” and many others “wanted Mercerdale field developed as a civic center.” Meyer-Brahm details how and why those past efforts failed. Finally, she praises Mercerdale as “a much-loved, well-used park in downtown Mercer Island with an open lawn encircled by a paved foot path.”

Despite Meyer-Brahm’s words, council members and city managers never demanded the school district, as required by the statutory lease, to restore the shut-down recycling center in Mercerdale Park to its former woodland state. Instead, they signed a memorandum of understanding choosing that location for a future huge arts center. Other economical and convenient Island venues, with parking, like the Community Center, the King property and the Cohen property, were discarded by council members and city managers. As well, they ignored future enormous people spillover from that proposed center into the park’s green space.

Do we really want the only green space in our Town Center shrunk and diminished? An arts center can find another Island location. “An urban jewel,” like Mercerdale Park, cannot.

Jean Majury

Mercer Island