Protect our Parks playing on Islanders’ fear | Letter

Published 8:00 am Friday, May 20, 2016

I get it. It’s a strategy. To divert attention from facts you play on fear. Recent TV ads created by Protect Our Parks (POP) proponents, funded by a Kent-based political action committee are a prime example.

POP proponents would have you believe our parks are endangered. Their flagrantly fictitious TV ads claim that our parks, playgrounds and bike paths are disappearing. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Disappearing green spaces on Mercer Island? According to www.mercergov.org, the number of trees planted have doubled over 10 years. The total number of acres worked were 88.3 in 2005-06 compared to 149.7 acres in 2013-14. In the last 25 years, Mercer Island has added over 100 acres of parkland.

Not enough parks? Mercer Island is listed as one of the most playful cities in the U.S. with 475 acres of parks and open space with playgrounds, sports fields, walking and bike paths. Our proportion of park acreage per capita is higher than most cities with roughly 21 acres per thousand people, compared to a national average of 12.8 acres. There is no shortage of parks and open space on Mercer Island, nor is there likely to be in the foreseeable future.

Believe MICA will take over Mercerdale Park? Mercerdale is 30.9 acres. MICA will occupy .6 of an acre of a space currently occupied by an abandoned recycling center plus a small garden patch, which on any given day is littered with condoms, beer bottles and hypodermic needles.

Mercer Island parks are not in peril. If you are opposed to MICA and don’t support YTN staying on the Island, you are entitled to that opinion. But hiding behind the dubious claim that it’s because MICA threatens our parkland lacks credibility. Spending outrageous amounts of money for an off-Island political action committee to promote that fear-driven nonsense lacks respect for the truth.

Becki Snellenberg

Mercer Island