Re-Elect Lisa Anderl
Ballots will arrive soon! I encourage you to join me in re-electing Lisa Anderl to the Mercer Island City Council. Lisa brings a dedicated and open-minded approach to the Council and has a proven track record for making intelligent, data-driven, fiscally responsible decisions. Lisa’s efforts over the past years have helped to shape Mercer Island into the wonderful community we enjoy today.
Lisa has demonstrated unwavering commitment towards Public Safety, Parks, and Mercer Island Youth and Family Services. She remains focused on supporting local businesses, maximizing efficiencies to ensure fiscal responsibility of funds, and preventing overdevelopment and congestion on the Island. These priorities shine through in Lisa’s voting record and in the way she brings policy improvements to our community.
Lisa has been a champion for our Parks and Open Spaces. Most notably, Lisa was instrumental in co-drafting a local Ordinance to prohibit camping in our parks and public spaces. With this new policy now in place, encampments are prohibited in our parks, improving public safety and allowing MIPD to connect individuals with greatly needed programs and services. More recently, Lisa supported the creation and adoption of two new zoning codes – the Open Space Zone and the Parks Zone. These new zoning codes are intended to protect our Parks and Open Spaces, by limiting the size and type of development that can occur.
We need Lisa’s continued guidance now, more than ever. Our City is facing significant work items in the years ahead – aging infrastructure; a solution for the public safety & public works facility; dealing with asbestos in a still-closed City Hall; Town Center revitalization; and minimizing the impacts of recent housing legislation out of Olympia.
Lisa Anderl is a dedicated and proven leader on the City Council and has my full support. In an increasingly divided world, it is critical that we elect individuals who are committed to listening to residents, learning about the issues, and making pragmatic evidence-based decisions which will benefit our community for decades to come. Join me in re-electing Lisa!
Ashley Hay,
Chair, Mercer Island Parks & Recreation Commission
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Supporting Julie Hsieh
Elections have consequences. That’s always been true, at the state and national level but also Mercer Island.
The state’s Department of Transportation gave me ample time to contemplate this during the recent roadwork on The East Channel Bridge. Sitting in stalled traffic afforded ample time to study our candidates’ artwork decorating Town Center streets.
Several toppers highlighting some of our difficult issues particularly attracted my attention. “Preserve Mercer Island’s Small-Town Feel,” “Town Center Needs Parking” and my favorite, “Preserve Single-Family Neighborhoods.”
Mercer Island lost an appeal on our comprehensive plan because the state’s Growth Management Hearing’s Board found Mercer Island failed to accommodate affordable housing as required by state law.
We faced a similar problem with the state’s Growth Management Act thirty years ago while I served on the council. Our solution: be thoughtful and creative, maintain our community’s character yet evolve with the region’s growth and meet the requirements of state law. We succeeded and avoided threatened lawsuits. We can do that again.
What we don’t need is to follow the misguided strategy the council used with Sound Transit: creating regulatory hurdles for ST’s construction, raising utility taxes to hire attorneys to sue and, ultimately, spending thousands on attorneys and a $2.1 million settlement with Sound Transit that also dropped all claims.
Just like our work in the 1990s, and the legacy of Aubrey Davis and Ben Warner achieving an I-90 we didn’t “see, hear or smell” without litigation, managing change requires creativity, intelligence and innovation.
We can follow their legacy or take the adversarial approach the council did with Sound Transit, likely with the same consequences, and loss of local control of how we develop our community to developers willing to sue us for non-compliance.
Julie Hsieh proposes to comply with state law and preserve our small-town feel. My money’s on Julie’s approach and I will be voting for her.
Fred Jarrett,
Mercer Island
