MICA advisory vote is needed
For those who chose to watch Monday Night Football on Nov. 16 instead of the Mercer Island City Council meeting (channel 21), they missed two ridiculous fumbles about the proposed city lease of over an acre of five-acre Mercerdale Park and Bicentennial Park to Mercer Island Center for Arts (MICA).
First, Deputy Mayor Dan Grausz stated he didn’t know the dollar value of the park land to be leased for the grand price of a dollar a year for 50 years, with three 10-year renewals at the same price. The silence of the six other council members indicated they didn’t know either.
Second, MICA’s chief, John Gordon Hill, was asked if he favored an advisory vote. He informed the council he was against such a vote, and that they, not the citizens, had all the knowledge and facts necessary to proceed. Again, silence from the other six.
Since when does MICA’s chief, who has the most to gain, dictate what the council should do? Especially when the council doesn’t even know the market value of the land it’s leasing? If anything, these fumbles prove how essential an advisory vote is before giving away these park lands to MICA.
Scott Majury
Key Issues must be resolved
At the Nov. 16 City Council meeting, City Attorney Kari Sand presented the MICA lease and described three “Key Issues Going Forward” that would have to be resolved before any construction could begin. She further stated that the city could go right ahead and sign the lease with these three “Key Issues” unresolved.
If YOU were the landlord, would YOU sign a lease with three “Key Issues” unresolved? Or would you wait until the “Key Issues” were resolved and THEN sign the lease?
So—why would the city go ahead with three “Key Issues” unresolved?
If you had been at the meeting, or if you watch it (the video is on the city of Mercer Island website), you will see Mr. John Gordon Hill, president of the MICA board of directors, imploring the City Council to sign the lease as it is, with the three “Key Issues” unresolved, so that MICA can move ahead with fundraising.
Councilmember Cero stated that the city had agreed last year to sign an “agreement” not to consider other uses for the property so that MICA could give assurances to funders that the land would be reserved for MICA. But Mr. Hill said that this agreement is not enough, and that the signed lease would make a crucial difference to funders.
I support the Arts, YTN, and MICA, but not in public parkland, and certainly NOT being driven by a City Council marching to the beat of the MICA drummer.
The “Key Issues” are “Key” because they are—let’s say—KEY. These “Key Issues” are (1) lack of proper zoning, (2) current federal and state regulations forbidding building on land that has been classified as “wetland,” and (3) lack of parking. These “Key Issues” are clearly Major Hurdles. I am left wondering why MICA and the city have not spent the past year working out these issues, instead of hammering out a lease that would leave them unresolved, since every one of these “Key Issues” has been known to both the city and MICA from the beginning of the project.
Meg Lippert
