As a parent of Youth Theatre Northwest (YTN) kids and someone who has been following the development of the Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA) since the theater first learned it had to vacate its home, I can say that the YTN team has aggressively vetted every possible scenario for relocation to keep them on Mercer Island. The only viable option that has surfaced, with support from the city, has been the current proposal for MICA at the recycling center adjacent to Mercerdale Park.

My belief is that a few very vocal and strong-opinionated critics of City Council members and their policies are using this parks initiative as an attempt to block what they view as another one of City Hall’s schemes to “overdevelop” the Island.

There’s a big difference between another five-story apartment building and a performing arts center proposed to be constructed on unused, otherwise undesirable land that happens to abut a park.

You will hear the backers of the “Protect our Parks” initiative tell you about the “no net less” of parkland clause and how MICA will take away valuable park land. They’ll bring up the old business of the golf course that would have been built in Pioneer Park and how allowing the city to lease the land to MICA would be setting a bad precedent for future development.

They will also tell you that there was no public process for MICA, and that council attempted to “railroad” the plan through because of personal bias and interest. Not true, and there is much evidence to point to the extensive public hearings held over the course of the past couple of years on this very issue.

My concern is that many citizens who hear about the petition don’t know much about the backstory, and on the surface see it as a positive when really it’s designed to block a well-intentioned effort by the private and public groups who are working together to make it a reality. After all, “protect our parks” has a really nice ring to it, right? It has all of the fear and urgency needed to create a minor frenzy.

Selfishly, I don’t want my kids to lose the opportunity to perform on Mercer Island, so I do have some skin in the game personally. Beyond that, I see MICA as an incredibly valuable resource for the Island, much in the way our schools and parks are today.

There’s a difference between checks and balances and outright personal vendettas. I hope that the sponsors of the protect our parks initiative are working from a position of the former, not the latter.

Scott Weiss

Mercer Island