Why did the City Council decide to change the name of the “Parks and Recreation Department” to the “Parks, Arts and Recreation Department” at Saturday’s City Council mini-planning session?

This change, seemingly proposed out of the blue on Saturday morning, and costing the city tens of thousands of dollars to redo signage and printed matter, was not announced to the public in advance and there was no opportunity for public input before the City Council decided.

Was the decision to suddenly include “arts” in conjunction with “parks” and “recreation” so that the City Council can lay the foundation for funneling public funds into this $25 million privately-owned arts complex proposed for public parkland?

The City Council spent a lot of time at the mini-planning session discussing how tight the city budget is, and planning ballot issues to increase taxes. Is including arts in the same department as parks a way to make it easier for the City Council to justify spending $2 million of public funds towards building this privately-controlled arts facility, and then to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars annually to meet MICA operational shortfalls?

To amalgamate the arts with the parks at this point leaves citizens wondering “Why?” Why at this time? Why in this way? Why?

To justify subsidizing MICA despite budget shortfalls?

Meg Lippert

Mercer Island