I have lived on Mercer Island for 29 years, served on numerous local education boards and had five children graduate from the Mercer Island school system. Over this time, our fire department has responded to calls for help from our family on several occasions.

We place a high value on having our own local fire department with men and women who know us, our neighborhoods and our driveways. This same team who in the past has held Firehouse Munch during the holidays, done philanthropy in the community and provided valuable first aid and CPR classes to our students.

Yet, despite the incalculable and intangible benefits of having a small, efficient team of people who know us and have this history and relationship with Mercer Island residents, I understand the city council sought to discover whether this valuable relationship was cost-effective.

And sure, it is within your responsibility that taxpayer and city funds are being utilitzed efficiently, so we can applaud the look at the bottom line. However, it seems the council’s own study reveaaled there was no money to be saved by having another agency provide fire and EMS services to Mercer Island.

Moreover, Ray Austin, union president and 20-year veteran of the MI Fire Department, pointed out in a recent guerst column to the Mercer Island Reporter that after three years, it would actually cost more.

The city council’s 4-3 vote to even consider spending more money on another study flies in the face of your first study’s results. It flies in the face of common sense. Please explain to this community why, after learning our money is well spent on a dedicated, caring team of emergency personnel, we would farm out this resource to another city to oversee and send random teams to rotate through our stations who may or may not have ever responded to a MI home or business.

I ask that you publish your response both on the city’s website as well as in the Mercer Island Reporter. If there is another side to this story, then you deserve to be heard by the citizens you serve.

Please take advantage of our attention to this issue and explain your reasoning so that we, as a community, can continue to provide feedback and have an understanding of how our council is working for us. I look forward to your response.

I also want the Mercer Island City Council to know I fully support your vote to authorize the city manager to file a lawsuit against Sound Transit to ask for enforcement of the settlement agreement. A deal is a deal.

Thank you for standing up to Sound Transit and utilizing the court system to hold Sound Transit’s feet to the fire … or the rails, as it were. Sound Transit will run their will right through and over any community that doesn’t hold them to these agreements. I’m glad you’ve come to the conclusion that enough is enough and this agreement, negotiated in good daith, should stand. We on Mercer Island stand with you.

Cheryl Roodman, Mercer Island