Islanders debate if the public charity for the performing arts should be built in a park.

Our voices are worth more than $5

Do you know it only costs $5 to file an initiative measure with the Secretary of State, to become voted upon at the next election in 2017?

Do you also know that an updated “Save Our Park” signature campaign is gathering signatures to get on this ballot? The goal is to garner and certify 3,000 signatures of Mercer Island voters to meet the Dec. 3 deadline.

In all my 50 years on Mercer Island, I’ve never known our citizens to back off considering such “peoples’ proposals” when given the chance. We’ve had numerous considerations of how to use our public lands for citizen amenities such as biking trails, golf course, fire station, city hall, community center, parking structures and the grand-daddy of all — I-90 — which paid us back with more parks on its lid.

We now are considering using a portion of Mercerdale Park for a performing arts center, for which there are diverse voices. I, as one registered voter, would like to hear those voices. If you sign the petition, that’s really all you’re ensuring — that the initiative gets on the next ballot. Re-purposing that parkland acreage then becomes part of the public hearings process, rather than left entirely to City Council’s agenda. What’ve we got to lose — except open space in our town center?

Nancy Hilliard

Mercer Island

MICA is indeed a public charity

I am the president of the Pipe Organ Foundation, a Washington state nonprofit corporation that has been recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization.

On Mercer Island for more than 15 years, we were advised by our attorney at the start that we were a “public charity” and that we had to meet responsibilities to the general public including having significant support from the public in order to maintain our status.

The regulations are clearly written into the law and we have had to follow them since our founding.

Given the above, I was most glad to see the letter by Bernel Goldberg, which clarifies this entire matter with regard to the Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA).

MICA is indeed a public charity and it is not a “private” organization. Characterizing it as “private” misrepresents its nature and purpose.

And, it will have to follow a number of regulations assuring that it is of benefit to the public. I am confident that it will do exactly that.

Carl Dodrill

Mercer Island

MICA puts cart before horse again

The Mercer Island Center for the Arts (MICA), a private organization that desires to put a large building in Mercerdale Park, recently applied to the city for inclusion on the 2017 docket for a Comprehensive Plan amendment.

Not to get too technical, but I was shocked at the lack of completeness and inaccuracies in their submission. Quite frankly, it speaks directly to the issue of MICA’s hasty approach of putting the cart before the horse. MICA strongly desires for the city to sign an 80-year lease so it can control a large portion of Mercerdale Park, before all questions — legal, technical and policy-oriented — are adequately answered.

With the city facing a looming deficit and pending property tax increase, let’s not spend valuable and scarce resources until MICA has done its homework, and all issues have been fully vetted.

I strongly urge the City Council in its upcoming deliberations to delay for one year the inclusion of the MICA application on the 2017 final docket.

Peter Struck

Mercer Island