I hope that every citizen of Mercer Island will read the proposed MICA lease. Only excerpts of the lease are posted on the MICA website, but the full 23 page lease is available from Mercer Island City Hall. In the proposed “Ground Lease and Use Agreement,” the “Premises” for “constructing and operating” MICA are described as land “not currently needed by the City” which has been “declared surplus real property by the City Council of the City.”

It was bad enough when the 38,000 square foot MICA building was going to be built on public park land. But now our public park land has been declared “surplus real property”!

By whose definition can nearly an acre of public park land adjacent to the Mercer Island town center – land which includes wooded paths with benches, the Northwest Nature Garden, Bicentennial Park, public rest rooms, and storage and sinks for the Mercer Island Farmer’s Market – be considered “surplus,” and thus be “declared surplus”? This is not my definition of “surplus” land. Is it your definition of “surplus” land?

Meg Lippert