Mercer Island’s parks, open spaces, and natural landscapes are integral to the Island’s beauty and the quality of life we enjoy on the Island.
These parks and open spaces provide playgrounds, wooded trails, places to reflect, sports fields, places to spend time with family and friends, and an uncommon sense of nature. They improve air quality, mitigate global warming, provide a habitat for wildlife, contribute to the economic value of our properties, and greatly improve our health, wellbeing, and quality of life.
Despite these benefits and Mercer Island’s Comprehensive Plan to prioritize the preservation of open space (trees and green spaces) for our community’s “quality of life vision”, open space and parkland on the Island continue to be threatened by development and developers seeking new sites on which to build.
A recent example is the City Council’s intention to lease a portion of Mercerdale Park to a new arts organization for the development of a private facility. If the City Council continues encroachments like this – without considering the voice and vote of Mercer Island citizens – then our parkland and open space could be substantially reduced or eliminated altogether, forever. After this land is sold, leased, or developed it is gone. There is no getting it back.
Our parks are irreplaceable. They deserve your vote.
The purpose of the “Protect our Parks” initiative is to give all Mercer Island citizens a voice in the future disposition of cherished parkland and open space on Mercer Island. We believe that reducing the amount of open space, or substantially changing the use of it, should be done only if approved by the citizens of Mercer Island in a public vote!
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Click “Contribute Now” at the top of this page!
Your financial contribution will:
- Help our efforts to protect Mercer Island’s parks and open spaces.
- Help us raise awareness about the value and importance of protecting parks, open space, and natural landscapes on Mercer Island for generations to come.
- Help us place a “Protect our Parks” Initiative on the ballot for a City Ordinance to establish a "no net loss" policy that will ensure that no additional Mercer Island parkland is developed unless the City receives equivalent parkland in exchange.
- Support efforts to give the citizens of Mercer Island a voice and a public vote in the future disposition of cherished parkland and open space on the Island.
Print, sign, and mail this Petition to us! Please print and sign this Protect Our Parks Petition and mail it to: Protect Our Parks Initiative, P.O. Box 1337, Mercer Island, WA 98040. We need at least 3,000 signatures from registered Mercer Island voters to place this Initiative on the ballot. You can help make this happen by printing, signing, and returning this Petition to us, and please share this with your friends and ask them to sign it and mail it to us too! (All signed petitions should be mailed to: Protect Our Parks Initiative, P.O. Box 1337, Mercer Island, WA 98040)
We greatly appreciate your support!
Please share this page with your friends and encourage them to support our efforts. Our parklands and open spaces need your voice - Don’t let our cherished parks and open spaces go without a citizen vote!
Thank You.
