There is half the story and some inaccuracies in this Op-Ed (No on Parks, News-Tribune, Oct.22).

The installation of synthetic turf is conditioned on the completion of a study proving it is safe. If the study shows the turf is dangerous, language already in the levy and accompanying Council Resolution "prohibits" money from being spent on synthetic turf.

The Seattle Parks Department owns the building in Volunteer Park where the (museum) is located. Same with the Langston Hughes center. The boiler in for Seattle Asian Art Museum is so old Museum of History and Industry is interested in it as an exhibit. The money in the levy for Seattle Asian Art Museum will go to earthquake retrofit, bringing the building up to modern fire codes, and replacement of the ancient boiler. Air conditioning and another $12 million in "nice to have" improvements are expected to be handled by the tenants.

It is contradictory to argue that we shouldn't spend money on the city-owned Seattle Asian Art Museum building while bringing up Magnuson Park - where we've had to resort to the distasteful alternative of signing long-term leases to private entities precisely because the city does not have enough money to maintain the buildings.

Reasonable people can disagree with funding parks by levy. One thing I, as a member of the advisory committee that helped put the levy together, was glad to see was the addition to the accompanying resolution asking Parks and the Department of Finance to come up with an alternative way to fund parks after the expiration of this levy. I think this is perhaps the best feature of the levy, and it has received absolutely no press.

There was not undue influence of athletic field advocates on the advisory board. There were maybe five members of the 28. They were far outnumbered by green space and long-time park advocates. Besides, the rules stated a two-thirds majority was required to get anything done. There were over two dozen ballfield projects proposed for the levy and only four made the cut. The improvements to the two sand ballfields near Greenlake (across the street, southeast of the golf course) have been endorsed by the environmental group Friends of Greenlake (conditional on the safety studies) because they feel it will reduce particulate in the lake.

In sum...

This is a good levy that has over $100 million in great park improvements and acquisitions of open spaces and trails. Neither the process nor the levy are as cloak-and-dagger as Jim would have you believe.

Our city is growing, like it or not. This levy provides significant dollars to make sure both new and old residents have green space to help make the growth bearable.

We should pass it on Nov. 4 to make sure the city has the cash to make opportunistic acquisitions from overextended developers, allowing the money to go farther than we ever thought it would when we started working on a renewal almost 2 years ago. For $81 year or $7 month - both 30 percent discounts over the expiring ProParks levy - this is a sensible investment.

It has my vote, and I hope you'll join me.

David Miller

Seattle