In this time of significant political change, let’s think back over the last three years and focus on some of the positive changes we have seen since my election to the Bellevue City Council in 2013:

Environment:

• As the city’s representative, I encouraged Bellevue to join the King County Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C)
• As a member of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance, I lobbied for reinforced tank cars to house flammable fuel shipped through our Washington cities
• We put “climate change” and “carbon footprint” into our comp plan language and created guidelines to limit harmful emissions.
• We implemented the Environmental Stewardship Initiative and, in partnership with CH2M, Bellevue was selected by the White House to develop the Smart Cities program
• We have set actual tree canopy goals
• I pushed to implement Smart Building codes for future Living Building development in Bellevue
• We are one of 5 top competitors in the Georgetown National Energy competition
• We have seen a significant decrease in residential and commercial energy use in Bellevue
• We have run two successful solar panel programs, exceeding our goal of household installations
• We finally completed the Shoreline Master Program and submitted it to the State Ecology Department

Elected Officials from King County and many cities gather after the June 2014 K4C Elected Official SummitEconomic Development:

• With my startup economic development plan, we created a city owned incubator run by Impact Hub that offers low rent office space to our local startups
• We have seen two more incubators come into Bellevue, and are expecting WeWorks next year.
• We have hosted multiple startup events and recently hosted an Immerse Technology Summit that attracted international participants
• We currently have over 10,000 new businesses in Bellevue and expect to more than double that by 2019
• In partnership with Coding Dojo, I applied for the TechHire designation from the White House which allows us to apply for federal funding for coding education to enable local tech employees to be hired locally
• Since 2013, we have attracted large companies such as Alibaba, Amazon, Bit Titan, Huawei, ICBC, Inspur, OfferUp, Red Arrow Logistics, REI, Salesforce, Siemens, WeWork and We Communications, and we continue to attract more

Transportation:

• We signed the MOU to begin light rail construction for ST2 and saw the passage of ST3.
• We are converting the East Rail Corridor to a ped/bike path that will stretch from Kirkland to Renton by 2020.
• We are working on the Bicycle Rapid Implementation Plan that will see the creation of safe bike routes throughout Bellevue, and are working on ways to make our city more walkable
• Vision Zero was adopted last year in an effort to eliminate pedestrian and bike fatalities in our city
• We are using data analytics at traffic cam intersections to detect and prevent dangerous activity between pedestrians, bikes and cars. We won an award from the federal department of transportation for this innovative project
• We passed the Transportation Levy that will bring $120M over the next 20 years for neighborhood safety and congestion projects, and we continue to work on completing Lake Samammish Parkway and the Newport Way sidewalks.
• We are on schedule with our local road projects and will soon be introducing new streets into the BelRed corridor, like Spring Blvd and Ichigo Way.
• We saw the completion of the NE 12th overpass, and the NE 4th expansion

Quality of Life:

• Our schools continue to rank in the top of the nation
• Public safety has improved and we brought back our bike patrol
• We have new fire and police chiefs
• We passed a fire levy to improve response times and to make our fire stations seismically safe
• Park acreage has increased with new acquisitions in Bridle Trails and Newport Hills
• And by the end of summer 2017, we will finally see the completion of the Downtown Park
• This summer we will begin phase I of the Meydenbauer Bay Park plan
• We are also looking at designs for the Grand Connection that is planned to span from the ERC at 6th, through downtown, to the waters of Meydenbauer Bay
• The Bellevue Boys and Girls Club has opened two new gyms with programming for children and adults

Human Services:

• As the Human Services liaison, I increased our human services budget, with an emphasis on early childhood support and stable housing
• We have relocated the temporary men’s winter shelter and are in the process of working with the county to site a permanent men’s shelter with services, and transitional and permanent housing in collaboration with Congregations for the Homeless
• I encouraged the City to sponsor a community conversation with our Muslim neighbors
• Bellevue continues to welcome the world, our diversity is our strength

Housing:

• This year, we partnered with the county and the state to preserve 76 units of affordable housing at Highland Village, which houses 65 Bellevue School District students and their families
• Our mayor appointed a Technical Advisory Group to create a Strategic Action Plan for affordable housing that specifically addresses the needs of our Bellevue residents. This action plan has a goal of creating 250 affordable units/year
• Late last year, we passed a MFTE (multi-family property tax exemption) for Eastgate, Crossroads, BelRed, Downtown and Eastgate to encourage development of affordable housing alongside market rate multifamily units

Education:

• The Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), in partnership with the UW, Tsinghua University and Microsoft, recently broke ground in Bellevue’s Spring District
• Bellevue College is expanding and creating housing for its many students as it increases its 4 year programs
• A new elementary school will be built in Wilburton to accommodate the increasing families residing in downtown Bellevue
• Coding Dojo is partnering with Bellevue College to offer coding classes to underserved communities

I hope that you will support my re-election to the Bellevue City Council in 2017. A donation today will allow me to begin a strong campaign early. I want to continue my efforts to make Bellevue a great place to live, work, learn and play, for all our residents.