With ballots for the November general election set to go out in just two weeks, local voters will soon be tasked with selecting elected officials that best reflect their priorities and values. In Bellevue, four of seven positions on the city council will be up for grabs, with progressive incumbents Janice Zahn and John Stokes playing defense against conservative challengers Betsi Hummer and Paul Clark, respectively.
However, next year’s council will see new faces regardless of the results on November 7th. With Councilmembers Jennifer Robertson and Jeremy Barksdale each choosing not to run for another term, easy electoral lanes have opened for David Hamilton and Mo Malakoutian, as neither face a serious challenger in their races. For full transparency, The Urbanist‘s election committee has endorsed Janice Zahn and Mo Malakoutian for their respective positions.
Although there are certainly a whirlwind of things to come between now and election day on Tuesday, November 7th, the three head-to-head events that will likely have the largest reach for Bellevue voters are now in the books. First up was an environmental forum hosted by People for Climate Action and 10 other organizations interested in hearing candidates’ perspectives on climate change, growth, and tree canopy. Later in the week, candidates for Positions 1 and 5 squared off in the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce debate, with topics ranging from affordable housing and homelessness, to public safety. Finally, all candidates had the opportunity to talk about policies affecting Downtown livability at a breakfast forum with the Bellevue Downtown Association (BDA).
None of the events saw any major dustups or particularly intense gaffes, but they did each help cement clear distinctions between candidates running to lead the state’s fifth largest city (after Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver).
For example, Bellevue will need to take significant action to meet its Environmental Stewardship Initiative goal of 50% emissions reductions by 2030 and 80% by 2050. While Stokes and Zahn pointed to their support for increasing the city’s climate staff from two to nine positions to help meet these targets, their challengers, Clark and Hummer, both expressed a desire to reassess Bellevue’s emission reduction goals.
