Bill to Sunset Community Councils Holds Big Stakes for Kirkland and Bellevue

Update – the Washington State Senate passed HB 1769 without any amendments, so the legislation will advance for Governor Jay Inslee’s signature. Read on to learn more about how the community councils have operated, and in particular, what it was like to be a fly-on-the-wall at what will likely be Houghton Community Council’s last — or next to last — meeting.

This week the Washington State Legislature will bring to the senate floor HB 1769, a bill to sunset the Houghton (Kirkland) and East Bellevue Community Councils. The community councils were instituted in the late 1960s after their jurisdictions were annexed into the cities of Kirkland and Bellevue. Since then the community councils have held veto power over land use planning within their designated areas, which has allowed them to wield influence over zoning.

It has also led to challenging and costly situations for the cities in which they are located, including when the East Bellevue Community Council blocked parking reforms in their jurisdiction, a move that ran afoul of state law and resulted in $40,000 in legal fees for the City of Bellevue. As it currently stands, it is unknown exactly when HB 1769 will go up for consideration, but the date will need to be sometime before Friday, March 4th.

HB 1769 passed the House on a 71-27 vote, with Rep. My-Linh Thai (D – 41st Legislative District, Bellevue) emerging as the only elected representative from the impacted area voting against the bill with remaining opposition came from Republicans residing in other areas of the state. However, some advocates for preserving the community councils have begun to paint the bill as a partisan issue in an effort to either defeat the bill or amend it so that sunsetting is not immediately put into effect. While the idea of pushing back the date of their dissolution might seem like a feasible compromise, it could actually have cascading consequences for major land use decisions in both Kirkland and Bellevue.

Support for HB 1769 from unexpected backers

Among those who live in the areas impacted by the community councils, support remains strong across the political divide. Earlier this year, the Kirkland City Council voted unanimously to support HB 1769. The bill was also endorsed by Jennifer Robertson, a conservative member of Bellevue’s City Council, and Bellevue Mayor Lynne Robinson, a moderate.

Recently Northwest University, a conservative Christian doctoral university located within the Houghton jurisdiction since 1959 has also publicly announced its support for sunsetting the community councils in a letter, which describes how the Houghton Community Council has served hamper the campus’s operations in many ways by using its veto power.

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