Letter to the Editor: Watch for Outside Influence in Bellevue Elections

This letter is to help Bellevue's citizens understand the unprecedented interference by Seattle-based special interest groups and developers in our City of Bellevue's electoral process. Their goal: to fundamentally change our City's governance.

The Seattle Times' recent article regarding the political involvement of Wright/Runstad, while being informative, has failed to address the real issue: the infusion of many tens of thousands of dollars by Seattle-based special interest groups in our election process. Their goal is simple: elect candidates that support Transit Oriented Development City-wide, including in South Bellevue's single-family neighborhoods.

What many Bellevue citizens are now coming to understand is that the specific elements of Transit Oriented Development efforts being pursued by these "out of towners," and by Sound Transit will:

• cost all of Bellevue's taxpayers multiple hundreds of $millions of added property taxes for which we will receive little direct benefit; 
• add to the tax costs already being paid to accomplish the downtown tunnel primarily for the benefit of the same out of town developers; and 
• fundamentally and forever change the character of South Bellevue's neighborhoods, and of our City's single most significant environmental jewel - Mercer Slough.

Just think how Seattalites would howl if a similar rail line plan were proposed to run along the west side of Washington Arboretum, which is the analogous environmental jewel in Seattle, with its own unique and wonderful single-family homes across the street.

The City of Bellevue, and its citizens, have offered, with well-founded research, an alternative for Sound Transit in South Bellevue that would completely avoid the catastrophe of neighborhood density transformation in South Bellevue's founding single family neighborhoods, and the degradation of our City's Mercer Slough natural environmental jewel.  

Nevertheless, Sound Transit, also another outsider, completely refuses to seriously consider this offered alternative, and has, in fact actively worked to defeat its further consideration. Their justification — as was spoken so clearly and directly to representatives of South Bellevue neighborhoods by Sound Transit's own South Bellevue Project Director ("Why Would We Ever Do That, We Can't Do Any TOD Over There [on the B7 route]"), Sue Comis, four years ago--is just one more piece of the evidence as to why Sound Transit, and its advisors are also now seeking to overturn the political interests of our Bellevue citizens.

The real battle here is over the issue of whether Bellevue taxpayers should subsidize Wright/Runstad's Transit Oriented Development project, in addition to paying for a tunnel and likely having to pay to mitigate the unnecessary, unacceptable impacts of light rail in the Mercer Slough and our quite neighborhoods.

Thank you for your attention.

The Building A Better Bellevue Steering Committee   

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