Council Roundup: New strategic target areas approved

Published April 19 2024

Plus, Keep Bellevue Beautiful and Environmental Stewardship updates

The City Council Tuesday unanimously approved new strategic target areas and council policy priorities. Together, the target areas and priorities will guide staff in implementing the council's vision and align the work of the organization, specifically in the development of the city's 2025-26 budget.

The target areas reflect increasing emphasis on community safety, equity, environmental stewardship, resiliency and partnerships. The updated target areas, each of which includes supporting objectives, are:

• high-performance government
• vibrant economy
• safe and efficient transportation system
• high-quality built and natural environment
• community safety and health
• thriving people and communities

Many of the priorities for 2021-23 have been completed or are incorporated into city work plans. In addition to continuing work on customer service technologies, the Diversity Advantage plan, Eastrail and the city's brand identity, seven new priorities were added for 2024-26 that focus on community engagement, transportation, Old Bellevue, housing, homelessness, human services and arts.

Details are available in the agenda materials and at Council Vision.

Keep Bellevue Beautiful update

Since the Keep Bellevue Beautiful program launched in August 2023, more than 300 volunteers have participated in cleanup events, collecting over 200 bags of litter from city rights of way.

This summer the program will further community engagement through Adopt-A-Street, which will provide opportunities for neighborhoods, community groups, individuals and businesses to contribute to the cleanliness of city streets. Groups will be able to conveniently adopt streets through a web-based mapping platform. Adopting sponsors will commit to a minimum of four clean-up events per year, and the city and sponsors will determine locations together. Republic Services has agreed to pick up Adopt-A-Street bags from residences during their regular weekly pick up at no additional charge.

Also as part of Keep Bellevue Beautiful, the city and retailers are collaborating to keep shopping carts where they belong and collect strays from public rights of way.

Future clean-up events can be found at BellevueWA.gov/keepbellevuebeautiful. Details about Tuesday's update are available in the agenda materials.

Environmental Stewardship update

In a quarterly report regarding the city's long-standing Environmental Stewardship program, staff reported that many initiatives launched within the last couple of years, including Energy Smart Eastside and the Clean Buildings Incentive Program, will continue and even expand this year.

Bellevue's 2022 greenhouse gas inventory found that communitywide emissions were down 8% from the baseline year of 2011, despite population growth of 21% and a 13% increase in jobs.

The Electric Vehicle Roadmap plan will be completed in the summer, helping the city prepare for potential federal and state EV charging infrastructure grants. Later this year, work on an update of the 2021-2025 Sustainable Bellevue Plan will begin.

Details about the Environmental Stewardship report are available in the agenda materials.

Proclamations for Earth Day and Distracted Driving Awareness

The council issued a proclamationcelebrating Earth Day, which will occur this year on Monday, April 22. The council also issued a proclamationfor Distracted Driving Awareness Month.