A public hearing is scheduled for Monday, November 7th at 8:00 PM at Bellevue City Hall seeking input on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Bellevue and Sound Transit and dramatically increased taxes to pay for a downtown tunnel and Transit Oriented Development.

The MOU requires Bellevue to pay $160 million in cash, assets and services towards a tunnel for the downtown because Sound Transit is in financial difficulty. We already pay, and will pay millions more in sales tax dollars and vehicle licensing fees to Sound Transit! In addition, our City has tacitly committed to nearly $200 million in future debt and taxes for infrastructure support of light rail and transit oriented development (TOD) in the Bel-Red corridor.

The MOU authorizes a 30-foot wide light rail line swath on the east side of Bellevue Way in Mercer Slough Park and along the eastside of 112th Ave SE, in the shoreline. The track then crosses to the west side of 112th into the Surrey Downs neighborhood and Surrey Downs Park, taking nearly 60 homes in its route to Main Street. The hundreds of homes left in Enatai, Bellecrest, Bellefield Park, and Surrey Downs will be negatively affected by train noise, visual impacts, and pre-condemnation blight.

The Bellevue City Council majority (Davidson, Lee, Wallace, Robertson) has voted in favor of a freeway corridors alternative alignment that runs east alongside I-90 across Mercer Slough, north on the abandoned BNSF railroad and then along I-405 and into Downtown, (aka B7R/C9T). This alternative alignment avoids the extensive neighborhood and environmental impacts called for in the MOU, and would close the South Bellevue Park & Ride lot that would return 11.5 acres to Mercer Slough Park for park and wetland use.

Sound Transit refuses this alignment even though it benefits our environment, has far less impact on neighborhoods, is cheaper, has faster travel time and provides the same or better ridership. Reason — Sound Transit and its Board is driven by ideology that seeks increased residential densities along their rail lines. (http://www.betterbellevue.org)

A variation of this alternative alignment, B7R/C14E, provides an elevated downtown station adjacent to the freeway, which connects to the heart of the downtown via a covered moving sidewalk. This avoids the disruption and expense of the tunnel and saves taxpayers over $300 million. (http://crosscut.com/2010/03/02/eastside/19630/Why-Bellevue-s-Vision-Line-makes-some-sense/)

The MOU requires the City of Bellevue to relinquish and waive its environmental standards and laws, permitting authority, noise ordinances, legal remedies, and Comprehensive Plan Policies. This would not be required with the B7R/C14E alternative.

Our City of Bellevue staff has proposed raising our city’s debt ceiling to allow for more borrowing to finance the tunnel and the Bel-Red area development. In addition the revenue proposal includes raising the city property tax by 3% each year for nine years. By the ninth year your city property tax will be 31% higher. And our city’s ability to fund future parks, sidewalks, and other neighborhood improvements will be severely compromised for many years.

Loss of revenue to our downtown businesses, as a result of tunnel construction disruption, is estimated by Hebert Research to exceed $900 Million. 1 out of 3 businesses will lose more than 1/4 of their revenue, many will close permanently, and more than 2,700 downtown workers will lose their jobs. (http://www.FastForwardBellevue.com)

Urge our City Council to do the right thing — reject this MOU and demand that Sound Transit adopt B7R/C14E, – the regional transportation corridors routing that was promised when voters supported Eastlink in 2008.

YOUR PARTICIPATION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Your input is required on this MOU before it is finalized including thoughts on the freeway corridors alternative and on raising our property taxes to pay for the downtown tunnel. Please attend the hearing, write, or e-mail the Bellevue City Council with your comments for the record. Thoughtful comments and e-mails are effective. coun...@bellevuewa.gov

Please try to carpool as parking space is limited.

UNPRECEDENTED INTERFERENCE BY SEATTLE INTERESTS IN BELLEVUE POLITICS

The Seattle Times’ recent article ( http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016600157_bellevue25m.html ) regarding the political involvement of Wright/Runstad failed to address the real issue: the infusion of tens of thousands of dollars by Seattle-based special interest groups in our elections. Their goal is simple: elect candidates that support Transit Oriented Development City-wide, beginning with South Bellevue’s single-family neighborhoods.

What many Bellevue citizens are now coming to understand is that 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 Park.

Just think how Seattleites would protest if a similar rail line plan were proposed to run along the west side of Washington Arboretum, Seattle’s environmental jewel, 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 up-zoning in South Bellevue’s founding single family neighborhoods, as well as avoid the degradation of our City’s Mercer Slough Park natural environment.

Nevertheless, Sound Transit, also another outsider, completely refuses to seriously consider this offered alternative, and has, in fact actively gamed the analysis 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, Sue Comis (“Why Would We Ever Do That, We Can’t Do Any TOD Over There [on the B7 route]“) 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 we have already paid for with our sales taxes, and also likely having to pay to attempt, and most likely fail, to mitigate the unnecessary, unacceptable impacts of light rail in our Mercer Slough, and in our quiet neighborhoods.

Thank you for your attention. We would greatly appreciate your sharing this message with your friends and acquaintances across our City. We also thank you for your continued help in fighting this battle. Your donations, your continued attendance at these meetings, your letters to the City Council, and your help is most appreciated.

The Building A Better Bellevue Steering Committee

By now the direction of Sound Transit’s route placement actions in South Bellevue should certainly have become clear to everyone.
Every decision taken by Sound Transit, supported by some Bellevue political leaders, has been in the direction of moving the “B” segment portion of Eastlink ever more deeply into South Bellevue’s original founding residential neighborhoods – Enatai, Bellefield Park, Bellecrest and Surrey Downs.

Sound Transit’s B2M route plan already called for moving the train line well into Surrey Downs, along the west side of 112th Avenue, more than a year ago, in July 2010. With their presentation to our City Council two weeks ago Sound Transit signaled still further action in this direction by moving the train line further westward into Bellefield Park, as well as still more deeply into Surrey Downs.
Still more moves in this direction can be expected in the coming months, impacting still more neighborhoods – next are Bellecrest and Enatai – with still more homes taken, and many other direct impacts.

Why is Sound Transit doing this?

The only clear reason left — establishing the necessary near term economic and infrastructure impacts essential to accomplishing Transit-Oriented Development as the future of life everywhere in South Bellevue.

The Rationale Behind Transit-Oriented Development

Bellevue citizens need to understand Sound Transit policy leaders’ dedication to accomplishing Transit-Oriented-Development (TOD) wherever and whenever possible. The remainder of this note provides basic background on, and the evidence of Sound Transit’s commitment to this political objective. These facts have become known to BBB’s leaders through the personal disclosures of advocates for densification, public policy initiatives in our own City, and from TOD advocates’ own publications.

Leader and Staff Advocacy Disclosures

Here are just two examples of such disclosures:

“Why would we build the train line on the BNSF corridor? We can’t do any transit oriented development over there.” – Sound Transit’s B-Segment Project Manager to a group of Surrey Downs neighborhood residents – Spring, 2007

“It’s Not Easy Being Green: Challenges Along the Road to Compact Communities” – Grant Degginger’s Speech at his Lane Powell law firm’s 10/17/06 Client Seminar Titled: “How to Build a Larger Business and a Compact Community”; and: “Local governments will be looking favorably on developers who can implement low-impact developments“ – Builder News Magazine: July 1, 2008.

These statements and presentations are just a very small part of the very extensive statements and presentations that have been made by many other densification advocates who are also key staff and/or supporters of Sound Transit’s Transit-Oriented Development efforts within our region, as well as from our own city leaders and staff.

State Public Policy Initiatives In Support of Transit-Oriented Development

Two years ago, at the direction of FutureWise (http://futurewise.org/), the Transportation Choices Coalition (http://transportationchoices.org/), and other Seattle area activist groups’ immense pressures, our State Legislature almost adopted a far-reaching new state-wide Transit-Oriented Development law. This legislation would have established a mandate requiring every local government in our state to make changes in their zoning codes to mandate dramatic residential densification around transportation modal interchange facilities such as the Eastlink South Bellevue Park and Ride Station, and the Eastlink Main Street Station.

The legislative proposal called for population densities up to 25,000 persons within a quarter-mile radius of such facilities. Staff from our own City of Bellevue Planning Department appeared in Olympia at the time to offer their support of this legislation. Only when Bellevue citizens raised the alarm did our City Council, and staff from our City Manager’s office intercede, along with the Washington Association of Cities, making known the dismay of local communities about the proposed densification legislation.
The proposal was also advocated by Governor Gregiore and strongly backed by many Seattle politicians at the time.

The legislative proposal failed by one vote in the State House of Representatives in late Spring 2009. It would have subsequently easily passed in the State Senate one of our state legislative district leaders (Judy Clibborn) stated at the time.
Publications of Densification Advocates

A few months after the their TOD legislative proposal failed, FutureWise and the Transportation Choices Coalition published a monograph lamenting the failure of the State Legislature to adopt their residential neighborhood unfriendly densification proposal. Their monograph — “Transit Oriented Communities: A Blueprint for Washington State” (http://futurewise.org/resources/publications/TOC%20Blueprint%20Final%2011-23-09%20for%20Website.pdf/view?searchterm=a%20blueprint%20for%20washington%20state) — set out the following goal: “we must integrate land use, transportation and housing policies and regulations to maximize the access and choices for people living, working, and visiting high capacity transit station areas” — p. 48.

A senior level City of Bellevue City Planner, Dan Stroh, served as a technical advisor to the authors of this publication at the direction then City of Bellevue Planning Director, Matt Terry, along with the endorsement of Bellevue’s Mayor at the time, Grant Degginger.
Another strong advocate entity – The Seattle Transit Blog (http://seattletransitblog.com) — has also published an extensive trove of articles calling for the necessity of tying high-density housing to large light rail stations (do a search on the site for: “transit oriented development”, to find the related articles).

And, the Seattle Land Use Code Blog site published a major piece (http://seattleslandusecode.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/climb-every-mountain-ingredients-we-need-for-tod-in-washington/) recently setting out a comprehensive legislative and economic plan for forcing cities, developers, and property owners to implement high density housing around transit stations.

All of these organizations and blog site operators work very closely with Sound Transit in advocating for, and sponsoring Transit-Oriented Development projects around Sound Transit’s new Central Link stations, as well as in building political pressure points to move Sound Transit’s Transit-Oriented Development initiatives forward everywhere.

Moving the Train Line Still Further Into Bellevue’s Neighborhoods

Sound Transit completed a preliminary engineering plan almost two years ago that calls for placing Eastlink completely on the west side of Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue, all the way from Main Street to I-90. Surveying to set out the westward edge of this completely west side running alignment was completed at that time. The stakes associated with this survey are still present up the hillsides to the west of 112th Avenue and along south Bellevue Way. Detailed engineering maps showing this west side route placement have been viewed by an Enatai neighborhood resident, with this information recently having been shared with BBB.

Bellevue City Manager, Steve Sarkozy, has also known of this completely west side running plan for more than 14 months based on information received from another South Bellevue neighbor. Meetings have also taken place in the office of our City Manager in recent months with developers and other organizations that would benefit from City backing of Transit-Oriented Development initiatives in south Bellevue.

Tactics to Lower Property Values

With this westerly alignment movement evidence beginning to leak out, the impossibility of containing excessive train noise exposure far into adjacent communities becoming well known to local residents, and the anticipated destruction of the views of their nearby Mercer Slough natural environment being evermore well understood, owners of homes near 112th Avenue and Bellevue Way have begun making decisions to sell their property. The combination of these events is already leading to overall lower market values for homes all along these two South Bellevue Streets according to homeowners in these areas.

The lowering of property values, as residents become increasingly alarmed both of the negative environmental and lifestyle impacts of Eastlink, and the stoking of fears of further property value losses, are realities that play directly into the hands of Transit-Oriented Development advocates and their associated developer community members. Evidence is already gathering that these TOD advocate’s objectives are already being accomplished in South Bellevue’s communities.

BBB researchers have recently estimated that property value losses in the four South Bellevue communities adjacent to 112th Avenue and Bellevue Way likely already total many tens of millions of dollars.

When Will the “Next Shoe Drop”

It is likely only a matter of months before our City of Bellevue can expect to hear formally of Sound Transit’s next decision — to move the rest of the rail line to west side of Bellevue Way, and along the west side of the remaining south end portion of 112th Avenue – thereby completing a total west side running Eastlink rail line all the way from I-90 to Main Street. We know their plans are already done.

Now we need to be asking — why is this reality not being called out by our City.

Subject: Input from Affected Resident for Proposed B3 Route – Please Read
Today

Dear Sound Transit Council,

I am writing to you one more time to plead our case for not putting light rail down Bellevue Way, before your route through south Bellevue decision
during your upcoming meeting this Thursday the 28th. I am sure you are tired of this decision process taking so long and holding up the progress
of the design, building and usage of a better public transportation system in our region. You should know, however, that the neighbors along the
proposed routes into Bellevue and the Bellevue city council members are twice as tired of asking for the decision to be rethought again and again
until we can all get to a win-win solution.

You may see from my home address that I am a NIMBY. I, my husband and most of my neighbors who will be in sightline of the train or who have to
use Bellevue Way as their only access to and from their homes, would say that they literally do not want a train in the backyard. We are all
NIMBY’s. And in truth, we don’t want the train to be in anybody’s backyard, in this city or along any of the routes.

The neighborhood communities affected by these proposed routes voted for Sound Transit. We use the buses which do exist for the Eastside. We
carpool. And yes, we do use our individual cars, some of which are even gas efficient. We are not anti-environment or anti-public transit, as some
prominent conservation groups have interpreted our reactions to Sound Transit’s proposed routes through south Bellevue. We have more trees here
in Enatai than most of the surrounding developed areas. We care extremely that hundreds of them will be removed for the portion of light rail
proposed to be built down 112th Avenue (part of the B3 to the B2 route).

When we are asked to reduce our water consumption because of seasonal drought conditions, we comply and do more. When the public utility company asks residents to pay more for green energy sources, we do. And though we all have our individual passions, you will not see residents of Bellevue
out picketing or demonstrating for issues on our streets. This is our home and we like it to be peaceful and relaxing. We take care of our homes and yards and help out our neighbors.

We enjoy sharing community events like the Bellevue 4th of July and the upcoming annual Bellevue Arts Fair (my favorite usage of Bellevue Square), to which we invite all to come and participate, wherever they are from. And speaking of Bellevue Square, did you know that they are in the process of
putting in a whole row of charging stations in the garage, for electric cars? Not bad for a bunch of anti-environmentalists.

So, when you see us at all the community meetings over the past months and years, asking the same questions and giving you the same responses to the Sound Transit propositions, because we still don’t have satisfactory answers, you should know that this is our way of demonstrating. You see us spilling out of the city council chambers, meeting after meeting, trying to hear what is going on with light rail transport through Bellevue.

We write letter after letter to all the councils and groups who may be involved. We WANT good public transportation. We feel just as strongly and
passionately about the right answer for our neighborhood and our homes, as people do in Seattle or Tacoma or Everett. Residents live here for an average of 25 years, which is a sign of how much we like our local neighborhoods. We have a friendly, garden and tree-centric, people-oriented set of communities
along the B3/B2 proposed routes and do not understand why a train surrounding our neighborhoods, for some of us the only way out, is going to make our lives any better.

We do not think it will. What it will do is give us worse congestion and noise and more pollution and danger crossing the street. It will disconnect our
human communities and worsen the habitat for our wildlife in the slough.

ARUP Engineering was commissioned by the City of Bellevue to do an independent analysis of the East Link Light Rail B7/C9T to NE 2nd Portal
(B7 – Revised) Alternative and during the June 29th presentation to the Bellevue community, they had 2 points I would like to emphasize here.

The prevailing view of the usage of Bellevue Way and the reasoning that the firm got as a start to their analysis, was that the people of
Bellevue treasure their Bellevue Way access through Bellevue to I405. This is not correct. The people who do not live in these neighborhoods treasure their
access down Bellevue Way. The people who live in these neighborhoods treasure their communities without all the vehicles using 112th and
Bellevue Way.

But the firm’s presenter did get it right when he said, “We wouldn’t be so callous as to come before you with a design and say guess what, this is what you’re going to get.” He said they believed in engaging and getting input from the community to the plan and especially from those who would live closest to the proposed rail line and station. He said that the people who live there know best how they will be impacted and which mitigations
will work as implemented.

When he talked about valuing our input, I realized that we as the affected citizens had never been approached that way. I realized that what Sound Transit says and what it does, are two different things. They came in with their ideas and their proposals and said here is how it is going to work:

‘You may give us your input when we ask you to and we will answer as many questions as you have with what we know. But, we will determine the plan.
We will consider some mitigations to the plan. These are what they will be. I’m sorry you don’t like those mitigations. I’m sorry you don’t like the
original plan or the options. And now, we have listened to you long enough and we are going ahead with our choice.’

I realize that this is a simplistic synopsis of the actual process, but in a nutshell, that is our perception and our experience.

It appears that Sound Transit chose their preferred route a long time ago, before all the community input was gathered. All the design documents
that have been made public and the Environmental Impact Statements mailed out on the preferred routes only, have looked like the decision was done and
over. Any resistance displayed from anyone in Bellevue has been considered to be coming from a flawed perspective, such as being anti-transit oriented or
from a purely selfish attitude, and not in the interest of the public good.

We understand that this is not a life or death decision. If light rail goes down Bellevue Way, we will live with the frustration and hassle
during the building of it, and put up with the increased noise and ugliness of the train, or we will move away from our longtime neighborhoods, accepting
the lowered value of our properties. It will be a quiet giving in and giving up. But the fact will still remain: this was our neighborhood and in the
name of the greater public good, it was degraded, despite our best efforts to abide by the democratic process and let the decision makers, whose
cause and salaries we paid for, know what our lives were like here and what they would be like with the wrong decision. Railroaded at all levels.

Is this the legacy and outcome Sound Transit had intended? I would like to think not and if you are in agreement, please vote to NOT send light
rail down Bellevue Way. Truly, a better top down plan has been needed from the start and definitely a better community input process.

Please keep our hopes alive that enlightened discovery and civil discourse is still the best way to solve the world’s problems.

Thank you for reading this letter and your attention to our plight,

Anne Kroeker (and Richard Leeds in absentia, who has also written to
Sound Transit and Bellevue City Council several times before on the same subject and in the same vein)

“Subject: Preferred B7R Light Rail Proposal

Dear Sound Transit Board Administration:

I am a long-time resident of Bellevue. My home is located in the Bridle Trails subarea adjacent to SR 520. I am in complete agreement with the Bellevue City Council and the Build a Better Bellevue (BBB) organization regarding the selection of the B7R light rail alternative.

The B7R alternative sets the tone for all other segments of the East Link routes and our concerns regarding noise and environmental impacts, especially within the Bel-Red Corridor. The Bridle Trails communities are located North of the corridor and have a significantly elevated topography in relationship to the Corridor, sending all noise up the hill to the North and into our neighborhoods and large residential lots.

Although new windows and insulation may help to mitigate the noise inside our homes, my property will be nearly unusable for outdoor activities. General sound walls are not an effective noise mitigation feature in this topology, however, 8′ concrete sound walls built along the South perimeter of each private parcel may mitigate the noise level in the immediate outdoor space.

Additionally, this area gets significant Southern and Western sun exposure and it is necessary to have our windows open or we will also need to install air conditioning in addition to the new windows being offered by Sound Transit. It is unfortunate Sound Transit selected the less expensive, noisier trains when the noise mitigation measures may turn out to far exceed the cost of the quieter trains. Light Rail being touted as an “improvement” is in the eyes and ears of the beholder, not because Sound Transit says so.

Additionally, the Eastlink light rail plan has spawned WSDOT projects on SR 520 that have compounded the noise impacts to the adjacent residential neighborhoods by removing the substantial tree buffers along SR 520. Our communities have been predicting these negative impacts from the very beginning of the planning and now unfortunately, every concern we voiced is coming to fruition.

We prefer the B7R alternative because it is by far the most people and environment friendly of all alternatives and therefore, residents may actually embrace the light rail instead of moving away from the area. What a shame it would be to destroy these communities and never realize the ridership required to pay for this significant project.

I support the Bellevue City Council and their position to accept nothing less than the B7R Alternative and protect our neighborhoods. I am so thankful for the BBB organization and their successful efforts to expose the mis-representations of the costs and impacts of the less favorable East Link alternatives. It is time for Sound Transit to work with our Bellevue City Council and stop spending $$’s to fight the very people you are being paid to serve.

Respectfully,

Cindy Ludwig”

• B7R,
• A2 and
• Avoiding adverse impacts to the Winters House (the only property on the Eastside on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP),
• Avoiding congestion on Bellevue Way,
• Adhering to the City of Bellevue’s Noise Ordinance and city codes, and
• Supporting the South Bellevue Park and Ride (SBPR) being returned to park/wetland status:

To: Coun...@bellevuewa.gov
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 10:58:36 AM
Subject: B7Revised IS the BEST ROUTE SELECTION for BELLEVUE

Bellevue City Council Members,

After reading the final EIS provided to us by disk, the B7 Revised route is the best and least impact to South Bellevue neighborhoods, the Winters House, Mercer Slough. It is the only transportation route to I-90 from south Bellevue that will not bottle neck up the Bellevue Way route to I-90 and the 405 interchange. B7 is the best route for Bellevue.

The Arup report was encouraging to me that the A2 park and ride was a better solution to the parking, transportation flow, bus flow, and a more stable land area then the current Park and Ride area. On top of the A2 station a green park lid is a great idea and would lessen the impact on the area as well as provide a play space and park for the neighborhood.

Returning the existing South Bellevue Park and Ride to wetlands and park land that would be a net gain of 11 green space of additional park land to open space. A win for the City of Bellevue and the Mercer Slough environment, wet land function that will help fish and wild life at Mercer Slough.

The B2M route will destroy our trees and peace of mind and beauty of that area. Sound Transit needs to put the route next to the existing 405/BNSF that is already set aside for this purpose.

As Mayor Davidson expressed in his presentation to Sound Transit Board, we “expect excellency” in all areas of route selection for the Sound Transit transportation project. The B7 Revised route is the best way to come to Bellevue. The additional win is that the B7 route will provide hotel guests and employees with light rail transportation at their front door to move around the area. Another win for the City of Bellevue by providing easy transportation option for hotel visitors, they do not have to rent a car.

The Building a Better Bellevue organization has helped expand the conversation and helped with visioning how the B7R route can work. The Sound Transit costs to doing mitigation on Bellevue Way and 112th is not revealed and so we have no way of knowing how much money will be spent on mitigation to use the B2M route and if that is a less costly route.

If Sound Transit can not abide by the councils route selection of B7 Revised, maybe Federal Way should get the ST system built before Bellevue. This will allow more time to further plans for the B7.

We support the B7 Revised route or for the City of Bellevue to do what we must do to defend City Codes and planning principles, Transportation Best Practices study findings and what is right for the City of Bellevue.

Respectfully submitted to you by,

Erin Powell Dilloo and George Dilloo

The results?

20% of the ENA respondents prefer B2M

80% of the ENA respondents prefer B7R

Also, here’s another sample of the messages we have received from an Enatai neighbor to the Bellevue City Council (with permission):

“Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 9:53 PM
Subject: Study Session on Sound Transit’s Preferred Light Rail Route through Bellevue – Monday July 18th

Dear Council Members,

I am a longtime Enatai resident and have been part of this discussion regarding light rail in Bellevue since it started. I have talked with all of you at some point or another on this and other subjects. I was at the study session tonight and I just wanted to express my appreciation for your detailed and illuminating questions of the Sound Transit presenters, as we in the audience got so much more out of the answers than we did out of the presentation. I also wanted to say thank you for asking for more time for the Bellevue Council to study the data, as I really believe that Sound Transit is pushing their agenda and not responding to ours. While this characterization may not be entirely fair to their board, it is what we are presented with.

I believe that the dollars we as taxpayers have and are putting into Sound Transit (and Metro for that matter) on the Eastside, are not being well-spent, if spent on us at all. That value loss is painful, especially if it comes at the cost of continuing to be not served well by the public transit availability.

If you build it, they will come, and if you don’t build it, they won’t come. But, if you build it badly, they still won’t come!

Thank you for your hard efforts in attempting to make this transportation system built right for our city.

Sincerely,
Anne Kroeker

Please Attend Tonight’s City Council Meeting Where Sound Transit’s Mitigation Options Will Be Aired, at 6:00 PM

Dear Building A Better Bellevue Supporters:

This evening, beginning at 6 PM, our City Council will hear about Sound Transit’s ideas for mitigating the dire impacts of their Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue light rail line route preference, as well as for the downtown rail line placement.

Massive pressures are being applied to our City Council members to accept Sound Transit’s proposals immediately.

Our City Council needs to know that citizens have major concerns about the noise, vibration, visual blight and other effects on our neighborhoods and on our Mercer Slough natural environment.

A large turn out will help demonstrate what your many letters and other messages of recent days also shown, namely, that a huge majority of citizens in the Enatai, Bellefield Park, Bellecrest and Surrey Downs communities support our City’s B7 rail line preference. You should also know, as our City leaders are also hearing, that other Bellevue communities are also weighing-in, in support of our directly impacted neighborhoods’ concerns, as they will also be attending this evening’s Council session.

Your presence will also send a clear message that there can be no wavering in dealing with an agency that does not conduct its own actions in “good faith”. The presentation below sets out the standard by which our City leaders should be approaching these discussions.

We hope to see you at City Hall this evening at 6:00 PM.

Best Regards,

The Building A Better Bellevue Steering Committee

How Does Our City Negotiate With An Agency That Manipulates the Truth, Has Little Regard for Our Residential Communities, and Takes Purposeful Actions to Frustrate Our City’s Rail Line Preferences

On July 6, at the behest of Sound Transit, the Seattle Times carried this banner headline: “Talks Aim to End Feud Over Bellevue Light-Rail Route”

Was this headline true? Not even close.

The truth was well-stated at the July 11th Bellevue City Council meeting, during which our City Council Members made clear statements about the reality of the situation.

Our City leaders clarified that they had opened new discussions with Sound Transit for the purpose of gaining an understanding of Sound Transit’s options for mitigating the dire environmental and transportation impacts of Sound Transit’s light rail line preferences throughout Bellevue. Meanwhile, our Council Members reiterated their unwavering preference for the B7R route, which runs along the existing transportation corridors of I-90 and I-405.

Keeping in mind that Sound Transit was fined by our State’s Public Disclosure Commission on May 27, 2011 for engaging in public lobbying activities which they failed to report to the PDC [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015165051_apwapubliclyfundedlobbying.html], how should our City leaders negotiate with an agency that so willingly manipulates reality, “creates” facts, and promotes its own version of the truth solely to manipulate political contingencies?

Earlier, at their May 26th Board meeting, members of the Sound Transit Board had ridiculed the City of Bellevue City, in an orchestrated charade, claiming that they would never provide additional funds to implement our City’s requested downtown light rail tunnel as they poked fun at the “finding” that our City’s own ARUP study of the B7R (along I-405) rail line route supposedly showed the B7R route to be $140 Million more expensive than Sound Transit’s preferred B2M/C9T route.

Sound Transit’s continued (mis)use of this manipulated number was ballyhooed by them even before our City had finalized its report of the ARUP study. Sound Transit refuses to acknowledge that the B7R route could be built for more than $100 Million less than B2M, if the opportunities identified by ARUP for economies in building the B7R route were implemented. Sound Transit’s leaders, at this meeting, also refused to acknowledge that their own studies showed that the C14E downtown route alternative (station adjacent to I-405 in downtown Bellevue) would save even more costs, compared to a downtown tunnel, thereby make the B7 route even more feasible.

Unfortunately, these actions by Sound Transit’s leaders are only the latest example of their actions to create a different reality for the purpose of their political goals.

What’s behind Sound Transit’s nearly blind insistence on the B2M alignment?– Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).

Consider this: Who will be served by the proposed stations at Surrey Downs Park or 112th Avenue / Main Street, which have no associated park-and-ride facilities and are adjacent to low-density neighborhoods, the freeway and a limited number of low-to-mid-rise commercial areas? At present almost no one.

The sole purpose for running light rail up Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue is to create a blight on our neighborhoods so that those who cannot sell will seek to rezone their properties in order to get any return on their investments.

If the B7R route is not adopted, this same strategy will also be used to convert Lake Hills and other established neighborhoods into high-density housing, when light rail is inevitably forced down 148th Street to connect to Bellevue College, Eastgate and the I-90 corridor.

So, fast-forward to today. Here is what we find:

The Bellevue City Council minority (Council Members Balducci, Chelminiak and Degginger) continues to insist that Sound Transit must not be hobbled with the obligation of abiding with Bellevue’s land use codes, noise ordinances, environmental protection requirements, and neighborhood character preservation standards or concurrency requirements.

Yes, the very same people that call for “exceptional” mitigation refuse to even sign a letter to Sound Transit that demands that Sound Transit comply with the City’s minimum standards in its noise ordinance and traffic congestion regulations. This will ensure that the blight occurs, which will lead to a desperate plea for a rezone.

In light of all of this, Bellevue citizens, as well as our City leaders, are left to ask: “How does our City negotiate with a public agency that willfully manipulates facts,and purposefully introduces rail system design requirements to make technical feasibility costly, and promotes statements about our City’s research, findings and actions that are widely known to be fallacious? How does our City work in good faith with an agency that has a decided bias against Bellevue’s single –family, park-like neighborhood character? How does our city dialog with an agency that has no interest in seriously pursuing the least-community-damaging alternative given the numerous roadblocks it throws in the way of pursuing that objective?”

We are also left to ask: “How is it that present Council Members can be trusted to negotiate ‘exceptional mitigation,‘ when they have refused to even require Sound Transit to do the bare minimum to address traffic and noise impacts-the two greatest and most widely voiced concerns of Bellevue’s citizens?”

The answer is simple, as made clear by the majority of our City Council Members: “We will negotiate in good faith, but we will leave all options on the table, including litigation, to ensure that the City’s B7R alignment preference is respected and that all impacts are ‘exceptionally mitigated’.”

Here is an email from a Bellecrest neighbor to the Bellevue City Council:

“Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 9:28 PM
To: coun...@bellevuewa.gov
Cc: boar...@soundtransit.org
Subject: Sound Transit Rail Alignment

As residents of Bellevue, we urge you to support the B7R route for light rail rather than the B2M alignment preferred by Sound Transit for the reasons cited to you by Building a Better Bellevue. Sound Transit has not demonstrated that it will be able to provide noise mitigation for the many Bellevue residents affected by its proposed alignment.

We understand that the net takings that would occur with the B2M route would exceed ten acres (more than ten times the impact of the B7R route). Sound Transit has also failed to take into consideration many of the costs of its preferred route that would be saved by choosing the B7R route, and it has failed to take into consideration a benefit of the B7R route that includes an opportunity to revert use of the South Bellevue Park and Ride to the Mercer Slough.

We understand that the City of Bellevue has historically followed a policy that prevented light rail on Bellevue Way/112th and protected the citizens of its neighborhoods, and we urge the City to continue to follow this policy. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Colleen Broaddus”

I just want to go on record as a long time Bellevue resident who takes great pride in our city and its reasonably quiet way of life. We are residents of South Bellevue (Enatai) and are very dismayed at the prospect of losing some of the best parts of our city. From I-90, we are welcomed to our city by the beautiful landscaping – mature trees and dense foliage. The route along 112 has matured over the past few years into a park-like drive into the heart of our city. We cannot allow trains to plow through all this beautiful area destroying not only our landscape but our way of life. The trade-off is not worth it.

There is no guarantee that we won’t end up with screeching trains and rails just like they now have in south Seattle. There are many people who will be impacted by this. This is small potatoes compared with the blight of train tracks and stations plopped down on Bellevue Way and on 112th. It is just not acceptable.

Jean Davidson

BBB receives copies of emails regularly from Bellevue citizens to the Bellevue City Council and Sound Transit re: Sound Transit’s proposed Eastlink alignments. The following email comes from an Enatai citizen that would prefer to remain anonymous:

July 12, 2011

To: coun...@bellevuewa.gov
Subject: Last night’s council meeting

Dear Council Members:

I strongly support and echo the words of Renay Bennett, who spoke eloquently last evening at the council meeting on issues facing us with light rail in Bellevue. The political posturing and lack of integrity in the work being done by Sound Transit to push their agenda is both disheartening and despicable. For all the times we’ve heard them talk about this being such an important investment in our long-term future, they continue to show that their decision-making process is based on short-term factors and political expediency.

Thanks to the council members who are proceeding with the city’s and region’s best interests in mind, rather than following an agenda to create a transportation model that doesn’t fit our city. The B7 route has better long-term connectivity for future rail expansion, while also preserving the sanctity and natural beauty of our great city.

Current and past city council members have been instrumental in maintaining this beauty while managing an impressive amount of urban growth. Bellevue has become a spectacular destination and yet is still entirely peaceful and livable as it was when I was a child. Thanks for all the work that has been done in this regard, and let’s not throw it all away under pressure from the primarily non-Bellevue-resident urbanites who have a totally different agenda in mind.

Since Sound Transit clearly can’t fix their numerous existing/ongoing problems in Seattle’s minimal light rail system, and can’t even continue to run their development operation successfully due to dramatically failed estimates, why are we even giving their Eastlink estimates serious credence?

If the revised B7 route is economically similar in cost and ridership, why is Sound Transit continuing to push against it? If transit development is truly their goal, why don’t they support whichever route we prefer, given the comparable cost/ridership as well as better future expansion potential of B7?

Thanks again to those of you who believe in doing the right thing. The vast majority of our city supports you and appreciates what you’re doing, especially given the stress and pressure you’re being forced to withstand. Keep it up!