Lynne Robinson

1. What area of Bellevue should the city focus more on and why?

The city focuses a lot on the downtown, and rightfully so. When our downtown does well, our neighborhoods do well with the increased revenues going to our parks, human services, and community. But we need to focus more on our neighborhoods and make sure that we protect this as one of our greatest assets. We need to prevent inappropriate permitting, and rezoning that destroys the character of where we live. We need to find ways to renew crumbling infrastructure, and we need to reinstate the funding for our neighborhood improvement projects.

2. What social services do you think are lacking in the city and how would you work to bring them here?

The city has done an impressive job of funding human services in Bellevue. In fact, during the recession the council voted to increase the funding for economic impact issues such as the food bank and Hopelink’s employment support program that helped return people to their jobs. The council’s work with the Human Services Commission is something to be emulated in other cities, and is something we must continue to support.

3) How has your involvement with the city prepared you to serve on the city council?

As a parks commissioner and member of the Bellevue Network on Aging for the last eight years, I have had the privilege of attending the city’s public forums, focus groups, steering committees, master planning sessions and open houses. This has provided me with the opportunity to hear the details on all the city’s projects. But more importantly, I have had the opportunity to hear from the community. I have worked productively with city staff, the council and community for over seven years, and as Claudia Balducci stated: “Lynne Robinson could walk in on the first day and be ready to do the job.”