Policy Council chats cross-Chamber collaboration, receives Wilburton update

At the Bellevue Chamber Policy Council’s July meeting, we were joined by Rachel Smith — President and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce — as we discussed how to further deepen the relationship between our chambers, specifically as it applies to regional issues like public safety, taxes, and affordable housing. 

Smith also discussed how the area (and Seattle, in particular) is facing a shift in voter attitude, with many people now more aligned with the business community than in recent years. 

“Our polling data in Seattle … People want to support businesses. They have generally positive views of business, and they trust the business community when it comes to talking about the importance of downtown Seattle recovering for the entire economic health of the region,” she said. “Seattleites in particular understand the relationship between the overall economic conditions and their personal economic situations — They get the ecosystem. They understand that people with good jobs can take care of their families and pay the taxes that allow the government to do the services, and then give back to their community.”

Smith also highlighted how Seattle also now has more elected officials that are aligned with the business community, “and that's a really important thing in changing the narrative.” 

“And, none of that happened by accident,” she said. 

On public safety, Smith acknowledged improvements in police recruitment and the implementation of license plate readers, but noted that Seattle still lacks enough officers to ensure desired public safety levels. She also mentioned the success of alternative response programs, like dual dispatch, but stressed that significant issues remain, before passing the conversation over to our President and CEO, Joe Fain. 

“I'm so thrilled that Rachel's in the position that she's in, because I love working with her,” he said. “Our organizations have had such a strong partnership ever since.”

The group then jumped into discussing the Wilburton Vision Implementation, as members of the Policy Council and other Chamber stakeholders put together a 17-page response letter to the current iteration of the re-design. Check out the letter here. 

“We've had, really, truly, dozens of meetings with the city since it's come out, [and] the reactions to it from stakeholders in the development community have kind of ranged between, ‘Hey, this is a first draft, we'll work through it, and it'll be okay,’ to ‘Oh, my God, the sky is falling,’” said Fain. “We're flushing through those details on the design standard front, and then trying to get the council members themselves to be clear about articulating what their priorities are, and I think that we're making some really good progress on that.”

“It's only Wilburton, but we know that this is creating a template for the rest of the city as the Comp Plan work continues. So, that's why we're taking it very seriously.”