2007 Election Podcast Series: Keri Andrews on building a better Bellevue

This evening the Northwest Progressive Institute is pleased to announce a new multimedia project intended to serve as a November ballot resource for activists and voters. Over the next several weeks, the 2007 Election Podcast Series will examine key races and measures throughout Puget Sound and Washington State, featuring interviews with candidates, conversations with observers and citizens, roundtable discussions, and possibly even debates.



Audio will be distributed through our podcast, with transcriptions of each episode posted here on the Official Blog for those who would rather read than listen.

To subscribe to our podcast, plug our multimedia feed into your favorite aggregator - or click the below button to do so if you are an iTunes user.



Our first episode in the series, and seventeenth episode overall, is an interview with Keri Andrews, a wonderful progressive who is running for Bellevue City Council this fall. Click the "Listen" link to hear the episode in your browser, or read the transcribed episode below.

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Keri Andrews on building a better Bellevue

RICK HEGDAHL: Hello and welcome to the Northwest Progressive Institute's first podcast for September 2007, the first of a special series of Election podcasts focusing on the November ballot.

My name is Rick Hegdahl, I'm Events Coordinator for NPI, and I'm pleased to be your host for this episode. To reach us with your comments and suggestions, send a message to feedback (at) nwprogressive (dot) org. I will give you that information again at the end of this podcast.

I’m here with Keri Andrews, who is running for Bellevue City Council. Welcome, Keri.

KERI ANDREWS: It’s good to be here.

RICK: So what prompted you to run for Bellevue City Council?

KERI: Well, I grew up here in Bellevue, and I am a small business owner here. I have a web development company and have been active in my community. I’m volunteering for the Children’s Response Center. We provide services for kids who have been sexually abused here in Bellevue. So, I’m very concerned about our community and I want to make sure as we’re growing that it’s going to be growing in a positive direction.

Most people don’t realize that the Bellevue City Council is dominated by Republicans. We don’t have a single member of the Bellevue City Council who identifies themselves as a Democrat.

RICK: Hm. A progressive, or . . .

KERI: Well, there are some who might consider themselves to be progressive—

RICK: Or say “progressive” when it’s convenient for them?

KERI: Right. There are different levels of conservative versus progressive, but none of them actually identify - go as far as identifying themselves - as a Democrat. We have one, Claudia Valducci, who identifies herself as “independent,” and I think that she does vote pretty progressively. However, we don’t have anybody who is truly a Democrat, and I think that that’s really not representative of our city that is much more diverse than that and really becoming more of a blue city.

I would like to add a different voice to the City Council and be able to represent Bellevue as a progressive voice.

RICK: How long have you lived in Bellevue?

KERI: I grew up in Bellevue. I went to Interlake High School, and for a few years I went to Sherwood Forest Elementary, which is now —

RICK: In my neighborhood —

KERI: — a big pile of dirt. [Laughs.] They’re rebuilding that.

RICK: I was amazed. I drove by there and it was gone.

KERI: Right. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, this is my neighborhood, and I want to make sure that as we’re growing that that’s taken care of. I’ve seen where Bellevue has been, and I want to make sure that where it’s going is going to be positive for everyone.

RICK: If elected, what will your top three priorities be?

KERI: Well the first thing that I would do is make sure that we get back on track with public safety. That is a really big pressing issue. I think that needs to be our top priority over other things. It concerns me when, in our city’s budget, we’re prioritizing other things over public safety.

Other things... that are more aesthetic, that help to make Bellevue pretty, but not make it run well on the inside. And, I think it’s important to make Bellevue an attractive place to live, but not at the expense of the safety of the people of Bellevue. So that would be my top priority.

I also want to make sure that we’re protecting our environment as we are growing as a city. Our impact on the environment is also growing right now. I want to make sure that that’s taken care of.

For instance, my opponent voted to reject the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement a few months ago, which is an agreement between many cities across the country — over 500 cities across the country — that are basically coming together and saying that yes, we are agreeing to do something to address global climate change. I think it’s very important for all cities, all governments to work together on this issue because nobody can do it just all by themselves. We have to work together.

If everyone believes that it’s not their own problem, it’s going to become everybody’s problem. So I think that that’s very important in making decisions as we’re moving forward when it comes to parks, when it comes to development, when it comes to transportation, to keep these things in mind—to keep in mind the impact on the environment. So that would be another priority of mine.

And along with that, I want to make sure that our neighborhoods are taken care of, and that we become more pedestrian-friendly as a city. I would like to see our city growing in a way that can accommodate for the needs of everybody who lives here, not just the people who are the super-rich.

It is a very diverse city. We have a broad array of different types of people who are living here from different backgrounds, different needs.

I want to make sure that we can accommodate for everybody, and that includes transportation, providing multiple different ways of getting around the city so that it’s not just driving. Because, as we’re seeing, people are moving here faster than we can build roads to accommodate for them.

I’m not saying that we need to completely abandon roads. I’m saying that we need to provide multiple options in order to get around. So, increasing bus service, increasing bike lanes, and sidewalks—it’s all part of being able to get around the city in the long term.

And our neighborhoods, as I mentioned before, I really want to make sure that our neighborhoods are not just being redeveloped into this plastic world —

RICK: Keep the character of the neighborhoods?

KERI: Exactly.

RICK: Yeah, there’s...even in my neighborhood, in East Bellevue, there’s more houses being torn down and rebuilt...which is good. It increases property values —

KERI: Sure.

RICK: But it also can push people out of the neighborhood because property values become so high, especially senior citizens who are, you know, having to pay higher property taxes because of that.

KERI: Well, and beyond just the character of the neighborhood, when there’s a big house that goes in next door and it is all the way up to the property line, and they’re getting around regulations for the height limit and setbacks, and these houses are blocking out the sunlight for the houses next door, killing their yards. That is imposing upon the —

RICK: The quality of life.

KERI: The quality of life of the person living next door. So it’s not even just a matter of wanting to keep the character of the neighborhoods, but just wanting to make sure that new houses that are going in aren’t taking away from the quality of life of the people who are already living there.

I think there are a lot of people who are concerned about the way that Bellevue is going. They’re excited, people are excited to see some of the changes until it affects them in their backyard.

RICK: Yeah, there’s an incredible amount of growth in downtown Bellevue which, you know, I read recently — I believe it was one of the local papers — that said that there’s more downtown growth than even during the dot com boom. I mean, just driving down Northeast 8th Street, hanging in downtown Bellevue, I counted fourteen construction cranes within a one square mile area.

KERI: And consider this. You know, I had mentioned the public safety issue. Just having finished just a matter of a couple of the high rises so far, the number of calls that the fire department has had to respond to in the downtown area alone has increased dramatically over the past twelve months.

Now, when you consider the new high rises that are going to go in that are being built right now, when those are completed, the number of calls are just going to jump through the roof.

And that affects Bellevue citywide, because when fire stations (which at this point, fire stations only have three firefighters per station). So, when —

RICK: On call? At any one time?

KERI: Yes. Yes. So if a fire station is responding to a call, that entire station [in] that entire little area is unavailable to respond to another call. So if the fire station that is closest to downtown Bellevue is responding to a call in downtown Bellevue, and then there’s another call also in downtown Bellevue, then they’re taking resources from other stations.

The station up at Crossroads can respond to calls in downtown Bellevue. So then that station is unavailable for calls. And so when we have this rapid growth in downtown, that doesn’t just affect downtown.

That affects the entire city because it’s pulling resources from other stations that should be there and available to protect that part of the city, and they’re not because they are dealing with issues in downtown.

And you also consider with these highrises, it’s not just a matter of how much time it takes for the firefighters to be able to get to the scene, but also how long it takes for them to get up to the victim in a highrise.

It adds several more minutes. So, if you are suffering from cardiac arrest, if every minute is going to count there, then if you’re up at the top of one of these high-rises, and it takes the firefighters ten or more minutes to get to you because of that, that’s a problem. That’s a problem.

RICK: Yeah, I wonder how, or if, in permitting all this highrise construction downtown, that those factors are being considered... because if you have a fire station that covers a certain neighborhood’s five square miles, or three square miles of coverage area, and the population, rather than expanding on the ground is expanding up into the air, you’re increasing population density without increasing the number of rapid responders for police and fire and ambulance service in those same areas.

KERI: Well, yeah, it’s definitely a factor, and the firefighters actually requested and were able to get a study that the city paid for, several years ago, that showed where the weaknesses were within our emergency safety here in the city of Bellevue and what improvements could be made. And Bellevue’s just been really slow in implementing those.

It showed quite a number of years ago that we needed a new fire station in downtown Bellevue. And this was just verifying what the fire department essentially already knew, was that we needed a new fire station right there in downtown Bellevue to serve the growth. And it is only now starting to be acted upon. It’s going to take another four years before it’s finished being built.

And so, by that time, we’re going to have so much new growth here in the city, so many new people either living or working here in Bellevue, that the improvement that we’re going to see compared to now when that fire station is done being built is going to be minimal.

RICK: So it’s going to lag behind. It’s like adding another lane to the freeway, by the time it’s done being built it’s already been over —

KERI: We’re playing catch-up at this point, so we need more than just a one-time fix; we need more than just a fire-station, we need to have an ongoing —

RICK: Moving ahead of the growth...

KERI: Exactly. We’re already behind at this point. We’re about ten years behind what we need to be, and as a result the City of Bellevue’s Fire Department is likely to lose their accreditation next year.

RICK: And so their liability is going to go up, which you know, if you take that same money that they’re going to spend on this liability and put it ahead of the problem, it could have not only increased response time and keep their accreditation, but rather than spend money on lawsuits because they’re not showing up on time, they could actually spend on new firehouses and equipment and staff.

KERI: Right. Right.

RICK: Is there any other places we can get more information about your campaign?

KERI: Yes. Please come to my website at www (dot) keriandrews (dot) com, that’s spelled k-e-r-i, andrews dot com, and there’s plenty more information on there and ways to contact me or donate to my campaign. So, thanks.

RICK: Okay. Well, good luck on your campaign and thank you very much.

KERI: Thank you.

RICK: We’d like to express our thanks to Keri for taking time out of her busy campaign schedule to speak to us.

If you have questions about this episode or suggestions for future ones, send an email to feedback (at) nwprogressive (dot) org with your comments.

We hope you’ll join us again for our next episode in this special 2007 Election podcast series.

For the Northwest Progressive Institute, I’m Rick Hegdahl. Thanks for listening.