Published April 24 2025
Members of Bellevue’s City Council presented the annual State of the City this week, put on in partnership with the Bellevue Downtown Association at the Meydenbauer Center. Video of the event is available through Bellevue Television.
The event itself exemplified of this year’s theme – a "Better Together" – illustrating how the city has utilized and relied on partnerships to achieve many innovations and successes.
“Through critical partnerships, we truly are better together," said Mayor Lynne Robinson during her mayoral address at the event. “Whether we partner with large organizations, small businesses, nonprofits, employees, neighborhoods, we simply accomplish more when we work together.”
Robinson shared in her presentation various advancements in Bellevue over the past year, including a roughly 25% reduction in year-over-year crime, 29 new or expanded businesses and 6,000 new jobs. The city also launched a new Office of Housing to further leverage partnerships and support housing needs in the community, made progress purchasing properties for parks and open space, and increased investments in arts and culture programming while funding more support for large events.
Robinson and Deputy Mayor Mo Malakoutian participated in a 40-minute question-and-answer session with BDA President Patrick Bannon. They shared their perspectives on how the city manages for future resiliency, highlighted several upcoming advancements that will be pivotal for the Bellevue community and discussed other current issues important to community members.
About the City of Bellevue
Known as a “City in a Park” with nearly 100 parks and a vast network of trails and greenbelts, Bellevue is the fifth largest city in Washington. The Eastside city spans 33.5 square miles from Lake Washington to Lake Sammamish. As part of the Innovation Triangle, Bellevue is the high-tech and retail center with a downtown skyline of gleaming high-rises, a diverse population of more than 150,000 and schools that are consistently rated among the best in the country.