Candidate Profile: Dexter Borbe, Bellevue City Council, Pos. 2

Bellevue WA

23 July, 2021

6:43 PM

Description

BELLEVUE, WA — Voting is underway and the 2021 primary election is heating up in King County ahead of Election Day, Aug. 3. Nearly 650 candidates are seeking various offices in 2021, beating the previous record set in 2017. Out of that total, more than 200 candidates appear in the primary, which features all the races with three or more people seeking the same office. Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles leading up to Election Day. Candidate Dexter Borbe Age (as of Election Day) 46 Position Sought Bellevue City Council Position 2 Party Affiliation Democrats Family Charmaine (45), Dominique, Bryce, Clark Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? No Education MBA, MIT Sloan School of Management. BS Electrical Engineering - University of the Philippines Occupation Small business owner (3 years), previously about 20 years in operations management, general management, and strategy / M&A across different companies. Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office First-time candidate Campaign website www.borbeforbellevue.com Why are you seeking elective office? Bellevue is coming to a critical inflection point in evolution, and faces problems in housing, transportation and quality of life. I find that my skills and experience can be brought towards helping solve some of these problems for the city. The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it. Housing and affordability is the single biggest problem in Bellevue. I want to revisit zoning decisions, thoughtfully identify key development areas, reconsider ADUs. I envision modern, mixed use development similar to Totem Lake or Juanita Village providing more housing, while in proximity to commercial space, amenities, and green space thus reducing the need for travel. What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post? Current councilman Conrad Lee, in his voter pamphlet statement, indicates he is focused on schools, safety, and lower taxes. As a resident and a business owner, I want those too. However, these are not the critical issues that can stump Bellevue in its current growth trajectory. A Councilperson's job should be take the 30,000 foot view and look out for the critical problems in the city's path, and address them. Lack of housing, insufficient transportation capacity, as well as health and accessibility are going to be key problems for Bellevue if not addressed. Johan's platform is Bellevue Youth, Arts, and Culture; while those are good pursuits, are not the key problems facing the city today. Christie Sanam Lo does not seem to be mounting a serious campaign; her PDC filing indicates she is not intending to raise more than $5,000 against Conrad who is probably the best funded municipal candidate in the state this year. When Mitzi Johanknecht leaves office, what should the county look for in appointing a new sheriff? The ideal sheriff is one who engages with the community, and encourages their officers to be the same. Bellevue Chief Steve Mylett, for example, was able to garner the respect of the community at different levels, and maintained open communications with community representatives. They should have a heart for public service, as their values as leaders are transmitted throughout the organization. What are some of your priorities for a post-pandemic recovery? As a Home Care business owner, first I hope that more people are able to vaccinate and protect themselves from possible future infections. Next, there have been a lot of people who lost their incomes during the pandemic, and some of them are at risk of losing their homes when the eviction moratorium lifts - I would love to see people being able to have an income again, which also means businesses getting back into full swing. For those who are left "between the cracks" - I would like to have some relief measures to give people time to get back on track. What would you do in office to strengthen preparedness and response efforts for extreme heat and wildfire smoke events? In the recent extreme heat event, Bellevue was a little late to declare its cooling centers, and there were not enough. I think Bellevue should proactively reach out to churches, air-conditioned malls, community groups, and evaluate its own community centers and facilities as cooling centers so that they are ready to be staffed and communicated with the public ahead of time so they know where to go during such another heat event (instead of scrambling last minute). Same goes for planning staffing of Fire Departments and a protocol for heat events - Fire Chief Hagen told me during those heat events they had 4x more rescue calls, straining the department in terms of staffing and vehicles. In terms of the wildfire smoke events, the Washington Department of Ecology had great suggestions for a makeshift air purifier for the home (a box fan + AC filter + bungee cords) that could be communicated to the public, along with emergency alerts to give people a heads up when the next smoke event happens. As with the heat situation, city responders need to be prepared and staffed, and proper protocols developed and trained ahead of time so they can readily respond when the need arises. If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency) While I commend Conrad for his 28 years of service, I think he is no longer in touch with the realities faced by all his constituents and instead has come to focus on only a few key stakeholders' needs. He voted against the Eastside Men's Shelter, a shelter agreed upon previously through a regional agreement with the cities of Redmond and Kirkland, and a necessary piece of social infrastructure to manage the homelessness problem faced by the region. In a recent council meeting (7/12), he voted against ordinances imposing interim controls to amend the Land Use Code in a manner consistent with state law; effectively he voted to violate state law, as well as not to enable more affordable housing. How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently? Bellevue was one of the first cities to declare a state of emergency, on Mar 3, 2020. The city worked with 5 agencies (Catholic Community Charities, Lifewire, Hopelink, Salvation Army, and Solid Ground) to disburse funds from the Council Contingency fund to support people who could not pay their rent, as early as April 6. The Bellevue Utilities department stopped turning services off and cancelled late fees. I think Bellevue took humane action quickly. The one area I would have wanted to do differently, would be to coordinate with community providers, and the fire department more quickly to make testing available. It was probably a full month or two before testing services were available at Bellevue College compared to Seattle. Testing services were key to helping prevent the spread of the virus, and allowing essential workers to return to work safely. Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform. Transportation in Bellevue was strained in 2019, with 16 failed intersections and massive congestion. This was momentarily forgotten during lockdown, but will strangle the city's growth if we don't add capacity, develop multi-modal solutions, utilize transportation demand management, as well as intelligent traffic systems. According to the Human Services Needs Survey, 45% of surveyed Bellevue residents identified access to affordable healthcare, and affordable insurance, as challenges they face. We need to work with community providers, the county, and state, to make sure Bellevue residents can continue to live healthy lives. These are especially important as Bellevue grows explosively (~55k employees from Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google in the next 5 years or so). What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job? From my Engineering days I bring a practical problem-solver's mindset. From my Business Strategy experience I learned to use data and insight to put together the big picture and identify the most critical issues; from my general management experience I learned to develop actionable plans, foster responsibility, and follow through. The best advice ever shared with me was: Stop thinking about what you're going to get; you can't control that. Think instead of what you can give - that one is completely in your hands. What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions? I also care about climate change; my views on climate were informed by scientists (not politicians) at MIT (climateprimer.mit.edu). I would love to see cleaner ways for power generation, and for transportation. I would be happy to see our buildings use less greenhouse gas for heating, buy switching equipment to heat pumps as they replace old furnaces, and by building new buildings with no natural gas dependency. I would like the city to explore Community Solar options as part of its Environmental Stewardship Plan. I would love to see Bellevue retain its beautiful landscape even as it matures as a city.