By TJ Martinell

Reporter Newspapers

Mayors from across the Eastside helped welcome the incoming Leadership Eastside (LE) classes during a luncheon at Cascade Community College in Bothell on Sept. 11. During the luncheon, the mayors discussed both their respective cities as well as those of other neighboring communities while discussing with attendees possible ways to improve both.

Those attending included Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci, Bothell Mayor Josh Freed, Mercer Island Mayor Bruce Bassett, Issaquah Mayor Fred Butler, Duvall Mayor Will Ibershof, Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, Redmond Mayor John Marchione, Sammamish Mayor Tom Vance and Kirkland Mayor Amy Walen.

“It’s a great event, and it’s been growing. It’s always very uplifting, actually,” said Balducci.

LE is a Redmond-based organization that promotes connections between leaders and better relations with communities on the Eastside.

The Leadership Eastside Leadership Enrichment Program is two-year program where the participants develop and exercise skills to meet the needs of business, non-profit, and government leaders and help improve their organizations and their communities.

“Leadership Eastside builds capacity in our communities to tackle difficult problems,” Marchione said. “I look to [Leadership Eastside] graduates to fill the boards and commissions positions.”

Year two has them create their own regional sustainable projects intended to put skills learned into action.

“They’re (participants) creating a network from the ground up,” Walen said. “It’s really a powerful networking tool. Their (Leadership Eastside) programs brings people together. They convene some great minds around concrete problems that need to be solved.”

The group also allows the Eastside mayors a chance to interact and discuss issues that impact the various cities east of Lake Washington.

“If you look across the lake at Seattle, their population is about the same as the entire Eastside. It’s important for us to work together, especially because of the way we interlock as cities,” said Balducci.

Mayors across the Eastside have been trying to work together more in recent years, Balducci said. In the past, a handful of people had shied away from working collaborately and the cities tended to see each other as competition.

When she was first selected to be mayor of Bellevue, Balducci received a call from Marchione asking her to help coordinate a relationship between theirs and other Eastside cities, she recalled.

“The most pressing issues on the Eastside are managing growth, building infrastructure and addressing homelessness,” Marchione said. “These are all regional issues and not confined to one city. We need participants that can see the big picture and [Leadership Eastside] produces those graduates.”

Now, the a group of Eastside mayors meet monthly for a lunch to catch up on their individual operations and potential collaborations. “At first it was information sharing, but it’s sort of grown into working together on different projects,” Balducci said.