Remarks by Naren Briar
43 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 2
- Play at 1:01:25
“Thank you, Mayor. So I looked at the presentation, and our stated target of 11 weeks for utilities and eight weeks for major projects is well ahead of the Washington statewide average. And it also sets us up on the national stage, where we are ahead of cities like Austin, Texas, and Charlottesville, North Carolina. Obviously, we're going off of this first review and not issuance. But even benchmarked with that caveat, According to my research, we are killing it. So this is really, really exciting to see. And I have municipal friends in Massachusetts that have reached out to ask about this…”
City Council · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:57:37
“Thank you, Mayor. To Council Member Bhargava's point about making sure that we're engaging a good portion of our community, considering we have roughly 100,050 residents, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. am likely but I'd love to leverage social media here across the city just because I had in my personal capacity written some thoughts that I had about non-business city related items and folks had reached out that were in my neighborhood and so I think you had mentioned that bringing in the neighborhood associations to really engage with the community is fantastic I personally had…”
City Council · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:59:32
“Have we worked with this consultant before?”
City Council · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:59:35
“Okay. And the pillars or values that are driving this consultant and what they develop is what was mentioned in the slides as well, right? The open spaces. Okay. Okay. That sounds great. Thank you so much. And thank you again for your work. Thanks, Mayor.”
City Council · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:28:43
“I'll be redundant by thanking you for the incredible work that you do. I hope you do get a raise at some point. Not speaking on behalf of the council there. I am also interested in seeing what other incentive tools and levers we can pull for that change. And I'll wrap my comments up by saying I'm absolutely supportive of the work. Thank you, Mayor.”
City Council · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 56:26
“Thank you for the fun presentation. I think we could all use a wellness bath. So thank you for teaching me about what that is. I just have no substantial comments. I think this is just fantastic. I'm very excited and on board. One thing I wanted to ask is if I'm able to informally or formally influence the programs. The only reason is, and it feels like a full circle moment, is prior to joining the council, I had bothered Lori and talked her ear off about this program and how Timbaland, the producer for Justin Timberlake, is interested in doing some sort of talent show. Rainn Wilson, Dwight…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 1:16:46
“This is the best part of being on the council is getting to approve really amazing things like this. I think the name that the board has recommended speaks directly to the site's future as home to the Japanese American Legacy Project commemoration led by Esan Bellevue. And it reflects on our history, quite honestly, and reconciles it. I think this name sets the tone for what we're going to build there. Like I said, a public space that honors its history, but also includes artwork that enables metaphysical reflection. And in this case, a metaphysical reflection of the name and the path now,…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 1:22:12
“With great honor, I move to direct staff to prepare a resolution to formalize the name Ysan Park for the park site located at Main Street and 112th Avenue Southeast as recommended by the Parks and Community Services Board. Second.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 1:59:43
“Thank you, Mayor. On the point of community outreach, I was actually interested in this point. I know that you're doing tabling events. It'd be really great, if not already, to look at social media. The Bellevue subreddit page on Reddit will always let you know what they're thinking. They're an incredibly passionate community. Of course, we're going to run into the verification problem, but I do think it'd be reasonable to request names and addresses and then provide assurance from the city that that data will then be aggregated and anonymized and not retained for longer than 27 days or…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:01:46
“Excellent, okay, thank you for that. One trivial point is that I have friends in Bellevue and Redmond and Kirkland, and our group chat is named the BRK. I feel like that rolls off the tongue better than BKR, but that's just a, you don't need to write that down. That's just a me thing. Okay. Next is one thing that I saw was, oh, okay, we're investing in large multimodal projects. Okay, I think this is interesting because we've got 10% allocation. The increase in property values that this provides for everyone, including the people who might oppose the project or funding it, it happens anyway,…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:04:12
“Yeah, I appreciate that. I guess, are you able to explicitly state the principles? Of course, one of them was community engagement. I had missed the other contention you had stated while you were speaking. Like, is there a list somewhere of the inputs? It's fine if not, but just curious.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:04:36
“Excellent, okay, and if there's a prioritization method included in that as well, I'd love to see it. No worries if I'm getting too granular there. Okay, and slide 16 also includes multi-purpose paths. The portfolio groups bikes and pedestrian infrastructure together. I was just curious about what this looks like. I think it's slide 16, yeah. Okay, pedestrian bicycle, new sidewalks. Okay, multipurpose paths. What is this? I've not seen an example of this, so just curious about what this is.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:05:33
“Okay, so it's not what's visualized on the image underneath? No, that's a sidewalk example. OK, that was a wrong conflation on my end. OK, because I was getting nervous. OK, great. And then slide 19, with the TBD, personally, I had campaigned on not increasing taxes. But the base fund versus what the TBD can offer, I can understand why this is being proposed. And not sure if you can answer this, but can you say for certain that with a TBD by 2044, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong. 46? By 2046, that all neighborhoods will have excellent pedestrian infrastructure. Is that a guarantee that can be…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:06:41
“So if we compartmentalize that even further, could you then guarantee safe paths to school by 2046 in all neighborhoods?”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:06:54
“Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. I guess just to wrap things up. You know, I cannot emphasize how I personally want to see the safety of our children prioritized. The neighborhoods that have no pedestrian infrastructure, Vasa Neighborhood Park that had kids that cross a 30 mile per road, 30 miles per hour road that is informally used as a highway off ramp to wait for their school buses in the midst of the winter. I mean, this is, it makes me very nervous. I want to make sure we're being as proactive as possible here and not reactive, God forbid, if something ever happens. You know, I want to…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:20:10
“Mayor, sorry, really quick question, because Council Member Bhargava brought this up. Are we doing any data sharing with Waymo or any of the private companies that are operating here in terms of helping them fine-tune their ML models with particular city infrastructure data?”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:20:39
“That'd be great because that particular data is not publicly available if memory serves me correctly. And it can generate a lot of revenue for the city if that's something that we ought to pursue. But this is something like Anthropic and OpenAI and others are really interested in acquiring because that specialized data is not on, you know, it's not available on the internet. Anyway, sorry Mayor, thank you. That was my last question.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:40:20
“I just wanted to extend my gratitude and recognize your patience and ability to be extremely responsive. It doesn't go unnoticed, so thank you both.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026