“Vicki is an outstanding leader in our community.  She is a strong force in ensuring success of the key institutions that make our City a great place:  the Bellevue Planning Commission, Overlake Hospital, Bellevue College, and Bellevue public schools.  The City Council needs someone with her deep understanding, energy and commitment to the City.” Deputy Mayor Claudia Balducci

“Vicki Orrico knows the community and how it works better than anyone I know. She cares deeply about the issues facing the City of Bellevue and has a great working relationship with key people throughout the community.  She is very effective at listening, identifying problems, crafting workable solutions, bringing together the right people, and then dedicating her energy to ensuring the best outcome for the community.” Jean Floten, President, Bellevue College

 “Our Councilmembers must be highly responsible individuals who give a high priority to their work.  These council leaders should have vision, enthusiasm, and possess the energy and drive necessary to make them successful.  I believe Vicki Orrico is such a leader. We need Vicki Orrico on the City Council. She is articulate, effective, and actively engaged.   Her volunteer and professional experiences will enrich her contributions to meeting the complex concerns of Bellevue citizens.  Her work on the Planning Commission guiding Bellevue’s future and her career as a city attorney will shorten her learning curve as a councilmember.”  Nan Campbell, Former Bellevue Mayor

“I have known Vicki Orrico for many years and know her to be a dedicated and public spirited citizen who is absolutely qualified to sit on the City Council.  She is smart, savvy, and streetwise enough to help lead us through the budget problems we are sure to encounter in the coming years.  She is also a fiscal conservative with a conscience and a concern for the environment.  Very rare characteristics to find in one person.  A great choice." Frank Dennis

“I can’t imagine anyone with more of the right experience for City Council than Vicki: a municipal attorney, a planning commissioner, and a volunteer with Overlake Hospital.” Kurt Springman, former Bellevue City Councilmember

"The  Overlake Hospital Foundation Board has benefited from Vicki’s leadership and vision. She has been an effective member in every area she has served, especially on the strategic planning committee. Her service to the Foundation is another example of her commitment to the betterment of our community." Tom Fowler, Former Overlake Hospital Foundation Board Chairman and Overlake Hospital Board Member

"Vicki Orrico is passionate about government and committed to making Bellevue a place where families and individuals thrive and prosper.  She is hard working and has a great vision." Laurie Stewart, President, Sound Community Bank

Media

Vicki Orrico named to Bellevue Community College Board of Trustees
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire has appointed Vicki E. Orrico, of Bellevue, to a five-year term on the Bellevue College Board of Trustees. Orrico has been practicing law for over 20 years, focusing on general business, real estate and municipal law. Quite active in the community, Orrico serves on the Bellevue Planning Commission as well as the Overlake Hospital Foundation Board of Trustees, for which she chairs the Donor Development Committee. She also serves on the Board of the Center for Women and Democracy and chairs their speakers forum, called “Food for Thought” on women’s issues. Orrico was honored with the Washington State Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division Exemplary Service Award in 1998. She earned juris doctor and bachelors degrees from the University of Wisconsin. Orrico replaces Ruthann Kurose, who has retired from BCC’s Board of Trustees after 14 years of service.
Eastside Business Journal, Wednesday, 17 October 2007

Media Regarding Vicki Orrico’s Community Work

Editorial
Bellevue College
BELLEVUE Community College's new name, Bellevue College, is a welcome change. More important, it continues a critical development in the state's long-range goal to produce more baccalaureate degree-holders.
The college launched its bachelor of applied science in radiation and imaging sciences program in the fall of 2007. In June, 18 students will graduate with baccalaureate degrees.
That's good news. Washington's public four-year universities have had their hands full struggling to meet an enrollment boom.
At the same time, a comprehensive review of higher education ordered by Gov. Christine Gregoire found the number of bachelor degrees awarded in Washington need to be increased by 3,900, or nearly 14 percent. Since about 41 percent of bachelor's degree awardees in our public institutions are community-college transfers, those schools are prime candidates to fill the vacuum.
Bellevue College, with its enrollment of 35,000, was a natural choice. Seven programs at the 34 community and technical colleges statewide offer baccalaureate degrees as part of a pilot authorized by the state Legislature.
The two-year and four-year hybrids offer a smart response to growing needs in higher education. Other solutions include partnerships between four-year and two-year institutions, such as the one between Central Washington University and Highline Community College. More changes are likely when the state Higher Education Coordinating Board releases its higher-education design plan next fall.
Bellevue College's move into the four-year arena is welcomed.  Seattle Times, April 13, 2009. 
Bellevue Community College changes name, to award bachelor's degrees

BELLEVUE — Bellevue Community College has changed its name to Bellevue College, effective Monday.
Bellevue College President Jean Floten says people associate community college with associate degrees only. The college will award its first bachelor's degrees this spring.
The college launched its bachelor of applied science in radiation and imaging sciences program in the fall of 2007. It expects to award bachelor's degrees to 18 students at commencement ceremonies June 18, with Gov. Chris Gregoire scheduled to be the commencement speaker.
Bellevue College serves 35,000 students annually and is the state's third largest institution of higher education after University of Washington and Washington State University.  Seattle Times, April 12, 2009

Editorial
Bellevue's balancing act with development

Re-envisioning Bel-Red
By Katherine Long
Seattle Times staff reporter
For years, semi trucks have growled up and down Bellevue's 124th Avenue Northeast, a gritty segment of an Eastside industrial section known as the Bel-Red corridor.
Although a short hop across the freeway from Bellevue's glassy downtown towers, Bel-Red has almost no housing, only sprawling warehouses, steady truck traffic and a working-class, industrial flavor.
City planners have long imagined a different future for this centrally located, 900-acre swath of land, twice the size of downtown Bellevue. For a time, it was even proposed as a place for a new Seattle Sonics arena.
The city now is laying the groundwork for the region's first big development designed from scratch around light-rail stations.
Under the plan, a Sound Transit light-rail line would whoosh through urban centers of 12- to 15-story office buildings and apartments. The area would be filled with parks, connected by trails and inspired by salmon-spawning streams that now flow through ditches and culverts on the way to Kelsey Creek.
It's a little like the way Seattle's South Lake Union is developing. But it's also a bit different, because the focus is on clustering development within walking distance of a major regional light-rail line. In exchange for being allowed to build more densely, developers would be tapped to help restore creeks and build parks and trails.
"This is a smart, well-thought-out, responsible way to grow," said Jeff Pavey, a program director for the Cascade Land Conservancy, a land conservation and stewardship organization that has been monitoring the rezoning plans for Bel-Red.
Construction is years away, long enough for developers to put their plans in order while the current economic storm passes.
"It's really an opportunity to put into practice all of the smart-growth strategies that have been talked about for some time," Bellevue Mayor Grant Degginger said.
The Bel-Red corridor is named after the major road that connects Bellevue to Redmond. Set aside in the 1960s for light industry, the area has not aged gracefully.
It is book-ended by Bellevue's dense downtown to the west, and by Redmond's high-tech Overlake employment center to the east.
Bel-Red is a rare Bellevue commercial area that's actually lost employment. From 1995 to 2004, the number of people who work in the corridor dropped 5 percent, while employment climbed by 20 percent elsewhere in Bellevue. The drop was largely caused by Safeway moving a large portion of its food-distribution warehouse to Auburn.
The City Council is expected to ask Sound Transit to route its light-rail line from Bellevue to Redmond through the Bel-Red corridor, paving the way for the underused land to be redeveloped in a new way, city planner Dan Stroh said.
A second route that would skirt the north side of Bel-Red has been proposed, but city officials say they're confident that Sound Transit will approve the route that slices through the center of Bel-Red. The line would end in Redmond's Overlake neighborhood, and would be built by 2021.
On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to amend its comprehensive plan, a major step toward final approval of the area's rezone that is expected to happen in March.
The Bel-Red plan also is part of an effort to provide more affordable housing, and address climate change by locating dense development next to light-rail stations. "I think there will be more and more talk of this," Stroh said.
The city would allow the densest development to happen around four light-rail stations, which are the city's preferred options:
• A station at 116th Avenue Northeast, which will serve Group Health and Overlake hospitals and a major expansion of Children's Hospital & Medical Center;
• A station at 122nd Avenue Northeast, where developer Wright Runstad & Co. owns 36 acres it purchased from Safeway, and which is being planned for an office-and-residential development with office towers up to 12 stories;
• A station at 130th/132nd Avenue Northeast, where the stop would be primarily residential, with apartments or condominiums up to 15 stories tall;
• A station at 152nd Avenue Northeast in Redmond, which borders Bellevue.
The Wright Runstad development is expected to be built first, and Stroh calls it a "catalyst" for the area.
The Spring District, as Wright Runstad calls its development, would include 3 million square feet of office space and 800 multifamily housing units, said Wright Runstad President Greg Johnson.
Wright Runstad needs a few years to create and gain approval for a master plan. But even accounting for economic conditions, the first residents might be able to move in by 2013, if all goes as planned, Johnson said.
Stroh said developers such as Wright Runstad will be allowed to build dense, tall buildings in exchange for helping to build parks, plazas and trails, and contributing to stream restoration.
Bel-Red is interlaced with a network of streams, all flowing into Kelsey Creek, which eventually empties into Lake Washington. Some flow through ditches; others run through culverts. But there's enough "wild" in these streams that salmon return to the upper reaches in the fall to spawn. "Part of the whole strategy here is to bring these fish passages back to life," Stroh said.
By 2030, the Bel-Red plan could usher in 4.5 million square feet of office and retail use, which would more than double the amount of office space there now and produce 10,000 jobs. And the plan would pave the way for 5,000 housing units and 9,500 new residents.
Although the Cascade Land Conservancy likes the way Bel-Red is being planned, the organization also would like to see Bel-Red become a "receiver" of transfer development rights. In other words, the developers would have the incentive to build taller, denser buildings in exchange for protecting land in rural areas of King County. The city is listening, but no agreement has been reached, said Pavey, of the Land Institute.
Pavey also said the development's success — from an environmental group's standpoint — depends on how much developers are going to be asked to contribute toward amenities such as parks. "A lot of this is going to pan out in the details, which have yet to be decided."
Seattle Times, February 13, 2009,

Endorsement by the Seattle Times in 2005 race for City Council:

Bellevue's future for a changing city
In council Position 2, Vicki Orrico has the edge. . . Orrico is a city planning commissioner and a municipal attorney for other Eastside cities. Her knowledge of the law and the city's planning challenges will shorten her learning curve.
Orrico wants to ensure the city remains economically diverse as it continues to grow. That means initiatives for affordable housing, decent human services and more city attentiveness to the needs of small and growing businesses. . . . Orrico's fresh, pragmatic style and thoughtful ideas merit The Times' endorsement. 
Seattle Times, Friday, October 21, 2005

Endorsement by the King County Journal in 2005 race for City Council:

Orrico, Marshall best voices for Bellevue
Bellevue once again is on the cusp of a boom: Office towers worth billions of dollars are being built or are planned and the city’s downtown continues to attract residents moving into high-rise towers.  Dealing with that growth requires foresight and innovative thinking on the City Council.
Residents can keep the city on track by . . . adding a promising newcomer. . . . Vicki Orrico should get the voters’ nods.
Vicki Orrico has a strong resume and offers a fresh voice and new ideas to a very solid base of council members.  She’s an attorney who works with many municipal governments and currently serves on the city’s planning commission.  Both positions will help her deal with the challenges facing Bellevue. 
As a member of the planning commission, Orrico has worked on one of Bellevue’s critical issues – traffic – by helping reduce congestion in the Factoria area.  Her commission work also gives her the background to help the city redefine the Bel-Red corridor as it moves from light industrial to a more mixed-use area.  She would like to see more housing spread around the city, beyond concentrating living units in the downtown and Crossroads areas, and sees the potential for that in the Bel-Red corridor.  . . . The city has weathered tough economic times and services have continued to be top notch.  But there is more to be done, and the city’s future depends on a council that plans for the future with a vision and execution. . . new leadership will move it forward.  Orrico is the best candidate to do just that. 
The King County Journal endorses Vicki Orrico for Bellevue City Council. . .
King County Journal, October 11, 2005

Bellevue:  Orrico has Big Vision
The King County Journal, the Municipal League and hundreds of contributors are right: Vicki Orrico is the best candidate for . . . the Bellevue City Council.  A big city is big business.  It demands big leaders with a vision and commitment to move the city forward.
It’s time for a change on the council.  Orrico can help move this city forward.
Steve Dennis, Bellevue
Letter to the Editor, King County Journal, October 14, 2005

Seattle-based bike club makes endorsements
One way the Cascade Bicycle Club advocates for cyclists in the Seattle area is to issue endorsements in the local elections. After receiving an email from the CBC, I checked the Cascade website to see the endorsements for the candidates in my own burg.  Of the three seats up for grabs on the Bellevue City Council, the bike club endorsed just one candidate, Vicki Orrico.
Biking Bis, October 28, 2005

Connection key issue in Bellevue City Council race
Seattle Times, Wednesday, October 19, 2005  http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20051019&slug=bellevueelex19e
Thirty-two seeking election to government review panel
Seattle Times, Tuesday, May 6, 2003

Skeptics, fans seek charter-panel post in Bellevue
Seattle Times, Thursday, April 10, 2003

Bellevue Coucil Candidates Talk About Issues at Tuesday Debate
Bellevue Reporter, Thursday, October 8, 2009

Bellevue, Medina Candidates Tackle the Issues
Bellevue Reporter, Monday, October 5, 2009

 

COMMUNITY SUPPORT FOR OVERLAKE HOSPITAL – IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR
Phyllis and Frank Orrico moved to the Eastside in the early 1950s.  With Winmar Company Inc. since its inception in 1955, Frank was the organizing officer and director, and later both director and president after the company was acquired by Safeco Corporation in 1967. 
The Orricos rooted their lives on the Eastside and had six children, all but one born at Overlake Medical Center.  As you can see (opposite page), the family has grown - and so has our community.  When asked why she believes Overlake is worthy of her time and financial support, Phyllis said, “This area is growing like mad.  You hear stories about patients not being able to get into hospitals when they need them, and we just can’t let that happen here.  Making sure that Overlake can keep pace is so important for a healthy community. 
It’s definitely a family affair.  Frank served on the Overlake Board of Trustees in the 1970s, and Vicki Orrico today continues her father-in-law’s legacy as a member of the Overlake Hospital Foundation Board of Trustees. After a tour of the Overlake campus last year, Phyllis was so impressed with the hospital’s accomplishments, mission and vision for the future that she asked son Brent to help plan and fulfill a special gift for the hospital, in addition to the family’s annual support.
Overlake was established by Eastside families for Eastside families.  What was true 45 years ago remains true today.  As a community owned, not-for-profit and independently operated medical center, Overlake depends on the support of its donors and the community.  Last year, voluntary contributions ranging from $25 to over $1.5 million made it possible for Overlake to deliver leading edge Medical excellence every day, fulfilling its promise to our community. 
We need each other, we strengthen each other and we care deeply for each other.  The Orricos join us in thanking each and every one of you-our Overlake family.
Overlake Healthy Outlook magazine, Fall 2005. 

Paid for by Orrico For Bellevue City Council, 2050 112th Avenue NE, Suite 210, Bellevue WA  98004