State of the City Address 2026

Published on July 10, 2026

The following speech was delivered by Mayor Kelli Curtis at the State of the City and Community Appreciation Night event on May 7, 2026.

Good evening, everyone.

I’m Kelli Curtis, and I have the great honor of serving as your Mayor. Welcome to This Night in Kirkland, our 2026 State of the City address and Community Appreciation Night!

This is my favorite evening because we celebrate the many people who make Kirkland so unique, wonderful, and welcoming. Tonight, we recognize our volunteers, our Boards and Commissions, our community partners, our businesses, our nonprofit organizations, our City staff, and our residents.

Thank you to our partners and sponsors, the Kirkland Chamber of Commerce and Kirkland Community Foundation. Your contributions have made this evening a true celebration.

Tonight is inspired by the Beatles song “All Together Now.” Paul McCartney wrote this song in the British “music hall” tradition of calling the audience to join in and sing along. “All Together Now” is about people connecting in joy. The song calls us to move in the same direction and join with others to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Tonight, we sit here “all together now” in Kirkland’s own spectacular music hall, the Kirkland Performance Center. With unprecedented national and global challenges in the daily news, some may question whether now is the time to celebrate. My answer is an emphatic yes! Darker times are exactly when we are called to care for each other and our community.

Everyone in this theater has answered that call. Everyone in this theater loves Kirkland. Everyone in this theater cares. We celebrate tonight that Kirkland Cares.

Because we care, the State of the City is strong. Kirkland is a vibrant, green, safe, and beautiful city because all of us choose, every single day, to be stewards of the place we call home. We show up for our city and we show up for each other. We care for each other, now and into the future.

My six talented colleagues on the Council are joining me tonight. These Councilmembers are your neighbors. They are parents and pet owners, coaches, docents, and volunteers. They stroll our streets, play in our parks, and shop in our stores. They are people who love Kirkland dearly. This Council cares not just for the Kirkland of today, but the future Kirkland that our children, grandchildren, and many more generations will enjoy.

Deputy Mayor Neal Black’s reason for serving is to demonstrate effective governance by local government. Beyond Council, he works hard as a technology lawyer. He and his wife share two sons in their 20s.

Councilmember Jay Arnold first ran for Council to make a difference in the climate through local actions. He is a father to three daughters, whom he has spent the last 15 years cheering on in gymnastics. Only recently has he had more time to root for the Mariners and play the drums.

Councilmember Amy Falcone ran because, as a mom to three, she wanted to help shape our community’s future. Outside of serving on Council, she enjoys volunteering at her kids’ schools, spending time with family and friends at the theater, and traveling.

For Councilmember Jon Pascal, serving on Council is a way to give back in a direct and meaningful way to the community that has given him so much. He is a lover of the outdoors who skis and hikes whenever he can, and he’s currently soaking up time with his youngest before he and his wife become empty nesters next year.

Councilmember Shilpa Prem’s deep commitment to serving her community inspired her to run for Council. Outside of her professional and civic work, she is devoted to her family and enjoys bringing people together. She also loves to run and dance.

Councilmember John Tymczyszyn chose to run to make our city a better place to grow up for his three children. His devotion to his kids has also led him to serve as both a coach and umpire with Kirkland American Little League.

Please join me in thanking our outstanding Council for their service. You’ll see more of them later this evening during the Community Appreciation portion.

I also want to thank and acknowledge the many other leaders and partners with us tonight: elected officials, school and hospital leaders, public safety leaders, civic leaders, regional partners, and so many others who help strengthen Kirkland in ways seen and unseen. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for caring for Kirkland.

Tonight, I have the opportunity to highlight both the achievements and challenges we have before us. Much of what we love most about Kirkland exists today thanks to forward-looking civic leaders of the past who cared enough to act.

Their foresight created our iconic waterfront parks and the beloved Cross Kirkland Corridor. Their wisdom made Totem Lake and Kirkland Urban the thriving destinations they are today.

Now, it’s our turn: How are we caring for our city and each other? What kind of Kirkland are we building for the next generation?

In my first State of the City address in 2024, I shared the old Greek proverb that a society grows great when its people are willing to plant trees under whose shade they will not sit. That idea still resonates with me as someone who loves to garden.

Gardening is believing in the future. It means planting seeds in the present with hope and preparing for seasons and even years yet to come. Cities are like gardens. The work of local government requires patience, perseverance, and caring. And our City thrives best when many hands, hearts, and minds make the work light, and we care enough to plant the seeds for a brighter future.

So tonight, as we celebrate this year’s theme of “All Together Now,” let’s look at what caring means today and for the future we are shaping for the next generation.

First, we care about this place we call home.

Kirkland continues to invest in the long-term health of our environment, our infrastructure, and our neighborhoods. We are adding to Kirkland’s legacy of preserving our vital green spaces and nurturing a community that is healthy, vibrant, and lasting.

In the last year, we expanded Kirkland’s beloved park system. Longtime resident Larry Miller generously donated nearly an acre of property next to Rose Hill Meadows Park for a community garden, and in April, we opened 46 new garden plots. We also acquired the Daniels property on Forbes Creek Drive, adding 1.5 acres to Juanita Bay Park. The home on the site will become affordable housing, and community gardens will be added next spring.

Now, we are purchasing the Lamas property near Mark Twain Park. This parcel will allow us to build a parking lot, making the 6.6 acres of Mark Twain more accessible for everyone. And on April 21st, the Council voted to purchase the former Latter-Day Saints church near 132nd Square Park. If our bid is successful, we will open a community center in our most under-served neighborhood, providing much-needed recreational programming.

All these recent park purchases continue the legacy of providing open space, parkland, and recreation opportunities, now and for the future.

Our dedicated Green Kirkland Partnership volunteers restore and care for our City’s natural areas. In 2025, 60 Kirkland Stewards hosted over 175 stewardship events, installing thousands of new native plants. More than 1,800 volunteers put in 8,900 service hours across 27 parks.

Our tree giveaways continue to spread environmental benefits around the City. Between City Hall for All and our tree rebates, we’ve encouraged nearly 400 community members to plant trees on their properties. We also planted more than 650 trees in our parks and public right-of-way areas in 2025.

Through other sustainability programs, we installed 2,200 linear feet of new stormwater pipe, more than 50 catch-basins, and five retaining walls to shore up unstable slopes on Goat Hill to alleviate flooding and safely route stormwater down the hill. We have cleared the Cochran Springs fish passage up north along 100th to provide nearly a mile of upstream habitat for trout, coho, and other salmon.

Meanwhile, the Solarize Eastside campaign has educated our community members about green power. We’re seeing it pay off, with a solar adoption increase of around 10 percent year-over-year. We’re also helping households convert to heat pumps, a more energy- and cost-efficient way to heat and cool buildings.

Additionally, we’ve been working hard to reduce waste in our City. Our quarterly recycling events have proved to be extremely popular. Last year, more than 2,000 residents attended them, and we diverted 58.6 tons of hard-to-recycle materials.

There are many more projects still in the works, from installing a permanent fix in the King County Eastside interceptor pipe, which carries 10 million gallons of wastewater a day, to rainwater management to improve water quality in Juanita Creek. These are big undertakings, and the importance to the health and safety of our community is just as great.

Second, we care about community safety.

We are living in uncertain times. Now, more than ever, local government must be steady, competent, and clear about what matters most. And, as always, community safety remains a top priority.

Kirkland has delivered the public safety investments approved by our voters through the 2020 Fire Proposition 1. Twenty new firefighter/EMTs have been on the line for three years, improving daily response times across the City. A new Fire Station 27 protects the eastern side of I-405 in Totem Lake. We renovated and modernized Fire Stations 21 at Forbes Creek, 22 in Houghton, and 26 in North Rose Hill. These modern stations reduce carcinogen exposure for our firefighter/EMTs and are seismically reinforced. And we completed all of these investments on time, and under budget.

In Kirkland, we know that great humans make great cops. We are proud of the brave women and men in our Police Department. Because they care, crime is down in all categories in Kirkland! In 2025, our officers responded to over 49,000 calls for service. And our Prop 1-funded ProAct detective unit continues to reduce property crimes, illegal drugs, and high-impact offenses through targeted investigations.

Kirkland continues to set the standard on how public safety can evolve to better serve our community. The Regional Crisis Response Agency — or “Racer” — is a new model with mental health professionals supporting those in crisis. In its third year, RCR served 742 people in Kirkland. In collaboration with our police and fire department first responders, RCR fills a gap in our emergency response system and is saving lives every day.

As a City, we will continue to face complex issues and we will continue to work to meet them with creative, holistic, community-minded solutions.

Third, we care for our neighbors.

Civil rights leader Coretta Scott King once said, “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” Every day we all show our true character in how we care for our community members in need.

This includes our work on homelessness, housing, human services, and the broader social safety net that helps our neighbors find stability and dignity.

Our human services grants support food access, behavioral health, domestic violence services, legal support, and many other essential needs. We allocated nearly 2.9 million dollars to 72 programs and 36 organizations in 2025. Over half of the funds went to programs addressing housing instability and food insecurity because basic needs must be met before people or communities can thrive.

Our Homelessness Assistance and Response Team provides compassionate solutions and assistance to community members experiencing homelessness. HART helped 1,500 households, including 19 adults and four children, become housed in 2025.

In 2026, HART has already helped five households move into the Sheila Stanton Place in South Kirkland. King County opened this permanent supportive housing facility earlier this year. It provides studio apartment homes to a hundred disabled and chronically homeless individuals while providing wrap-around services specific to each person’s needs. Sheila Stanton was a Kirkland resident and dedicated humanitarian, and the facility will now be a safe place for our neighbors to call home.

Our work to ensure that young people and other vulnerable populations have shelter is ongoing. We continue to partner with organizations like Friends of Youth, King County Housing Authority, and Porchlight to expand facilities and serve those in need.

Kirkland understands that being able to buy or rent keeps our people and our community healthy, safe, and connected. We continue to invest in various affordable housing projects across the City with support for a mix of housing types, sizes, and price points, from accessory dwelling units to multi-family buildings. As of March 31st, we had more than 1,600 residential units under construction, one-fifth of which are affordable housing units. Hundreds more are in the permitting process.

Unfortunately, rising utility costs and inflation place too many households on the brink of homelessness. To help, the City created the Kirkland Cares Low-income Support Program, providing discounts on utility rates and other City services. Over the past year, the City enrolled 214 qualifying households, bringing total program enrollment to 632. City staff seek to add even more low-income Kirkland residents, including seniors, veterans, and those with disabilities.

We also continue to invest in the health of our youth. Our Kirkland Teen Union Building, or KTUB, is wrapping up its second year of operations. Last year saw more than 6,700 visits as teens went to KTUB to connect, study, laugh, and get support services like free mental health counselling. Thirty teens received weekly one-on-one services with an in-house Youth Eastside Services counselor.

Fourth, we care that everyone in Kirkland belongs.

Kirkland is strengthened by the diversity of people who call it home. We are a community of long-term Kirklanders and recent arrivals, youth and senior citizens, veterans and volunteers. We are a community of families and single adults, people from many backgrounds, many cultures, and many lived experiences. Almost a third of our households speak a language other than English. Over a quarter of us were born outside the United States.

That diversity of experience, perspective, and background is one of Kirkland’s biggest strengths.

Kirkland is the only community in Washington state officially designated as a welcoming city by the national organization Welcoming America. I am so proud of the many partnerships that help make this belonging real. These organizations are creating more spaces for Kirkland’s many communities to connect, build relationships, and most importantly, feel safe.

The tragic events in Minnesota this year showed us a welcoming community must help immigrant families that live in fear and prepare for civil unrest that may come with immigration enforcement. On April 21st, the City Council passed Resolution 5729. This legislation helps prepare the City for safe and legal responses to federal immigration enforcement, including law enforcement training, and community information and education.

Meanwhile, we welcome all community members to our celebrations and events. Thousands came out for autumnal treats at our beloved Harvest Festival. We honored our late loved ones for the Day of Dead. Our International Night Market launched last year and won an innovation award from the Washington Recreation & Park Association. We danced and crafted to celebrate Lunar New Year. Kirkland’s Dogs had their day at See Spot Splash; families enjoyed both drive-in and outdoor movies in our parks; and thousands came out for our annual City Hall for All event.

These gatherings create joy, connection, and a sense of shared civic life. They embody how much Kirklanders care about our city and each other.

We must also celebrate Kirkland’s championing of girls’ and women’s sports. Kirkland is hosting girls from around the world at the Junior League Softball World Series for the 26th consecutive year. Soon we hope to hear that the Seattle Torrent women’s professional hockey team will choose the future Kirkland Iceplex as their main practice facility. Because, as we all know, everyone watches women’s sports.

And finally, we care about our businesses.

A strong community depends on strong businesses and sound financial stewardship, disciplined planning, and the ability to weather uncertainty.

I am proud that the City of Kirkland maintains a very strong financial position. Our strong internal controls have prevented any audit findings for over 18 years. Our AAA credit rating, healthy reserves, and conservative budgeting approach ensure we can provide community services while preparing responsibly for the future.

Financial stability allows businesses to open, expand, and invest in Kirkland. That includes our major anchor employers like EvergreenHealth, Google, Lake Washington Institute of Technology, Costco, Amazon Leo’s Satellite facility, Kenworth, and more.

Our stewardship also enticed the Seattle Kraken to invest in Kirkland. The Kraken and the City just last week announced the new iceplex project is underway!

Soon we will see a City community center, public restaurant, and team store. The Kraken iceplex will create a new, year-round hub for exercise, recreation, and community life with new gathering spaces for programs and events; free public skates each month; and Kraken investments for our low-income community members.

Our partnership will deliver these major public benefits with no new taxes. The iceplex will boost Kirkland’s economy by millions each year by bringing new visitors, supporting local jobs, and driving local business activity.

And, the Kraken facility will catalyze new shops, restaurants, and housing in the area of our future Bus Rapid transit station. This will bring to life the City’s long-term vision for a vibrant, walkable, transit-friendly district.

We’re also seeing exciting, new businesses around our city. Le Croissant Bar is soon to open in the old Starbucks location downtown. Molly Moon’s Ice Cream served its first scoops to long lines of Kirklanders last month. International fashion designer Luly Yang’s flagship store is set to open at Lake and Central this summer. And Farine Bakery and Café will start construction on its fourth location in the Bridle Trails neighborhood later this year.

Kirkland saw roughly 700 new business licenses issued in 2025, and 27 entrepreneurs recently completed our Kirkland Workshop and Pitch Competition. We are a city where businesses thrive and where community members can find opportunities close to home.

All of this comes back to people who care. And no one cares more deeply than our City staff. I want to thank them all for keeping our city safe and thriving every single day.

Their work is thoughtful. It is demanding. It is often invisible. And it matters enormously.

And as much gratitude as I have for our dedicated staff, government cannot do this work alone.

I want to thank you, our community. We are strongest when we care, when we are working — as the Beatles say — “all together now.” But you already know that. You are here tonight because you care.

Tonight, we celebrate YOU. You, who care enough to make a difference. Because you understand that “All Together Now” is an invitation to think beyond ourselves and connect with others as a part of something shared. An invitation to be joyfully involved, in whatever way we can, in our city. And by caring for each other, we can set an example for the nation of what it truly means to be a community.

In closing, I want to thank you for what you do for Kirkland. Thank you for caring for this city we all love.

The State of the City is strong. Our future is bright. The path ahead is one we will shape, as we always have, by caring “all together now.”

Thank you!