North Bend: Easy to reach… Hard to leave.

That is the tagline proposed by North Bend’s branding committee at the city council meeting, Tuesday, June 16.

If approved by the council, the tagline and accompanying brand statement will help guide North Bend’s future marketing and development. Results from the council meeting were not available before press time.

The tagline focuses on North Bend’s outdoor recreational opportunities. City officials and business leaders have said they want the city to be a recreation destination for people living in the Greater Seattle area.

The tagline’s first part, “Easy to reach,” stresses the city’s accessibility — only 45 minutes from Seattle — and its broad selection of outdoor activities, including hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, kayaking, canoeing, camping, fishing, among others.

The second part, “hard to leave,” addresses the point of the branding campaign. North Bend wants to capture a market which it has watched slip by for years as thousands of visitors have flocked to the Valley to hike Mount Si and for other outdoor activities and left just as quickly.

North Bend wants them to stop in the city for food and shopping before they leave.

One early mock up had the tagline imposed over a photograph of a family happily stretched out along a river bank below an early evening sky.

If approved, the city’s economic development committee will develop an implementation strategy and budget for 2010.