No city wanted to be Renton in the 1990s.

City revenues fell by $1.5 million each year, property taxes were dropping too, and the Boeing Co. — which provided 60 percent of the city’s jobs — announced that 10,000 positions would be moved to Everett, according to Sue Carlson, the city’s Economic Director at the time.

All that bleak news, coupled with plenty of Renton punch lines on the sketch comedy show “Almost Live,” made the city’s new “Renton, Ahead of the curve” marketing campaign a bit laughable. The “curve” is a play on the anxiety-producing “S” curve on Interstate 405 on the north side of Renton.

“We were in crisis,” Carlson said of the era.

Sedro-Woolley and Mount Vernon are feeling a bit like Renton in the ’90s and are hoping to turn around their images and economics in much the way Renton did, according to officials from the two Skagit County cities.

Mount Vernon Mayor Bud Norris and leaders from the city’s hospital, school district, college and other organizations hired Hamilton/Saunderson, the marketing firm Renton uses. With the help of the firm, the community leaders developed the slogan “I got a great life in Mount Vernon,” which will be featured in a new community marketing campaign.

Sedro-Woolley, which started its Renton-modeled efforts more recently, hired Carlson to speak to city officials at a recent economic planning workshop.

In 2000, Carlson told the Sedro-Woolley workshop attendees, Boeing made up just 36 percent of the Renton’s employment base, 600 new businesses had moved into the city and the population was up by 1,100.

Even John Keister, the host of “Almost Live,” has switched from panning the city to pandering to it.

“Remember all those jokes...” he said in a 2008 Super Bowl ad for Renton, “I can’t believe I am really saying this, but Renton is ahead of the curve. Who would have thought?”

The “Ahead of the Curve” slogan was plastered all over the city and included in a further-reaching advertising campaign, Ken Hamilton of Hamilton/Saunderson told the Mount Vernon Economic Development Committee last month.

But it was not the only step the city took to change its image.

The turnaround was also the product of a blue ribbon commission — made up of representatives from the Renton School District, the Chamber of Commerce, Hospital District and Renton Technical College — that was dedicated to bringing new business and residents to the city, a strict business plan that all city expenditures and initiative were required to meet and a new Economic Development, Neighborhoods and Strategic Planning Department, said Carlson, who became administrator of that department in 1997.

She said the first big break was luring Ikea to the city. In 2006, the store brought about $1.2 million in sales tax revenue to the city, Carlson said.

“There isn’t an Ikea or a specific business or entity that we are looking at bringing in,” Mount Vernon Community and Economic Development Director Jana Hanson said of her city’s current efforts.

Hanson, who was Renton’s director of development services until 2001, said that in Mount Vernon, there is a “much broader, more comprehensive picture that we are looking at.”

That picture includes enticing developers to construct retail and residential buildings along the riverfront as outlined in the recently adopted Downtown and Waterfront Master Plan, Hanson said.

The city also hopes to draw doctors to its hospital, teachers and students to its schools, tourists to its existing and future businesses, retirees and employees and young professionals and families from the Interstate 5 corridor between Tacoma to Vancouver, B.C.

And like Renton, the vision is not solely the city’s. Mount Vernon’s community marketing campaign is a joint effort of the Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce, Skagit Valley Hospital, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon School District, Skagit County, Economic Development Association of Skagit County and city of Mount Vernon.

Representatives from each group have been meeting since last year, said Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kristen Whitener.

They hope to secure contributions from each of the entities totaling $200,000 annually in order to fund a new Web site, quarterly newsletter, local newspaper advertising, regional print and radio advertisements and more.

In Sedro-Woolley, officials envision similar things, but are not so far into the process.

“We are just starting ... We are looking at having a blue ribbon committee ... a business plan” city Supervisor and Attorney Eron Berg said.

Sedro-Woolley Mayor Mike Anderson said he will start to form a blue ribbon committee, similar to those in Renton and Mount Vernon, once the City Council says to do so.

“I foresee some local business people, some developers, maybe somebody from outside of the city that might have some ideas that we don’t,” he said of the committee, “Just some people who have some progressive ideas that we don’t.”

That group would then develop a business plan for the city, as Renton’s committee did, he said.

In speaking to Anderson and other officials, Carlson suggested wining and dining business executives. She said a lunch meeting with Ikea once netted a $500,000 donation to the city, and other red carpet roll-outs led to many other businesses choosing to build in Renton.

“I think that we are going to get a supermarket,” Anderson said of his city. “Right now people have been going to Burlington.”

With only one supermarket in town — Food Pavilion — that plan probably will not get Anderson too much heat from his constituents. But other Renton-modeled initiatives could be a tougher sell in Sedro-Woolley.

Last year, the City Council passed a resolution welcoming Deluxe Recycling and Disposal’s plan to build a solid waste transfer station in town. Many residents were repelled, not impressed, by that initiative and have criticized city leaders for being too closely tied to the waste company.

“They have said we should not be recruiting,” said Anderson. “Then you see the city of Renton.”

• Elliott Wilson can be reached at 360-416-2147 or at .