In his 2016 State of the County address on Monday, King County Executive Dow Constantine called for an historic investment in high-capacity mass transit to ensure the region’s long-term prosperity amid rapid population growth.  

His strategy to improve mobility includes Sound Transit 3, an initiative he proposed for the November ballot in his role as Chair of the Sound Transit Board.  

It will expand light-rail service to connect Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, Redmond and Issaquah, as well as West Seattle and Ballard. It will also build a new tunnel in Seattle with stations serving downtown, South Lake Union and Queen Anne.  

The proposal will deliver more than 108 miles of high-capacity light rail to create a regional transit system that rivals San Francisco’s BART and Washington, D.C.’s Metro.  

Watch the State of the County address online here, and read more about it in this Executive News Summary.

Crossposted from KC Employee Survey 

Jennifer Hills, Director of the Office of Risk Management in the Department of Executive Services, was “devastated” when she looked at the engagement scores for her division. Lower than she expected “I was surprised because we’d been doing a lot of strategic planning and our 2012 employee survey results were so good.” 

Hills resolved to approach the conversation with her 22-person division with “curiosity and gratitude”: curiosity about the underlying reasons for the scores and gratitude for the opportunity to be able to address concerns. This opened the door for honest communication that has benefited both the atmosphere and work in Risk Management.

With the success of ensuring nearly 9 out 10 cats and dogs find a loving home and lowering the euthanasia rate to an all-time low of 12 percent, people are wondering what’s next for Regional Animal Services of King County (RASKC). For this reason KC employees reached out to RASKC Manager Gene Mueller to learn what their secret is and the future direction of the agency.   

Originally from Illinois and a longtime licensed veterinary practitioner, since 2012 he has worked with King County to build on the work being done and further the executive directive to serve the needs of residents in maintaining a customer-service approach to animal services.  

“When the program was almost shut down, there was an executive decision to do it right,” said Gene. “This empowered staff, and unfettered them to think creatively about what was possible to help animals.”

Denmark, Italy, Newfoundland, Spain, Washington – wait, what? While this could easily be an alphabetical list of random locations, it’s actually where a few of the Best Passenger Ships of 2015 are located.

According to Marine Log, an international publication out of New York City, the MV Sally Fox, the first of two new water taxi ferries recently acquired by the King County’s Marine Division, is one of nine vessels worldwide to receive this honor.

It does so because the ship and its crew are focused on providing passengers with an efficient passenger experience. One that makes it possible for people to commute without the headache or hassle of traffic congestion.

“Our schedule reliability is over 99%,” said Paul Brodeur, King County Marine Division Director. “Ridership has increased year after year, with over 515,000 passengers last year.”

“People are starting to catch on to it because it’s reliable, convenient and offers friendly customer service.”

The upcoming 520 Bridge Replacement events presented an opportunity for approximately 160 underrepresented student populations from nine school districts to celebrate the grand opening of the world’s longest floating bridge.  

On March 24, their attendance kicked-off the 520 Bridge celebration with an integrated partnership established between Environmental Health Services, Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT), University of Washington - College of Engineering (UW), and various community partners to promote college and career readiness for youth to become involved in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). 

The students were invited to participated in a half-day forum facilitated by Environmental Health in coordination with the University of Washington and the WSDOT to learn about the real-world applications involved in constructing the new SR 520 floating bridge project. The high schoolers met with former governor Christine Gregoire, students from the UW College of Engineering, WSDOT technical experts, and Seattle and King County – Public Health officials regarding topics ranging from policy development, to education to Equity and Social Justice. The events were captured by King County TV (KCTV) for an upcoming broadcast. 

For more information about the SR 520 Bridge Replacement public grand opening activities taking place on April 2 and the ongoing STEM education efforts visit www.520golong.com.

Everyone loves to feel appreciated. Receiving praise is highly gratifying, and being praised in front of your peers or work group makes it that much more special. Facilities Management Division (FMD) has found an innovative way to do this and also engage employees in complimenting one another.

It all started at the December 2015 holiday potluck. FMD Secretary Judy Hairston remembers how the idea came to life, and was instrumental in helping it take off.

“Since it’s difficult for FMD as a large group to get together in one place, the holiday potluck planning team came up with several ideas to engage and recognize employees,” she said. “One of the ideas was to have staff submit compliments or ‘kudos’ for their co-workers, and some would be read aloud at the potluck.”

Crossposted from King County Employee Giving 

Regional Animal Services of King County had a record save rate of 88% in 2015 – an impressive feat by itself – but even more so when you hear the comeback story. And King County Employees have been instrumental to this success, at RASKC, leadership, and including through the EGP.  Employees have donated more than $70,000 to the Regional Animal Service’s Donation Funds since they started in the program, enabling RASKC to provide extraordinary medical treatment, education, and spay/neuter services. 

They were referred to the program by an employee and blazed the trail for other organizations. 

The opportunity to get your favorite nonprofit in the program is now!  Sure- we have 930 nonprofit organizations in the program… but is yours?