White Center Teen Program helps local youth thrive
The White Center Community Center, also known as the Log Cabin at Steve Cox Memorial Park, houses King County Parks’ White Center Teen Program and serves the community by fostering a safe positive place for local youth to partake in recreational and educational programs.
The Log Cabin at Steve Cox Memorial Park
The goal of WCTP is to reduce youth involvement in violent, criminal or gang-related activities and increase young people’s connection to community through civic and volunteer opportunities.
“We want to keep them out of trouble, and we want to also keep them in school,” said Darlene Sellers, Recreation Coordinator for Natural Resources and Parks. “We are trying to provide every youth in White Center with recreation.”
The WCTP has 1,400 registered kids age 12-19, and has served more than 26,000 kids since its creation in 1991. More than 80 percent of the teens attending the program are from White Center, and more than 30 languages and dialects are spoken.
Program participants enjoying a game of basketball.
The program, which takes place five days a week, has raised high school graduation rates among participants by 19 percent and more than 200 youth participants have earned their GEDs.
The community center offers a recreation room, basketball court, outdoor fields, a playground, cooking classes, gardening lessons, college application help, homework tutoring, free dinner, kendo martial arts, visual and performing arts classes, and the youth also volunteer throughout the community. WCTP volunteers annually during White Center Refresh, formerly known as White Center Spring Clean, picking up litter and painting murals.
“Kids are taking pride in their neighborhood, and the work that they are putting into it,” said Sellers. “They are also able to put their community service on their resumes.”
Their program is also connecting young people to employment. The recent 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament and Job Fair known as Peace N the Hood was hosted by WCTP June 8, and it led to 46 kids receiving job offers.
Program participants attend a Peace N the Hood Job Fair
Steve Cox Memorial Park is currently undergoing renovations to improve conditions and better serve local youth. The project will construct a multi-use synthetic turf athletic field with LED lights and a ten-foot-wide paved walking path around the perimeter. The field will be lined for soccer, lacrosse, and two baseball diamonds.
For more information on the White Center Teen Program and Steve Cox Memorial Park, contact ParksInfo@KingCounty.gov.
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Measuring Change in King County
The cranes dotted across the Seattle skyline may lead you to believe that King County has only begun to experience rapid growth within the past decade. However, in a new video, King County Demographer Chandler Felt discusses how the County has been booming and diversifying for the past 40 years.
“Looking over a period of almost 40 years, King County’s population growth has been very steady gaining 400,000 people in the last 17 years to a population of more than 2.1 million,” Felt says in the video.
Prior to 2010, the majority of King County growth occurred in South King County, but the focus shifted back onto urban King County with the start of the Growth Management Act (GMA). The GMA focused on protecting farm and forest land while simultaneously focusing on building growth in urban growth areas.
The GMA and its impact is just one of five big trends that Felt identifies as he looks at events that have affected King County. Since 1970, Felt has identified economic diversification, increasing race and ethnic diversity, increasing income inequality, age and household changes, and shifting locations of growth within the county as key trends in its evolution.
Click the image above to watch Felt’s full presentation.
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Summer brings more than 40 farmers markets to King County
You’ve probably enjoyed great food and supported your local farmers by visiting the farmers market near your work place, by signing up for a Community Supported Agriculture CSA-at-work program, or by visiting a farmers market near your home. Did you know there are more than 40 farmers markets in King County between the months of May and November? More than 200 unique farms sell at markets in King County, and more than 60 of those farms are in the County.
Pike Place Market remains the longest-running year-round farmers market in the U.S.
Here are a few of the resources available to make the most of your ability to explore farm-fresh food and eat like a local in and around King County.
In ‘Celebrating DNRP’s 2017 highlights,’ the Department of Natural Resources and Parks shares ‘Local never tasted so good’ on their home page features carousel.
Local never tasted so goodThe Farm Fresh Local program educated and inspired eaters across the region on how to access local food at farmers markets, farm stands, and CSAs in our community. The program, supported by a USDA grant, included a 2017 media campaign to promote farmers markets, creation of a CSA@Work program for King County employees, a Farm Fresh Local Healthy Eating Blog, and a new story map that offers a virtual tour of farm- fresh food in King County.
This brings you to Water and Land Services’ ‘Taste variety at your Farmers Market’ page (also in Spanish here), which – in addition to data and maps – includes the ‘Explore farm-fresh food’ link to the story map mentioned above.
This is a fantastic ArcGIS story map that dives into the history of Farmers Markets in our area, highlights a number of favorite markets, and provides mapped links to markets not only in King County, but throughout the Puget Sound area. The mapped links connect you to specific markets and their days and hours of operation.
Pike Place Market, which opened in 1907, remains the longest-running year-round farmers market in the United States. Farmers and consumers advocated for the market so they could transact with each other directly. In addition to Pike Place, the University District, Ballard, West Seattle and Broadway Farmers Markets are open year-round and are centered in Seattle.
The University District Farmers Market; featured as one of The Top 25 Farmers’ Markets Across America by PARADE Magazine. Photo by Redstone Photography.
In addition to our own ArcGIS Story Map, local and regional resources are available to explorers ready to visit the markets throughout the region.
Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets is a neighborhood alliance committed to supporting and strengthening Washington’s small family farm businesses by creating and operating vibrant, successful neighborhood farmers markets. They are a 501c3 nonprofit that manages seven food-focused farmers markets in Seattle. They are online, have a Ripe and Ready Blog, and are social on Twitter and more; providing great information about the markets 
in Seattle proper.
Outside of Seattle and King County? The Tilth Alliance has a site that links to a list of regional farmers markets. You can search markets and information about them by location. They also have an app for that!
Eat well and enjoy the season by visiting the farmers markets near you!
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Executive visits employees who are empowering strong communities through partnerships
King County Executive Dow Constantine and Chief People Officer Whitney Abrams recently visited King County employees and partners from the Communities of Opportunity program to learn more about their work to create greater racial, economic, and health equity that enables all people in King County to thrive and prosper.
“Our goals for Communities of Opportunity line up with the intersection of wanting to see that all people are thriving economically, that all people are healthy, that they have quality, affordable housing, and that they are connected to the community,” Andréa Akita, Director of Communities of Opportunity, said during the visit.
Communities of Opportunity is a partnership between King County and Seattle Foundation to create safe and healthy communities throughout the region by working with community leaders and organizations to design effective strategies. It is funded jointly through Seattle Foundation and Best Starts for Kids, a voter-approved initiative led by Executive Constantine to promote healthier, more resilient children, youth, families, and communities in King County.
Communities of Opportunity Staff from Public Health Seattle & King County and Department of Community and Human Services, as well as representatives from the Seattle Foundation, Ballmer Group and HomeSight, gave Executive Constantine and Abrams an overview of their work and some detailed examples of projects that are making a real difference in the community.
For Kalayaan Domingo, a Project Manager for COO, the work is more than conceptual or theoretical as she has strong connections to the communities where COO is focusing its partnerships.
“I’m from this area, I grew up in south Beacon Hill, I went to the Northwest School on Capitol Hill, my parents grew up here, so this work is not theoretical for me,” Domingo told Executive Constantine. “The ability for my family to stay in this county living close to each other is something that we feel we fight for every day. When I’m out in the community these are not conceptual partners, these are people who raised me in this community, they’re people who I’ve had a long-term relationship with, and when I go out to the grocery store I have to go out there and see them every day, and if this doesn’t work I can’t go back out and show my face. So when we ask our community, and we ask ourselves to be accountable to the community, we really have to mean it and we really have to show it.”
Both Executive Constantine and Abrams appreciated the opportunity to meet with the COO employees and some of their partners to hear first-hand about their work, challenges, and successes.
“These employees are partnering with local communities creating innovative, tailored solutions to help everyone in King County grow, thrive, and prosper,” Executive Constantine said. “Their passion and commitment to building fairer, stronger communities is inspiring. I appreciate the time and care our employees taking to share their insights with me, and I thank them for the work they do every day for the people.”
Learn more about Communities of Opportunity at www.COOpartnerships.org.
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King County releases Annual Financial Reports
The 2017 King County CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) and the PAFR (Popular Annual Financial Report) are now available online.
The CAFR consists of management’s representations concerning the finances of King County. The financial statements within the report have been audited by the Washington State Auditor’s Office and were prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles that are prescribed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board for all state and local governments in the United States of America.
The PAFR provides an overview of King County’s financial condition with a brief analysis of where revenues come from and how the monies including tax dollars are spent. It seeks to inform readers about King County’s basic financial structure with emphasis on the results of its operations during the 2017 fiscal year. The PAFR is not audited, but the report is based on the audited CAFR.
Click on the above corresponding acronym link to view the PDF file. Hardcopies will be available towards the end of July. If you need a printed copy of either report, send a request to July.Maha@KingCounty.gov . For questions about the report, please contact Manny Cristobal at Manny.Cristobal@KingCounty.gov.
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KCIT deploying new tool this month to protect data and systems
KCIT will deploy a new security tool later this month that will help protect the entire King County network from cybersecurity attacks. The new tool will operate behind the scenes, helping to protect all of our data and systems from both external and internal cyber threats.
This deployment should affect neither your computer nor your day-to-day business operations. If you are blocked from a work-approved website or application, either submit a Help Desk Ticket to HelpTicket@KingCounty.gov or escalate the issue through your technical support group.
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BRC PeopleSoft improvements
King County’s PeopleSoft team is at the forefront of adopting new Oracle PeopleSoft features and enhancements. Every quarter, the Business Resource Center continues to deliver new features, improvements and bug fixes to PeopleSoft!
This month’s July 23 release offers a lot of improvements, including:
Simplified, easy-to-remember URLs (update your bookmarks or favorites)
- kingcounty.gov (Login from Work – internal King County network)
- kingcounty.gov (Login from Home – employee self-service)
Classic Plus provides a better user experience by delivering pages that look and ‘feel’ more like mobile pages.
ElasticSearch is a new-and-improved search engine using the hcm.kingcounty.gov URL, and provides quicker search and navigation.
As with all PeopleTools upgrades, users will need to clear their internet browser cache to prevent freezing, incorrect page rendering and slow response times. First, confirm that you’re using a valid web browser, and then follow these instructions to delete temporary internet files.
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Metro tops 3,000 bus drivers for first time ever
Crossposted from Metro Matters
This new class of bus drivers is one for the Metro record books.
Among them is Nathaniel Housman (pictured front and center), who joins his father, Tom, and his brother, Jonathan, in driving for Metro. When Nathaniel and his class graduated from their training program on June 22, Metro topped 3,000 drivers for the first time in our history.
Just a year ago, Metro was close to 2,850 drivers. Now we have more drivers than ever before, and we’ll continue growing and growing to meet this region’s hunger for more transit service.
Metro continues to recruit and train new drivers, acquire new buses, and plan for new base capacity so that we can keep the buses rolling for everyone who needs one.
We welcome Nathaniel and his classmates. But we’re looking for more qualified people — a lot of them. If you are interested, visit DriveForMetro to take a self-quiz to learn what it takes to be a driver, and see the wages and benefits drivers receive at King County. Apply now!
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Kudos! to Parks and Metro for Trailhead Direct recognitions in Seattle Magazine
Seattle Magazine ran a great Northwest Travel and Outdoors feature story covering Parks’ and Metro’s Trailhead Direct program. With the support of sponsors REI Co-op and Clif Bar, and many partners throughout the region, Trailhead Direct eases vehicle congestion, reduces safety hazards and expands access to hiking destinations along I-90. Seattle Magazine’s piece provides a great overview, a little bit of history, a few impressive KPIs, and news that the program is gaining the attention of other municipalities.
Kudos, Parks and Metro!
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Discover personal savings strategies to create the retirement you want
You and your spouse or significant other are invited to learn more about the King County Deferred Compensation Plan at education sessions offered throughout the year.
In-person sessions are coming up July 17-19. Go online for details and registration. For the complete education schedule and list of webinars, go to the Deferred Compensation web site.
If you have any questions, email KCDeferredComp@KingCounty.gov.
Employee News 