Our thoughts on the West Point Independent Review Report
Crossposted from Clean Water Stories
As promised last spring, the King County Council has publicly shared the results of an independent review of our West Point Treatment Plant operations.
The report took an unbiased look at our operations and maintenance practices as part of an effort to learn from what happened at West Point on Feb. 9, 2017, when severe storms and high flows led to flooding and serious equipment damage.
We agree with the report’s findings, which include a number of recommendations to improve plant operations, increase system redundancy, and strengthen employee safety and training.
Read more from Clean Water Stories
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Employee is proud to provide excellent customer service to King County residents
Pictured: From left, author Jimmy’a Carter and Teesha Bailey.
By Jimmy’a (jih-MY-uh) Carter, a summer intern for the Executive’s Office Customer Service team. Jimmy’a, a 16 year old who will be a junior this fall at West Auburn High School, plans to attend a four-year college and get a degree in youth counseling. She joins us from the Bridge to Prosperity mentoring program.
What do a fancy clothing store and King County have in common? For Teesha Bailey, serving store customers helped her transition to serving county customers. She currently works as a Confidential Secretary with the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) for Director Adrienne Quinn.
But two years ago, she was working at Neiman Marcus as a customer service representative for high-end customers: answering their questions, resolving complaints, handling sales and billing issues, and answering switchboard calls.
It kept her busy, but she really wanted a job where she could make the community better in a department that fit her need to help people. That’s why she had always wanted to work for the county, and because she had family and friends there who liked their jobs. They suggested that she apply.
She got the job, and now she supports DCHS and all of its divisions with administrative work on big projects like the Veterans and Human Services Levy and Best Start for Kids. They are also working with schools to try to help children who have made mistakes by showing them what they’ve done wrong and how to make better choices, instead of putting them in detention. Teesha also helps to support the Executive Office when they have issues that connect to DCHS.
She said she likes being an advocate for the community in government, and working to create more equity in King County so that everyone is treated the same, gets paid the same wage, and gets the same opportunities, no matter their skin color, culture, or background.
What stands out to me most about Teesha Bailey’s work is how she wants to help people and children who may not have been treated fairly, by connecting them with programs to improve their lives. She believes her persistence is what got her here today and she loves her work and would not change a thing, except to have opportunities to do even more to help the community.
Teesha has come a long way from selling fancy clothes, but she’s still committed to providing great service to her new customers in King County.
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Metro employee gets to “Be the boss”
By Hannah Debenedetto, intern with King County Department of Transportation
What would you do if you were boss for the day? Metro’s Gerald Freeman found out after winning an employee sweepstakes to “be the boss” of KCDOT Director Harold Taniguchi.
As a marketing specialist, Gerald is regularly at community events to help customers sign up for ORCA cards or to answer their questions. This month, Harold joined him for an afternoon helping customers in Metro’s booth at Kent Cornucopia Days.
“Harold jumped right into engaging people, answering questions, and referring people to me when he didn’t know the answer,” said Gerald,
Through the Employee Giving Program, a service connecting King County employees with nonprofits, Gerald’s name was entered into a drawing with almost 300 other participants. To be eligible, employees had to spend time learning about the Employee Giving Program.
Gerald said he would love to have Harold’s help again, especially if he could bring Metro’s General Manager Rob Gannon and County Executive Dow Constantine along too.
Rob has his work cut out for him. He has completed one of three assignments, sitting in on employee interviews with Josh Isgur, a Human Resources analyst. He’ll complete the others in coming months. Three employees total won separate drawings to be his boss. In addition to Josh, there is Berni Hendrickson, an employee in Metro’s distribution center and Lanie Curry, a Human Resources associate in King County’s Drug and Alcohol program. Rob plans to report to his shifts in the coming months.
Thanks to all participants who took time to learn about the Employee Giving Program, and congratulations to the winners, you’re the Boss!
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Reducing customer wait times with Check the Line
With an on-the-go lifestyle, customers are looking for ways to reduce waiting in lines.
Web cameras at King County’s Algona, Bow Lake, Factoria, Houghton, Renton and Shoreline recycling and transfer stations help customers plan their trips using www.kingcounty.gov/checktheline, which shows the line of vehicles waiting to enter the facilities and facility wait times.
Solid Waste Division (SWD) Special Projects Manager Alejandra Calderon was the lead on the project, and oversaw implementation and outreach of the web cams at the six transfer stations.
Alejandra emphasized the practicality of the mobile-friendly website and its functionality: “What we wanted to do was improve the customer experience at our transfer stations. By installing a web camera that shows the line leading up to the scale house allows customers to go online and check how long the line is. We wanted to give customers the ability to make a more informed decision about when they should make the trip to dispose of their garbage and recycling.”
With a mobile-responsive web layout, customers can enjoy a seamless experience from desktop view to mobile view. Photos of transfer station entrances are updated every 60 seconds and feature a disposal wait time after weigh-in. Customers can determine if visiting another facility might potentially cut down on their wait time.
“It’s just a really customer service focused aspect; we wanted to make it easier for them and also drive some more information online. This platform works well on a mobile phone as well, so you can check it right before you leave, just to make that really good decision,” added Alejandra enthusiastically.
In addition to installing web cameras at the six urban locations and displaying wait times on the website, SWD also installed reader boards outside of the scale house to inform customer of the average wait time, “from when they weigh in, to the tipping floor – which is where you dump your garbage – dump, get back in, come out and weigh out at the scale” said Alejandra. Customers are charged for the weight difference of the loaded vehicle to when it’s empty.
“Our goal was to speed up the time people spent at our transfer station,” Alejandra added. “That included having our transfer station operators help doing some unloading for people that had difficulties; it included putting up signs at transfer stations with wait times.”
Shoreline Recycling and Transfer Station
To get the word out about the new service, Alejandra and SWD Communications Specialist II Matt Manguso teamed up for outreach efforts. Alejandra and Matt worked together to develop paid Facebook ads, in both English and Spanish, that introduced the service to customers in King County and encouraged them to “Go Online to Check the Line.” Other outreach efforts included sponsoring radio traffic reports and announcing the new service through newsletters, press releases, and social media.
“We really wanted to inform as many people as possible about this new service,” said Matt. “The Facebook ads and radio sponsorships allowed us to get this message out to a wide-range of King County residents and our customers, and since the service is on our website, it made sense to focus a lot of efforts digitally.”
Since launching the web cam and online service, Alejandra notes that communication efforts are beginning to pay off, but it will be a slow process to convert more people into users: “we’re starting to hear people are familiar with it, but I think it’s one of those things that will take a while for people to catch on to. But, it’s a great tool because our stations fluctuate a lot on demand and how many people are using it at the time.”
Variables such as weather, time of year and traffic congestion can trigger fluctuations in wait times, so in order to avoid long lines at transfer stations, customers are encouraged to make use of Check the Line tool.
“It’s just a good tool, I think, for people who use it on a normal basis. Small businesses especially will find it helpful. For example if a landscaper is getting ready to head to a station they can check the line on their phone and decide whether they should go to the station now because the line is short, or do a few more houses and wait for the wait time to decrease,” said Alejandra.
In addition to taking on a proactive approach to boost customer experience, Alejandra mentioned that this service can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by keeping cars off the roads during peak times. Using technological enhancements to improve county services, while making a conscious effort to protect the environment, showcases why King County is a Best-Run Government.
Alejandra attributes the fruition of the website and launch on October 1, 2016 to KCIT: “We really need to give credit to the people we worked with at KCIT, it was definitely a partnership. They do websites, they do all that. They took our ideas of how we wanted the site to look, how it should function, and did an incredible job of bringing it to life. They also worked really hard to make sure everything was ready to go by our launch date.
Camera feeds, disposal times, facility locations, hours of operation, and directions can be found at www.kingcounty.gov/checktheline.
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Searching for identity, author earns recognition with story collection
Donna Miscolta, recipient of the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction, West-Pacific.
King County employee by day and published author by evening, Donna Miscolta writes novels and short stories inspired by anecdotes that she has witnessed or heard about in her family or within her community.
“I take that tiny, true piece and turn it into fiction,” Miscolta said. “From there, it takes on a life of its own, and it’s not really about any specific person, and yet many people recognize a part of themselves in these stories.”
Her latest work, “Hola and Goodbye,” is a collection of stories inspired by her grandmother’s journey as an immigrant in the United States; Miscolta explores the effects of assimilation common to immigrant families, which she hopes attracts readers from all walks of life.
“My grandmother came from Mexico in the 1920’s and she never learned to speak English, so I explored the dynamic of Spanish disappearing by the third generation,” Miscolta said, whose heritage is Mexican and Filipino. “It raises the question: what kind of things are lost in the process of moving to a new country and establishing a new life with new language, culture and traditions.”
Book Cover of Hola and Goodbye
As a result of Miscolta winning the Doris Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman, the sponsor, Carolina Wren Press, published Miscolta’s “Hola and Goodbye,” which has generated more attention than she could have imagined possible. The book is a finalist for an International Latino Book Award.
Recently, Miscolta was nominated for 2017 Best of Seattle Reader Poll in the Best Author category, which came as a surprise to her.
“It was quite a surprise and an honor to be on the list with some famous authors, among them Sherman Alexie, Lindy West, Maria Semple, and Domingo Martinez, who was a finalist for the National Book Award several years ago,” Miscolta said.
For Miscolta, this will be an event-packed summer, including speaking appearances in Port Townsend, San Diego, Los Angeles and Missoula MT. More information about these events can be found at donnamiscolta.com.
“It will be nice to see my book in a different geographical environment,” Miscolta said. “Much of the promotion so far has been done in WA and CA.”
Her awards and accolades include the Gold Medal at the Independent Publishers Book Award in New York City, a presenter at the Women’s Museum in San Diego, and readings in Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Awards like these validate Miscolta’s hard work and dedication to her craft. She is even more determined now to finish her next novel, which is currently in the works. Her first novel, “When the de la Cruz Family Danced,” was published in 2011.
“What it does, is it makes me feel like people out there are listening and it makes me want to get more work out in the world,” Miscolta said. “I’m working on another manuscript, which is based on a story titled “Strong Girls” that appears in the collection.
Nearing thirty years with King County, Miscolta conducts outreach programming for students at King County schools about waste reduction, recycling and resource conservation in the Recycling and Environmental Services section in the Solid Waste Division. Through the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program, she is also working on a project with the Latino community on hazardous products education.
King County is a proud supporter of employee personal and professional development.
Best of luck of with your newest manuscript, Donna!
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Tech Tip: Identifying and reporting scams and malicious emails
By Ralph Johnson, Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer
Ralph Johnson, Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer
On July 6, 2017 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an alert on scammers posing as FTC officials who contact individuals and claim they have won prizes from a charity contest. The scammers ask for money to cover taxes or insurance costs associated with the prize. While this is a new malicious campaign, scammers use these basic tactics time and time again with slightly different wording to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals. It may seem like a day doesn’t go by without scammers contacting you online or by phone seeking money and/or personal information. Since this is so commonplace, it is worth exploring how to identify these schemes, and how to go about reporting them in the event that scammers target you.
Identifying the scam
Two common financial schemes involve coercing individuals into paying money to prevent a negative outcome, such as a tax audit or police investigation, or asking the individual to pay a fee up front to claim a prize. A third type of scam seeks individuals’ personally identifiable information (PII), such as Social Security numbers and birthdates, to commit identity theft. Individuals providing information to scammers may suffer large financial losses, as well as negative impacts to their credit. It is important that you know how to spot these scams so you can easily ignore them.
One final thing to be aware of is that scammers create convincing emails that may look like official communication from your employer, bank, credit card issuer, or a retailer. These emails often include a link to a very convincing, yet fraudulent website that will ask you to log in with your username and password. If you provide your credentials, the criminal can then use them to gain access to your legitimate account. From there, they can steal your personal information or generate fraudulent transactions. If you ever receive an email asking you to click a link to log in and update your account or change your information, be safe and use your browser to directly type in the legitimate website address for that account in order to complete this request. By doing this, you will always be sure you are on the right website.
Scammers constantly target individuals by email, false advertisements, and phone calls to bring these types of scams to fruition. Being wary of any communication that meets any of the above criteria will go a long way in keeping your information and money safe!
Reporting scams
Finally, it is very important that targets of online or phone scams report this to the proper authorities. Although it can be a bit embarrassing to have been hit by such a crime, reporting is the only way to direct investigators and regulators to pursue the criminals behind the scam or identity theft. Aside from reporting the scam to law enforcement, it is important to work with your bank, credit card issuer, or the business where your account was compromised to take the necessary steps in preventing further financial loss.
If you are the target of a financial scam, report it to the FTC at www.ftc.gov/complaint. If this scam was via email or over the Internet, also file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov/complaint.
Targets of identity theft can also file a report at www.identitytheft.gov and receive a recovery plan detailing how to move forward based on the type of scam committed.
It’s most likely a scam if you…
- Have to pay money to claim a “prize” or “winnings”
- Are asked for money to stop or prevent a police, FBI, or other federal investigation
- Have to provide your bank account number and information
- Are specifically asked to purchase any form of prepaid gift card to be used as payment
- Are approached with no prior contact to give out your date of birth, social security number, password, username or other personal sensitive information online or over the phone
- Are approached online or by phone in an unprovoked manner and asked for payment or personal information by someone claiming to be a government employee on official business
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Invasive knotweed control workshops a great success
The early bird gets the worm. This summer, the Riparian Noxious Weed Team offered free workshops on knotweed control for local homeowners.
Pictured: From left, Erin Haley and Sayward Glise.
Knotweed, a noxious bamboo-like plant is growing in backyards, community gardens and most successfully along river systems of King County and throughout North America.
Two project leads that are doing work on King County Rivers are Erin Haley (Green-Duwamish) and Sayward Glise (Cedar River Team).
“We currently have knotweed control projects on the South Fork Skykomish and Tye River, the Upper Snoqualmie River, the Cedar River, and the Green-Duwamish River. In 2016 our team and its contractors treated 17 acres of knotweed and surveyed 2,100 acres,” said Sayward. “Other than control work, the Riparian Team also conducts workshops to homeowners throughout the county on how to successfully control knotweed on their property.”
“KCNWCP has been providing these free homeowner workshops since 2008,” added Sayward.
Learning how to control the spread of knotweed can greatly improve local vegetation, water quality and habitat for fish and wildlife. Also, it can prevent damage to roads, pipes, and building foundations.
“It feels good to provide a service and a resource to empower our community to stop the spread of invasive knotweed,” concluded Erin.
Click here to get more information about current knotweed control projects.
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Senior leaders meet with Veterans Program employees
Two members of King County Executive Dow Constantine’s leadership team visited the King County Veterans Program facility in Belltown, Seattle, last week to learn more about how employees are helping local veterans live healthy and productive lives after their military service has ended.
Pictured: From left, Assistant Division Director for Community Services Division Pat Lemus, Senior Deputy County Executive Fred Jarrett and Program Manager Bryan Fry.
Senior Deputy County Executive Fred Jarrett and Gary Kurihara, Lean Transformation Director, met with Program Manager Bryan Fry and Pat Lemus, Assistant Division Director for Community Services Division, to tour the facility, talk with some employees and find out more about their work.
The King County Veterans Programs serves veterans and current service members at two locations, Seattle and Renton, and assists approximately 2,400 veterans each year, roughly split across the two locations. But the client needs are somewhat different between the two offices.
“About 50% of clients who present to the Seattle office at the time of presentation are homeless, whereas in south King County it’s 25%,” Fry said, explaining that clients in Renton often have more protective factors in place. “They are currently housed but they present with a three day ‘pay or vacate’ notice or they might not be working but they’ve worked within the last year and have a resume and skills that are ready to transition. This client population [in Seattle] is a little bit more in the chronically homeless, high system utilizer population.”
Fry and Lemus discussed the challenges facing veterans and the types of services they can access through the program. They also talked about their goal of bringing stability to the lives of clients so they reach a place where they no longer need to access services.
They also shared the success story of a 72-year-old Air Force veteran who was already struggling to make ends meet on a fixed income with the rising cost of living in King County when his landlord advised him that he was remodeling the building and rents would be going up $400 a month, making it ineligible for housing authority vouchers. So he came to the Veterans Program for help getting back to work.
Pictured: From left, Lean Tranformation Director Gary Kurihara and Social Service Professional Roz Hurskin.
His case manager worked with him on updating his resume and did interview training with him. Within a month he landed a job at SeaTac Airport. Now the program is helping him transition to a new affordable senior housing facility.
Jarrett and Kurihara also spoke with some social work and case work employees, including Fran Nowak, Roz Hurskin and Kenjamine Jackson, to hear their perspectives on the program.
“I am inspired by the dedication of Veterans Services employees and the difference they help local veterans make in their lives, removing barriers and making sure they get the support and services that help them make their lives healthy and successful,” Fred Jarrett, Senior Deputy County Executive, said. “It was a great opportunity to hear some of the stories from these employees about the work they do in connecting veterans to affordable housing, job training and employment opportunities, or behavioral health services, and the difference they make for veterans in our community.”
Executive Constantine has proposed replacing the Veterans and Human Services Levy when it expires at the end of 2017. The Metropolitan King County Council approved legislation putting the Veteran, Seniors and Human Services Levy on the November 7, 2017 General Election ballot.
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Keeping employees safe delivers cost savings
“Prevention is the best cure” might sound like a cliché but it’s an important part of keeping King County employees safe at work and decreasing injury-related costs.
King County’s Safety and Claims section is implementing a multifaceted approach to reduce costs on workers compensation claims and lost work days as a result of occupational injuries and illnesses, and their efforts are delivering an estimated $7 million in annual savings in liabilities – funds that can go to providing services to more customers.
“It’s not any one thing in isolation that is moving the needle for us but a combination of several different programs and strategies,” said Manager of Safety and Claims Tim Drangsholt.
Safety & Health, Claims and Disabilities Services are three main groups that Tim manages that provide confidential assistance to employees both at work and at home – all part of the County’s Investing in You strategy. Their work ranges from ergonomic evaluations to fraud prevention to return-to-work programs for employees recovering from injuries.
“Return-to-work light duty programs create cost-savings for the County and also benefit the injured workers,” Tim said. “All the studies show they recover faster when they get back to work sooner.”
Safety and Claims has also reduced workers’ compensation rates for administrative positions within the County through a robust Ergonomic Evaluation program. Currently, the Safety & Health administrators receive 300-400 requests per year and are an important preventative measure in mitigating injuries and reducing rates among those that work at computer station or office environment.
The Workers’ Compensation Fraud Program has also played a tremendous part in saving King County unnecessary payouts. “Fraud prevention saves King County one to two million dollars,” Tim said.
In addition, Safety and Claims has recently migrated to an electronic claims management system. This has increased team collaboration within the unit as the members are now able to access and update workers’ compensation cases, building a sense of “team effort” in between cases.
Tim credits his team’s head-on approach to reducing costs in workers’ compensation and lost work days in part to King County Executive Dow Constantine’s best-run government mindset.
“I have found that Dow’s leadership in government and Lean thinking have been instrumental,” Tim said. “Once Dow challenged us to become the best-run government, every department – including ours – got the message that we need to do more to become better.”
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Tech Tip: Saying no to 9
Please do not dial “9” when making a “206” area call. A resident with the number “920-6263” is getting many calls intended for King County agencies, as most agency numbers begin with the prefix 263.
When sending a fax, employees who have not yet migrated to using IP fax, should still dial 9 first.
For any issues, please contact the KCIT Service Desk at 206-263-HELP or log a ticket at helpticket@kingcounty.gov
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