King County #RiseWithUs highlights

Dear Athletes, Coaches, Family Members, Volunteers, Games Partners, Supporters of the Games, and Greater Seattle Community: Thank you! The 2018 USA Games said, ‘Rise with Us’ and you did – with open hearts and minds. You were magnificent hosts. Chairman Tim Shriver, Special Olympics International Over the first week of this month, we hosted approximately 4,000 athletes and coaches, 15,000 volunteers and 70,000 spectators for the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games. We at King County also were the athletes, the coaches, the volunteers, and the spectators – and more! Rama ‘RJT’ Tall… Read More

Family Treatment Court receives third consecutive National Peer Learning Court designation

King County Family Treatment Court is one of eight courts in the country to receive the 2018 National Peer Learning Court designation by Children and Family Futures. Through a rigorous application process, Children and Family Futures designated eight family drug courts to serve as mentors for the National Peer Learning Court program. Having demonstrated commitment to evidence-supported practices, innovative strategies to improve outcomes for children and families, and a strong foundation of collaboration among the court, child welfare, and substance use treatment agencies, the 2018 National Peer Learning Courts will continue helping… Read More

King County GIS Center Senior GIS Cartographer Patrick Jankanish

Patrick Jankanish creates publication-quality map and graphic products for print and online media. Patrick has practiced innovative cartography for more than thirty years in academic, commercial consulting, freelance, and government settings. Whatever the subject matter—parks and recreation, earth sciences, the environment and natural resources, public policy and information, education, transportation, public infrastructure, and more—Patrick takes a holistic approach to cartography that combines bedrock cartographic theory, modern graphic design principles and techniques, always-evolving GIS and graphic arts technology, and the careful crafting of the written word, both linguistically and visually, to achieve effective… Read More

Stormwater mapping in King County: A glimpse into the world of tracking where the rain goes

Crossposted from GIS & You By Greg Babinski Can you imagine a city without storm sewers? In 2007 I experienced what it is like to be in a city without storm sewers during a heavy rainfall. I was starting a trip across Russia in Vladivostok, a beautiful city with friendly people. One morning it rained during breakfast and when I left my hotel to explore the city, I found all the streets flooded calf-deep. In the distance I noticed people taking boards and bricks that had been stacked along sidewalks to create… Read More

Enseñanzas del Data Dive Latino/a

Crossposted from Best Starts for Kids Part 4 of our Community Owned Data blog series This is the fourth post in our month-long Community Owned Data series we are doing to highlight our learnings from the Best Starts for Kids Health Survey. We brought the data to specific communities in the form of “data dives,” asked what they thought, and learned a lot from community input and data interpretation! In this post, we hear directly from a facilitator who led a Latino/a data dive event. Each of our eight data dive community… Read More

Pet of the Week: Dobbie

Shared from RASKC’s Adoptable Animals Dobbie is a 1 year and 9 month-old, male domestic shorthair cat (A555736). His adoption color is RED, meaning he is a spirited cat with a fun-loving personality. Dobbie is an energetic kitty looking for an active family or a family who already has an FIV+ confident friend that he can play with. He loves to play with all the toys, lasers, wands, ropes, you name it, and he will play with it! Although he is SUPER affectionate, he prefers if it is on his own terms…. Read More

The sharing of peace

Crossposted from Zero Youth Detention By Linda Robson   How peacemaking circles are changing King County’s juvenile justice system and staff from the inside out “For me, I went to my intro to peacemaking about a year after my father had passed away. And I was close to last on sharing our object, and I had brought a picture of him and me from high school,” said Ashley Mareld, recalling her first foray into the practice of peacemaking circles. “I obviously broke down talking about it—a lot of times people get emotional… Read More

Overseas and service voters

Regardless of where you are in the world, you have the right to cast a ballot in every election and have it arrive on time to be counted. Overseas and service voters have additional voter registration, ballot delivery, and ballot return options. Let your King County expats and servicemembers know the deadline to register to vote online or by mail for the August 7 primary and special election is Friday, July 6 – the end of this week! If you have U.S. friends and family overseas, let them know they can learn… Read More

Joseph Rivers: Metro operator and Special Olympics athlete, coach, referee, volunteer and athlete parent

Joseph Rivers is one of King County’s 3,000 Metro Transit operators. He is also a former Special Olympics athlete, current volunteer, has coached and refereed for the games, and is the proud father of two of the athletes competing in this week’s Seattle- and King County-hosted 2018 Special Olympic USA Games! Rivers joined King County Metro General Manager Rob Gannon before the games to announce the partnership between Metro, Sound Transit and Port of Seattle in support of the USA Games. He also discussed the games with KIRO 7 and the Seattle… Read More

Pet tips: Pets and fireworks

Shared from RASKC Fireworks are beautiful to look at, but they can be scary for our pets. The bangs and booms are hard on their sensitive hearing, and even the calmest pet can get upset by the unfamiliar loud noises. To help your pet cope with the noise from fireworks, and reduce the chance that it runs away, Regional Animal Services of King County offers these tips: Keep your pet secured indoors in the quietest room of your home while fireworks are going off. You can also use soothing music or television… Read More