At a Seattle Storm basketball game, 80 Zumba instructors performed for the half time show. Sitting in the crowd, Lilian Yetter thought that might be something she’d want to try. “They were looking like they had so much fun. One lady I focused on out of the 80 instructors out there had this big smile on her face, and I was watching her thinking, ‘wow, this is really cool,’” Yetter said. So Yetter joined a local gym to learn Zumba, and was greeted by none other than the Zumba instructor with the… Read More

When Sandy Macdonald isn’t working as a civil rights investigator, he is playing music – as a radio host, producer and in a band. “I just enjoy playing the music and I enjoy being part of live radio,” Macdonald said. An 18-year employee with what is now King County’s Office of Civil Rights and Open Government, Sandy gets in the radio booth every second and fourth Sunday of the month to host 91.3 KBCS’s show, “Sunday Folks” from 9 a.m. to noon. The show describes itself as “A morning mix of traditional… Read More

The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (PAO) completed its annual two-week fundraising project in July called Food Frenzy, which raised $11,600 for Food Lifeline which equals last year’s total. The money will provide 46,400 meals for hungry children. Food Frenzy is a “friendly” competition between law, accounting and engineering firms with the goal of feeding children during the summer months when food bank shelves aren’t well stocked and school lunch programs aren’t running. The PAO again won the competition in the Public Sector category for 2014 and has won in that category for the past… Read More

More than 175 employees stopped by the KCIT Lync Team’s booth on July 23 and 24 to learn more about Lync. Some of the questions we heard were focused on: What’s changed in Lync 2013 compared to 2010 Update on the Outlook contact phone numbers in Lync issue How to get your picture in Lync How to get more information and training.

King County is reducing our impact on the environment by helping residents and businesses increase recycling at County owned transfer stations, keeping reusable and recyclable items out of the landfill. Transfer station recycling is up by 2,057 tons or 49 percent over the first half of this year, due largely to a 21 percent jump in yard waste recycling, a 60 percent spike in scrap metal recycling, and a more than 400 percent increase in wood waste recycling. These increases are the result of a number of changes, including the full restoration… Read More

When an employee gets injured at work, returning to their job can sometimes be difficult. That’s where King County’s Transitional Duty Assignment Program comes in. The TDA program helps employees who aren’t medically ready to return to their regular jobs because of temporary medical restrictions. A TDA helps employees get back into a work routine through short-term, temporary work assignments. The TDA program, managed by Human Resources Division’s Safety and Claims, partners with work groups throughout King County to identify short-term work assignments that can be performed by employees with temporary medical… Read More

On June 13, Regional Animal Services of King County (RASKC) opened a second Pet Adoption Center. The new Eastside facility is located inside the Kirkland Petco. Since the grand opening, about 50 pets have been adopted from the Eastside center. “This translates to a quarter of our total adoptions during this time period,” said RASKC Operational Manager, Glynis Frederiksen. Seven years ago, only 45 percent of animals in King County shelters were being adopted or returned to their homes. Now the rate of adoption or return in King County is 85 percent…. Read More

A small team of King County employees and many volunteers are making sure that native plants that would be impacted by development projects are finding new homes in revegetation and habitat restoration projects across the county. This season alone, 11,260 native plants were salvaged for the Water and Land Resource Division’s Native Plant Salvage Program. “The cool thing about this is that plants get used all over King County and not just on County-sponsored projects,” said Cindy Young, the ecologist who heads up the program. Volunteers also get to salvage plants for… Read More