King County’s commitment to Equity and Social Justice is taking another step forward with the creation of an Office of Equity and Social Justice. “This has been a progression. It has become one of the priorities for our leadership, especially for our Executive Dow Constantine. It’s essential to what he and our other County leaders are trying to accomplish,” said Matías Valenzuela, the Director of the Office of Equity and Social Justice (ESJ). What started as an initiative by former County Executive Ron Sims has now evolved into a sustained effort that… Read More

Protecting Our Waters is King County’s program to prevent pollution caused by excess stormwater in the sewer system on rainy days. The older parts of King County’s wastewater system use a single set of pipes to carry both sewage and rain running off streets and buildings. Most of the time, this polluted water goes to a wastewater treatment plant. But in heavy rains, the pipes can overflow into rivers, lakes, or Puget Sound. Overflow points called “combined sewer overflows” or CSOs are built into the system. CSOs prevent sewer backups into homes… Read More

Once a month, on his own time, part-time Metro Transit operator David Waggoner (East Base) takes friends from the Issaquah Senior Center on bus trips that, he feels, profoundly improve their lives. “Just because you belong to a senior center doesn’t mean that the next thing is that you’re in a coffin and next you’re in the ground,” he said recently. “The best thing for seniors is travel.”  He has taken friends on bus rides from Issaquah to downtown Seattle, Northgate, the North Bend outlet stores, and Sea-Tac Airport. “It’s amazing to… Read More

King County’s Human Resources Division (HRD) has launched a new and improved website to help visitors to the site get quick and easy access to the content they are looking for. The new site will make it easier for King County employees, human resources professionals, residents and job seekers to navigate the site and find what they are looking for, quickly and easily. “We wanted to make sure that all visitors to our website, whether they are current employees or possible future employees, have a good experience with our website and leave… Read More

Sometimes workplace issues get to us. Whether it’s stress, a performance issue, conflict with a coworker or any other type of workplace problem, the Employee Assistance Program is there for all King County employees to use. “We’re on-site, in-house. We’re here for you to deal with work issues,” said Tony Hansen, one of the County’s EAP councilors along with Pam Wyss. “We know the internal resources that we can guide you to and we can help facilitate.” EAP is an in-house resource available to all King County employees that offers tangible strategies and useful resources to resolve workplace problems.

When two teams work closely together for a long time, relations sometimes become challenging as staff and technologies change. This in turn can affect productivity, quality, efficiency, and customer service. That’s exactly what happened between the Department of Transportation’s Fleet Administration and King County Information Technology’s Radio Communication Services (RCS). Both RCS and Fleet work on County vehicles, including all Sheriff’s Office vehicles. RCS is primarily responsible for installing radios and hooking up lighting, and Fleet is responsible for maintaining the vehicles and installing additional add-ons required by the Sheriff’s Office.

This fall, Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) celebrated the two-year anniversary of its Bright Ideas program which encourages employees to submit their ideas for efficiencies and continuous improvement through an online tool. Since the program started, almost 700 ideas to create a more efficient, productive workplace were submitted – which indicates a solid level of interest and engagement in the program among employees. Approved ideas have created notable improvements in many areas, such as: streamlined processes for customers; money-saving approaches to maintenance; solutions to equipment issues; and better communication with people from the… Read More

The Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) “Bright Ideas” program is a system for continuous improvement through employee ideas. Employees can submit and track their ideas through an online tool. This year, the Water Environment Federation (WEF), an international wastewater industry leader, awarded Stanley Caberto, master industrial maintenance mechanic, the “Gadget Guru Award for Resourcefulness” for three inventions he created that help keep vital facilities running smoothly. Also included in the Ingenuity contest as finalists who found “an imaginative, inventive and resourceful solution to a pesky problem”: 1) WTD’s branding team who developed the… Read More

Day or night, King County Metro Transit’s wreckers respond to trouble calls and emergencies. They push, pull, lift, or tow, whatever it takes to get buses and traffic moving and Metro’s riders to their destinations. Metro has single wreckers stationed at each of its outlying bus bases (North, East, and South), but Atlantic Base has two—referred to as Atlantic 1 and Atlantic 2—to support the three Seattle core bases (Ryerson, Central, and Atlantic) and the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. These downtown Seattle wreckers and their crews have their work cut out for them, including responding… Read More

As the County’s Investment Officer, Mike Smith manages an investment portfolio worth an average of $5 billion.  With the safety of $5 billion at stake, Mike depends heavily on assistance from his colleagues Christine Denis and Josh Freese in managing the King County Investment Pool. In keeping with the County’s goals of financial stewardship and being the best-run government in the nation, Smith and his colleagues focus on the three ideals for public investing: safety, liquidity, and return. “You want to keep the principal safe, you want to make sure money is… Read More