Featured Headlines
Holiday travel? Metro will help you get there
Emergency exercise tests communications ahead of World Cup
King County Wins 2025 Geospatial Professional Network Award for Innovative AI-GIS System
Recognizing the service of Metro veterans
News
Get Ready for Winter Weather at Home
Please take a moment to ensure you are prepared for winter weather at home: Make an emergency plan and assemble an emergency kit. Buy flood insurance now if you live in an area prone to flooding. It takes 30 days for a policy to take effect. Review your current policy; a standard insurance policy typically doesn’t cover flood damage. Have a plan to relocate your family and any pets or livestock out of harm’s way. Purchase an inexpensive battery-operated or hand-crank radio and fresh batteries so you can receive urgent news day… Read More
Ebola outbreak and Annual Giving Drive
Dear fellow King County employee: As you know, the Ebola outbreak has caused devastating loss of life and decimated families in West Africa. The World Health Organization estimates 10,000 new cases of Ebola could occur every week by December if the virus is not contained. With our Public Health department leading the way, we in King County are prepared in the event that the Ebola virus should ever come to Washington State. Our experts tell us that the most effective way to prevent the virus from spreading is to support the communities… Read More
Kudos! Ruth Ann Dunn, Metro Transit Operator
Greetings Harold [Taniguchi, Director, Department of Transportation], I am writing to let you know that tonight, your bus operator, route 17 bus #2737, was excellent at working with a rider with special needs. She was able to diffuse a potentially difficult interaction between passengers, and develop a trust with this young man in a very short time. Her calm and caring command, her extra helpfulness, and lack of judgmental treatment, helped all of us riders. I am sure that this young man left the bus with a little less anxiety and a little more… Read More
Equity and Social Justice Fair coming Nov. 20
On Thursday, Nov. 20, King County will host an Equity and Social Justice (ESJ) Fair to showcase ESJ work efforts, results, and future plans across all of our departments and agencies. The ESJ Fair has three goals: Build internal awareness of the ESJ ordinance among all King County employees; Showcase recent and current activities and the results of our ESJ work; and Share information and activities across departments in order to learn from each other, stimulate additional action, and inform future work efforts. What can you do to help? Share your ideas… Read More
County archivists preserve, celebrate our history
Within King County Archives’ climate controlled vault resides the first record of marriage in Seattle, the minutes of an 1853 County Commissioners’ proceedings for the Washington Territory and a blueprint of a 1915 King County Ferry. The documents were just a few of the artifacts Archives chosen to highlight for the nonprofit Historical Seattle’s workshop called “Digging Deeper.” The King County Archives was the last stop in the six month series where participants visited a different archive each month to get a behind-the-scenes look into research materials in the many archives in Seattle and King County. “They wanted to increase their members’ comfort level with conducting searches within the archives,” Carol Shenk,… Read More
Five Questions with Theresa Roscoe, Career Support Services Manager, Human Resources Division
1. What was your first role at King County? I began my career at King County 25 years ago as a temporary receptionist for the Office of Civil Rights, after identifying the County as an organization where I felt I could learn and further my career. During my career at King County I worked in Human Resources, the Executive Office and in Transit. 2. What do you do as Manager of Career Support Services? My role is to manage the day-to day activities of the Career Support Services staff. As part of my… Read More
KCEGP Nonprofit Expos provide quality connections between nonprofits and employees
The King County Employee Giving Program (EGP) hosted five Nonprofit Expos in September and October to help employees get a better understanding of how their contributions to the Annual Giving Drive have a real impact on the lives of people and animals, on the arts, and on the environment, both here and abroad. The Nonprofit Expos featured more than 140 nonprofit organizations and reached more than 800 employees directly from every King County department and Separately Elected office. “The Nonprofit Expos are about enabling quality conversations between employees and nonprofits,” said Junelle… Read More
Emergency Sign Language at your fingertips
Does your work ever require a sign language interpreter to assist a customer in an emergency situation? The Emergency Sign Language Interpreter Program (ESLIP) provides sign language interpreters for emergency and time-sensitive situations on a 24-hour basis, every day for King County and City of Seattle programs. These services are provided to ensure effective communication during emergency encounters and situations with individuals who are Deaf, Deaf-Blind, or hard of hearing using on-call interpreters. Situations when ESLIP interpreters should be called include, but are not limited to:
Macklemore speaks at 20-year celebration of Drug Court
King County’s Drug Diversion Court celebrated 20 years of changing lives yesterday at an event at King County Courthouse. Drug Diversion Court is a rigorous minimum 11-month, four-phase program that holds participants accountable for their sobriety. Drug Court participants are required to meet with a Drug Court judge once every two weeks, go to chemical dependency treatment three times a week and are randomly drug tested twice a week. The celebration, dubbed “20 Years of Changing Lives,” was attended by County Executive Dow Constantine, King County Councilmembers Kathy Lambert and Larry Gossett, U.S…. Read More
KCIT employee gets some help from technology and four-legged friend
Next time you contact KCIT for email or SharePoint help, you may be talking to an employee who has a four-legged friend helping him in his work day. Dan Johnson, a Systems Engineer with King County’s Department of Information Technology, has been with the County since 1997, initially in the KCIT Help Desk, and now supporting a range of Exchange email, SharePoint and cloud-based services for employees. “My work focus has expanded far beyond Exchange email to include unified communications, the Office 365 suite, and distributed administration and security,” Dan said. “I used… Read More
Get to know four participants in 2014 Annual Giving Drive
Whether your passion is protecting animals, improving literacy, preventing hunger, helping seniors or young people, or supporting the arts, there are more than 950 participating nonprofit organizations that you can choose to contribute to in the 2014 Annual Giving Drive, which kicked off September 24. If you make a pledge to any of the more than 950 nonprofit organizations by 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24, you will be entered into a random drawing for two lift tickets to Stevens Pass. If you have already made a pledge, you will be automatically… Read More
Kudos! Vickie S. Stanley, Metro Transit Operator
We took bus 7037 on route 14 Saturday, June 28th. We accidentally went the wrong direction but the bus driver, Vickie Stanley, was so helpful. She recognized we were from out-of-town and pointed out the sights we went by. And she assured us she would help us find our stop. She even offered to meet us later with coupons to get discount prices at the tourist places. We exchanged phone numbers and plan to keep in touch, especially if she ever makes it to Arizona. A bus driver became a fast friend… Read More
Ebola information and resources
As you know, the news coverage from Dallas and West Africa has heightened community concerns about Ebola. Public Health has been actively working to provide information and guidance to King County residents, health care providers, and partner agencies. They also want all King County employees to be up-to-date with information and resources about Ebola. First, it’s important to know that no one in King County has Ebola and health officials have determined that the risk of an outbreak is extremely low. Although the healthcare system is getting ready to quickly identify and… Read More
Teachers get Public Health immersion to help student career choices
Two high school teachers spent an intense eight days with Public Health’s Environmental Health Services division (EH) – and set the stage for teaching students about career opportunities in Public Health. Each teacher shadowed eight different staff in EH. They learned about food and facilities, solid waste and hazardous waste materials, how information technology serves the mission, and more. The teachers are part of a Teacher Externship Program sponsored by the Washington Alliance for Better Schools which is affiliated with 11 school districts. The program trained 22 local teachers in Science, Technology, Engineering… Read More
Five Questions with Roxanne Vierra, Disability Compliance Specialist, Office of Civil Rights & Open Government
1. What was your first role at King County? I’d previously worked 10 years at the U.W. Disabled Student Services office, then 10 years at the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, where my position included primarily fair housing investigations and a bit of public disability access. When I was offered this job with King County 16 years ago, I was excited because it allowed me to use my Disability Specialist experience in a more active way. While I still handle fair housing enforcement and outreach, my role as Disability Compliance Specialist enables… Read More
Employee Giving Campaign comes to Renton
All King County employee are invited to meet some 30 nonprofit organizations at the Employee Giving Program Renton Expo at Elections on Oct. 8 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and learn more about how their dollars can help our community, A sampling of Expo offerings: Have a wacky or serious picture taken at a photo booth Enter to win prizes, including “Fitbits” Sample bake sale goodies and support Northwest Harvest And more! Check out #KCEGPEXPO in social media to follow what’s happening at Expos. Last year, Elections employees pledged more than $18,000 through the Annual… Read More
King County employee a published author
King County employees do lots of interesting things in their “other lives” in addition to the work they do for King County. We’re sharing some of their stories in our “Other Lives” series. While waiting for a flight to San Diego after her father had died, Donna Miscolta started writing a novel. “I was thinking of my father who had come to the United States as an immigrant. He had never really talked about his experiences in the Philippines or his early years as an immigrant,” Miscolta said. “I sort of used… Read More
Former Marine finds new way to serve community
After two Iraq tours in the Marine Corps, Gavriel Jacobs’ plan was to pursue a career in law enforcement. “I wanted to come back from Iraq and the Middle East to go from serving my country to serving my community and really planned on joining the Seattle Police or Washington State Patrol,” Jacobs said. But when he lost his leg below the knee in combat and spent a year in the hospital, he had to rethink his career goals.
Join us in celebrating Disability Awareness Month
October is Disability Awareness Month, and it’s a great time to raise awareness and learn more about the work that King County does to provide opportunities for all individuals to participate, contribute and thrive in our communities. Attend a lunch and learn event Invisible Voices: What Do You Think of When You Hear the Word Disability? (video + discussion) | Thursday, October 16, noon – 2 p.m. Chinook Building, Room 121, 401 Fifth Avenue, Seattle | Presenter: Roxanne Vierra, Disability Compliance Specialist, King County Office of Civil Rights & Open Government | Contact Roxanne.Vierra@kingcounty.gov to… Read More
Planned System Outage for PeopleSoft Upgrade
The PeopleSoft system will be shut down after 6 p.m. on Thursday, October 2 and will remain down until 6 a.m. on Monday, October 6. During this time, the PeopleSoft Upgrade Project team will be completing the tasks necessary to complete the final steps of upgrading the PeopleSoft applications from version 9.0 to version 9.2. The system will not be available for access by any County staff. Many of you have shortcuts on your desktop and/or favorites stored in your internet browsers with the link to the current PeopleSoft 9.0 environment. As… Read More
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