Northwest African American Museum Opens

The first African American Museum devoted to African American history in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and British Columbia opened at the historic Colman School in the Central Area on March 8, 2008. Over 1,000 people joined dignitaries from every level of government to celebrate the museum’s opening. Located at 2300 Massachusetts St. in Seattle, the museum will be open to the public Wednesday through Sunday. King County helped to fund the 36 units of affordable housing connected with the museum building. Visit www.naamnw.org for more information.

King County Comprehensive Plan

This year I have the honor of serving as the Chair of the Growth Management and Natural Resources Committee. In addition to the committee’s usual workload, the committee must conduct a major review of the King County Comprehensive Plan (“Comp Plan”). The Comp Plan is King County’s leading policy document for land use in the unincorporated areas of the county and it sets county policy on major issues such as annexations, transportation, and the environment. The Comp Plan was adopted under the State Growth Management Act in 1994. Technical changes to the Comp Plan can be made once a year, while major updates are only conducted every four years.

I am extremely excited to start a very challenging in-depth review process because in addition to the land use, transportation, and environmental policies that have already made King County a national standard bearer for regional planning, there are some innovate and groundbreaking policy amendments which will be considered as part of the Comp Plan. These proposed policies include:

• Integration of the Equity and Social Justice Initiative with our land use policies. We will be looking at how we can create social and economic opportunities for people through land use reforms.

• a new program to allow private rural property owners to sell their rights to develop their land to developers in the urban and higher density areas,

• the county’s first program to perform a project level analysis for greenhouse gases and carbon emissions under the state environmental protection regulations,

• a new policy to reduce the county’s greenhouse gas emissions to 80% of current levels by 2050

I invite your full participation in the review process of the Comp plan. We have scheduled five community meetings for those purposes. Please visit our web site for a schedule of those meetings.

King County Kicks off Equity & Social Justice Initiative

On Sunday, February 10, 2008, King County Executive Ron Sims wrote an op-ed piece in the Seattle Times announcing King County’s Equity & Social Justice Initiative. This initiative is a result of comprehensive studies conducted nationally by a number of entities, including the Dellums Commission, the Urban Institute, the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health.

Studies show that the color of one’s skin and living environment has a direct and profound correlation to their length and quality of life. Infant mortality, birth weight, access to healthcare, education, likelihood of being incarcerated, income, susceptibility to certain life threatening disease and life expectancy are some of the outcomes tied to an individual’s race, right here in Martin Luther King County. For example, our Department of Public Health in 2000 pointed out that the average resident in Mercer Island lived ten years longer than the average resident in the Central Area of Seattle.

This initiative calls upon those of us who are your elected officials to do everything within our power to assure that King County government integrates and performs our various functions in a manner that facilitates environmental stewardship, equity of opportunity and quality of life for all. I look forward as the Chair of the Growth Management and Natural Resources Committee to incorporating policies from this initiative in the Comprehensive Plan.

Read more about King County’s Equity & Social Justice Initiative.

King County Civil Rights Commission Seeks Applicants for District Two

The Martin Luther King, Jr. County Civil Rights Commission is accepting applications for commissioners and would like to encourage individuals in King County Council District 2 to consider public service on the Commission. Members are nominated by Councilmembers representing each of the King County Council Districts, while the remaining three serve as at-large members, selected by the County Executive.

For more information on the Commission, please visit: http://www.metrokc.gov/dias/crc. To locate your Council District, please visit: http://www.kingcounty.gov/council.aspx. For more information please contact Paula Harris-White, Administrator at 206-296-8610 or Paula.Harris-White@kingcounty.gov.