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The historic Participatory Budgeting effort has received another major award, and this particular accolade brings special significance.

Local Services received a Performance Excellence Award from King County Executive Dow Constantine. The series of awards honor employees and workgroups at King County who bring a Best-Run Government approach to their work, and have made exceptional contributions in performance, leadership, and innovation.

Specifically, Local Services Director’s Office won the Equity, Racial & Social Justice Innovation Award, which recognizes Participatory Budgeting for achieving exceptional improvement results and making the county a place where every person can thrive.

Continue reading Participatory Budgeting wins King County Executive’s Equity, Racial & Social Justice Innovation Award!

The U.S. Small Business Administration has bestowed a prestigious honor on the owner of a popular Syrian food cart on Vashon Island.

Safa Jneidi, co-owner of Iyad’s Syrian Grill, was named the SBA Seattle District Young Entrepreneur of the Year!

Continue reading Economic Development: Vashon Island Syrian food cart owner named U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2023 Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Local Services’ Participatory Budgeting program has received an international accolade for the way it helped spread the word to the community.

The department won a National Association of Government Communicators’ Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Award for the blog post/news releases that it produced for Participatory Budgeting!

Continue reading Local Services gets National Association of Government Communicators award for Participatory Budgeting

Participatory Budgeting is back! This month, Local Services announced the 29 steering committee members from its five urban, unincorporated areas who will help guide $11 million in community driven funding.

Following a successful first round to community driven funding, King County has launched another round of Participatory Budgeting. Today it announced the more than two-dozen residents from its urban, unincorporated areas who will help guide Participatory Budgeting this time around.

Continue reading King County selects Participatory Budgeting steering committee members

Following a historic first round of community driven funding, Participatory Budgeting is back.

Continue reading DEADLINE EXTENDED: Participatory Budgeting returns for another round, seeks applicants to serve on new steering committee

Local Services’ goal of empowering residents to determine how money is spent in their neighborhoods just got a valuable addition.

Recently, we welcomed Jacques Imperial as the Participatory Budgeting program’s new Administrator. In her new position, Jacques will help Program Manager Gloria Briggs, who is currently seeking applicants to serve on the program’s Steering Committee for 2023-24.

Continue reading Participatory Budgeting program welcomes Jacques Imperial

While unincorporated King County boasts a diverse array of businesses, they have plenty in common with each other.

It’s why King County Local Services has partnered with community organizations to help form the Unincorporated King County Economic Alliance. As Executive Dow Constantine announced last week, this new program will further help businesses and individuals recover and thrive as the region continues to emerge from the economic slowdown of the last three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Watch the video for a peek inside the Alliance’s first meeting last month)

Continue reading Local Services celebrates launch of Unincorporated King County Economic Alliance

In 2022, King County Local Services met challenges and adapted to change to deliver local government services to the unincorporated areas.

As the region and country continued to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, Local Services found itself back in the areas it serves. We worked with our communities and took other steps to make sure we could get back to business as usual, at least as much as we could. We were even honored for these efforts throughout the year, including winning national awards.

As our department and the communities we serve in unincorporated King County get ready to start a new year, let’s take a moment to celebrate some of the things we accomplished together in 2022.

Continue reading Local Services Top 10 accomplishments of 2022

The King County Conservation Corps teamed with community members to clean trash and litter in Fall City near the Snoqualmie River this week.

Several community members requested a cleanup of the area under S.R. 202, and Local Services dispatched a Conservation Corps crew. Over two days, crew members removed 2,800 pounds of trash, debris, wood, broken glass, appliances and other items that were illegally dumped (check out pictures that show just some of the litter that was collected, as well as the now-cleaned area under the bridge).

Continue reading Conservation Corps, community members clean under bridge in Fall City near Snoqualmie River

We’ve reached another milestone in the Participatory Budgeting process – the first of dozens of projects that voters chose during a history vote this year has become reality.

The Cemetery Pond Open Space area in East Renton has received $50,000 to acquire critical green infrastructure.

Continue reading Another milestone: First Participatory Budgeting project chosen by voters will expand Cemetery Pond Open Space area in East Renton