June 2014 newsletter

School District Listening Tour starts in Highline

To advance his goals of building equity and ensuring children arrive at school ready to learn, the Executive visited Highline Public Schools to hear from teachers, administrators, and students.

It was the first stop on a listening tour that will bring him to every school district in King County.

At Waskowitz Environmental Leadership School in Burien (pictured), the Exec engaged in a panel discussion hosted by students and learned how the combination of outdoor research, classroom learning, and leadership opportunities helps them learn and grow.

Follow the Exec's listening tour as we visit more school districts throughout King County.

Exec, Governor demand action on Victoria's sewage treatment

For more than 20 years, the greater Victoria area has been releasing untreated sewage into our shared waterways in the Puget Sound and San Juan Islands. At the same time, King County has invested billions in secondary treatment to keep our water clean.

In a joint letter to the British Columbia Premier, Executive Constantine and Governor Inslee called on local officials to honor their long-standing agreement to build a sewage treatment plant.

"As the Governor of the state of Washington and the Executive of King County, we are very concerned by the lack of progress in treating wastewater and protecting the health and habitat of Puget Sound," they wrote.

To understand how the flow of raw sewage is polluting our waters, watch this KING 5 story and read the letter from the Executive and Governor, which calls on British Columbia to live up to its agreement from 1993.

Integrate Sound Transit and Metro to focus on customers, says Exec

It is essential for transit agencies with overlapping jurisdictions like Sound Transit and Metro to work together and fully integrate their services to provide a seamless rider experience.

To accomplish this, Executive Constantine issued an executive order to Metro and proposed a motion to the Sound Transit Board, which he also chairs. Better connecting Link light rail and RapidRide high-frequency buses to our entire bus network and other transportation modes will result in faster, more reliable trips and increased overall mobility.

"Constantine sees a future where Seattle has truly world-class transit. He's not content to preserve Metro and Sound Transit's current service level; he wants to make them much, much better. That's a vision that we can get behind," writes The Urbanist.