King County Council Vice-Chair Jeanne Kohl-Welles

Welcome!

I have been honored to serve on the King County Council since January, 2016, after having been elected to succeed Councilmember Larry Phillips when he retired after 23 years of service. I was re-elected to my position in 2019, and truly love representing the people of District 4 and beyond on the County Council.

I have always worked collaboratively to achieve common-sense solutions on tough issues. And the toughest by far was serving as Chair of the Budget and Fiscal Management Committee in 2020 and 2021 — a position responsible for leading on all our budgets, including the biennial and supplemental budgets. Because of the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this has been an extremely challenging undertaking. In 2020, we passed a record eight budgets! These included the County’s 2021-2022 biennial budget, two omnibus supplemental budgets to the 2019-2020 biennial budget, and five emergency COVID supplemental budgets. All of these budgets were unanimously approved by my colleagues. In 2021, we approved four emergency COVID supplemental budgets in response to the ongoing pandemic as well as two omnibus supplemental budgets to the 2021-2022 biennial budget.

My goals as an elected leader continue to reflect equity and social and racial justice, as well as economic opportunity. These goals include addressing income equality and tax fairness; eliminating disproportionality in our juvenile and adult criminal legal systems; providing for affordable housing, health — including mental and behavioral health — and substance abuse services, and homelessness programs; expanding protections against domestic and sexual violence; working toward environmental justice and sustainability; increasing mobility and congestion relief; and electrifying our fleet and expanding our electric vehicle infrastructure.