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October 2023 Update for District 3
Hello friend, King County Councilmember Sarah Perry here! Our District 3 team has been hard at work this year meeting with local leaders, organizations, and small businesses to learn about and represent what’s truly important to YOU! Our meetings are focused on three main priorities: behavioral health access, environmental protection, and supporting our creative economies!
Behavioral health access
Behavioral health access means ensuring everyone has immediate help in times of a crisis with brain chemistry, including Alzheimer’s, autism, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, schizophrenia, psychosis, or substance use disorder so that these episodes are a blip in their life rather than a catastrophe. Learn more about our work below:
Crisis Care Centers levy
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With the Crisis Care Centers Levy, that voters in King County approved, we will now be able to address our region’s behavioral health crisis through a much more financially and humanely efficient and effective approach than we’ve ever seen.
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Details: This levy will do 3 things: (1) establish a countywide network of five crisis care centers, (2) restores our lost 111 residential treatment beds, and (3) strengthens the community behavioral health workforce by augmenting salaries and paying for certifications.
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The Crisis Care Centers initiative will begin implementation in 2024. Your input is critical to the overall success of the approach so you are being invited to virtual planning meetings so the CCC Implementation Team can listen to your feedback. Below are five ways to get involved now:
Crisis Care Center overview and update
Monthly, 3rd Tuesday, 1-2pm (next meeting 10/17). Hear an overview and update on the CCC planning process. Register here
Crisis Care Center clinical design overview and update
Monthly, 2nd Thursday, 11am-12:30pm (next meeting 10/10). Hear about the CCC clinical design, service, and system integrations. If interested, email CCCLevy@kingcounty.gov.
Crisis Care Center substance use components update
Monthly, 4th Tuesday, 3-4pm (next meeting 10/24). Hear about the CCC substance use components. If interested, email CCCLevy@kingcounty.gov.
Crisis Care Center youth-specific components
Monthly, 4th Wednesday, 1-2pm (next meeting 10/25). Hear an overview on the youth-specific components of the Levy. If interested, email CCCLevy@kingcounty.gov.
Crisis Care Center older adult-specific components
Wednesday, 10/4, 2-3:30pm. Hear an overview on the older adult-specific components of the Levy. Register here
Crisis Connections facility
- 24-Hour Crisis Line: 866-427-4747
- King County 211: 800-621-4636
- Teen Link: 866-833-6546
- WA Recovery Help Line: 866-789-1511
- WA Warm Line: 877-500-9276
Community engagement
- Together Center creates access to human services, so people can find help when they need it. One of the first multi-tenant nonprofit centers in the nation, Together Center works collaboratively to improve efficiencies and to lower barriers to finding help. Here people find help and services at 20+ essential human service agencies and other critical resources.
- The campus is designed to improve housing stability, promote personal agency, elevate health equity, and deliver essential whole-person support across our community.
Sno-Valley Senior Center and Sound Generations
- Created the groundbreaking of 15-units of affordable senior housing right next to the Center in Carnation.
County updates
- County approved a Memorandum of Agreement that provides one-time retention and hiring bonuses to over 72 employees in the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division of the King County Department of Community and Human Services, ensuring that we’re investing in our behavioral health workforce.
- Twenty-two counties, including King County, filed a lawsuit against the State for refusal to provide behavioral health treatment under state law
- Council recognized the Recovery Café, an addiction resources center, and its Executive Director David Coffey as the 2023 King County Recovery Champions.
Creative economies
Creative economies means supporting and promoting art, culture, music, entrepreneurship, science, farming, heritage, and anything generative that ensures a robust and thriving economy for communities throughout our District! Learn more about our work below:
Creative districts
- Since July we’ve been convening monthly meetings with a representative from each city and township in our district to learn more about the ArtsWA Creative District program and to help provide a foundation of knowledge and resources for each of these communities to pursue Creative District certification.
- Meetings have included presentations from:
- The first phase of the Creative District certification process is known as the “Gather” phase, and the primary goal of this phase is to assemble a community planning team to help define the vision for a Creative District through direct outreach with the community. This is the part of the process where the community planning team identifies the key characteristics that define the community’s identity in order to help inform their Creative District application.
- The Creative District certification process typically can take between 8 – 12+ months.
- In our September meeting, we heard updates from each of the city representatives on the conversations they are having with city leaders and community members, and at least 2 of our cities are beginning to assemble a community planning team (North Bend and Woodinville).
- This award-winning Creative District program helps communities turn cultural activities into economic growth, and we hope to bring it to each of our cities and towns.
Annette Roth, the Creative District Program Manager at ArtsWA
Brian Carter, Executive Director of 4Culture
Kate Becker, Director of the Office of Creative Economy at King County
Manny Cawaling, Executive Director of Inspire Washington
Community engagement
- Met with theSocially Conscious Artists Foundation (SCARF) as we talked about ways that we could engage our diverse communities through the arts
- Sammamish Block Party
- North Bend Arts and Industry
- Snoqualmie Arts Commission
- Lee Arts Foundation is a local organization that aims to fund and implement art, music, and cultural projects in Carnation and the lower Snoqualmie Valley.
Council recognitions
Environmental protection
Environmental protection means protecting, preserving, and restoring our fish, farms, forests, trails, and open spaces across the almost 1,000 square miles of our District to support the health of everyone in King County for generations to come!
Flood Control District
The King County Flood Control District recently approved over $12 million to fund salmon conservation, education, and passage projects in four Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIAs). Roughly $4 million will go to projects in our district, specifically funding WRIA 7 and a portion of WRIA 8. These grants will also fund educational and advocacy programs, particularly geared toward engaging youth across the region.
Community engagement
- East Lake Sammamish Trail completion
- Snoqualmie Stewardship Program
- Great American Outdoors Act projects Mountains to Sound Greenway National Heritage Area
- County Council approved the grant funding allocation for projects funded through the 2020-2025 parks, recreation, trails, and open space levy grant program.
Council updates
- I sponsored and helped pass an ordinance to protect King County’s unincorporated residents in the case of a fossil fuel spill or explosion from a fossil fuel facility.
- I introduced to declare a fifteen-month interim zoning ordinance regulating residentially zoned land in the rural town of Fall City.
- We adopted a seven-month emergency moratorium on new subdivisions in the residential area of Fall City.
King County DNRP
- Our County’s team of noxious weed specialists are keeping an eye out for Class-A noxious weeds to prevent them from spreading and becoming as impactful as ivy or blackberry. The Noxious Weed Control Program is focused on controlling yellow flag iris around Paradise Lake and blackberry, holly, and ivy in the nearby Upper Bear Creek. Thus far in 2023, the Program has surveyed 1,314 regulated weed infestations in District 3 and 1,198, or 91%, have already been controlled.
- Parks conserved 40 acres of forest that will add to King County’s Mitchell Hill Connector Forest (20 acres purchased in fee and an adjacent 20-acre conservation easement). This property provides a contiguous connection between King County Parks and Washington State Department of Natural Resources property.
- Coordinated by the WRIA 8 salmon recovery team, the Salmon SEEson program is sharing the best stream and river locations in King County for people to see salmon as they return from the ocean in late summer and fall. Some locations are self-guided, and others feature volunteer naturalists to guide visitors. This is your opportunity to view salmon and learn about their lifecycle, efforts to protect them, and restoring habitat. Check out their website for more information and viewing locations map, which includes several sites in District 3.
- Over the next 10 years, we are investing more than $9 billion to protect water quality and habitat throughout King County. This will benefit the people, salmon, and orcas that call our region home. Clean Water Healthy Habitat is a commitment to ensure that each investment produces the best outcomes.
- About half of the $9 billion will be put toward maintaining our existing infrastructure. Before we decide how to invest the remaining amount, we're working with partners to create a resilient system. These partners include: Tribes, Regulatory Agencies, Cities, Environmental Advocates, and Community-Based Organizations. Stay tuned for more information about the Clean Water Health Habitat initiative from our Department of Natural Resources and Parks (DNRP) and upcoming funding!