2008-2009 Proposed Charter Amendments
The Commission proposed 12 amendments to the Charter. Download the Commission's final Report and Recommendations (PDF) to read more about the amendments and the charter review process.
Commission staff prepared briefing papers for each of the issues, to assist the Commission subcommittees in their deliberations. The original briefing papers are located below.
Please note that the report, not the briefing papers, contain the final text of the amendments as adopted by the Commission. In addition, staff may have prepared more in-depth papers on some of these subjects. See the subcommittee’s pages at https://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/charter/committees.aspx for additional information.
Recommended Amendments
Anti-Discrimination: Update the Charter's anti-discrimination provision to prohibit discrimination based on disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression in county employment and contracting. More information (PDF)
Budget Allotments: Remove the outdated requirement that county agencies submit quarterly estimates of spending to the Executive. More information (PDF)
Budget Timeline: Provide the County Council with an additional 20 days to review the Executive's proposed budget, for a total of 65 days of review. More information (PDF)
Citizen Initiative: Clarify the process by which citizens may amend the charter through initiative. More information (PDF)
Commission Procedures: Require the County Council to review and take action on all Charter Review Commission recommendations and clarify the Charter Review Commission appointment and confirmation process. More information (PDF)
Elections Deadlines: Authorize the county to establish ordinance deadlines for submitting local ballot measures to the Elections Division. More information (PDF)
Open space: Establish an additional layer of protection for over 100,000 acres of county-owned, high conservation value open space property. More information
Qualifications: Permit the council to establish additional qualifications for the Assessor and Elections Director positions. More information (PDF)
Regional Committees: Reduce the number of councilmembers on Regional Committees, and modify the authority of Regional Committees and their non-council Committee members. More information (PDF)
Sheriff's Office: Require the Executive to provide for effective participation of separately elected county officials, including the Sheriff, in collective bargaining. More information (PDF)
Transitory Provisions: Remove Charter language pertaining to the county's transition to a home rule charter government and consolidation with Metro. More information (PDF)
Unincorporated Areas: Specify a high-level position within the Office of the Executive to represent the interests of rural and urban unincorporated area residents. Amend the charter preamble to reflect the county's commitment to unincorporated areas. More information (PDF)
Responses to the Amendments
Many citizens and organizations responded to the proposed amendments, including:
Developing the Amendments
From February through September, 2007, the Commission received over 360 comments on the charter. More than 100 citizens, organizations, elected officials, cities, and county departments submitted their opinions. Comments were received at nine public outreach hearings, through mail, email, and web forms, and at commission meetings.
Issue Tracker - Each of the comments was summarized in an Excel spreadsheet. Download the issue tracker (926KB PDF).
Issue Library - The source documents for all of the comments were combined into a single 500 page library. A source document can be a letter, an email, a web form, a portion of a public hearing transcript, or the minutes of a commission meeting. The documents are arranged alphabetically (by the commenter's last name or organization name).
Download the issue library (15.3MB PDF). You can search the PDF by keyword to find the topic or commenter you are interested in.
Note: For comments received at public hearings, the court reporter's transcript was used as the source document. The file for these comments consists of the transcript's header page, followed by all of the comments made by a particular individual.