King County Executive Dow Constantine

News from the Executive Office

Priority areas

King County is one of America's fastest-growing regions, and Executive Dow Constantine is building partnerships and working with employees to meet the key challenges facing the Northwest—equity and social justice, climate change, and regional mobility.

It's all part of the Executive's vision to create the nation's best-run government. To do this, King County employees are embracing continuous improvement, instituting best management practices, driving innovation, and striving for second-to-none customer service that supports the people of King County.

Becoming the nation's best-run government

We listen. We improve. We deliver.

Every day, King County employees explore how we can deliver better services, improve operations, and use fewer resources. To be the nation's best-run government, we are building partnerships to meet community needs and showing how government succeeds when we work together.

Even as the demand for services increased as our population grew, and the costs of goods continue to rise with inflation, we've managed to reduce our operational costs without sacrificing quality.

Confronting climate change in King County

Climate change is a paramount challenge of this generation.

The 2015 Strategic Action Climate plan will ensure King County continues to lead on climate action. Executive Constantine's five-year blueprint integrates climate change into all areas of County operations and our work in the community.

In King County, we are no longer anticipating the impacts of climate change—we are experiencing them. We've always had to respond to weather-related events such as wildfires, floods, landslides, and heatwaves. But today, these events are occurring with greater frequency and severity. The decisions we make together must set the stage for our region's future.

Building equity and opportunity for all

Balancing a bold vision with actionable and measurable objectives.

King County has many strengths and assets, including a strong business sector and diverse communities. But many of our people are too often left behind.

King County is expanding access to opportunity in eight areas—child and youth development; jobs and economic development; environment and climate; health and human services; housing; information and technology; transportation and mobility; and the justice system.

Transit is good for our economy, environment, and people

Demand for transit is at an all-time high.

King County Metro Transit provides 400,000 daily rides and takes 175,000 cars off the road each weekday, carrying nearly half of downtown Seattle's workforce to and from their jobs. But demand is still growing, and congestion is a major challenge for most people traveling during peak commute times.

In his dual role as the executive in charge of Metro Transit and member of the Sound Transit Board of Directors, Executive Constantine has directed the agencies to better integrate services to create a more efficient, seamless regional transit system.