Press release:

Twenty-nine year-old North Highline resident Lauren Berkowitz announced March 14 that she has filed with the State Public Disclosure Commission to run for Burien City Council against long-serving incumbent Jack Block Jr.

Berkowitz has worked for the last five years as a labor organizer for the Washington Federation of State Employees and for the United Food and Commercial Workers. Berkowitz has lived in Burien for three years and is a 2007 graduate of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

She is presently a student at the University of Washington School of Law. At UW, Berkowitz has been appointed to the Dean’s Committee on Diversity and elected to the boards of both the Students for Labor and Employment Justice and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Berkowitz works as a volunteer with the Unemployment Law Project, and in her free time enjoys hiking with her two dogs in Burien parks, growing and harvesting organic produce, and speed skating.

Berkowitz says she looks forward to a robust campaign in the coming months. “We need new leaders to move Burien into the future,” Berkowitz said. “Our community has so much potential. It's time to begin realizing it.”