By Dow Constantine
Special to the West Seattle Herald
 
Though I now represent more than 2 million people as King County Executive, my home is still West Seattle, where my family and life-long friends make plenty sure I stay grounded! This year Shirley and I were delighted to welcome a baby girl, Sabrina. I am so grateful that she will grow up right here in the neighborhood that raised me.

I wanted to take a moment here at year’s end to report back to our neighbors in Burien, White Center and West Seattle on my administration‘s work in 2014.

This year was one of significant accomplishment on behalf of the people of King County, with some items of special interest to the residents of the Duwamish Peninsula. We developed partnerships and led initiatives that directly benefit local communities in key areas – including public health, transportation, and the environment – that are critical to our quality of life.
 
One urgent need was to keep the White Center Public Health Center at Greenbridge open after years of declines in federal and state funds. I was pleased to announce in September that we had formed a partnership with the City of Seattle and Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest to maintain essential health services for women, children, and families in White Center, West Seattle, Burien, SeaTac, Tukwila, and Des Moines. We went on to create similar partnerships elsewhere in King County to save the Federal Way, Auburn and Northshore clinics while we develop a long-term, sustainable funding source for Public Health.
 
In June, thousands of residents celebrated the opening the opening of the new South Park Bridge, as I delivered on the promise I made five years ago as your County Councilmember to secure funding for the largest transportation project that King County has led in decades. The energy-efficient, state-of-the-art drawbridge reconnects communities along the Lower Duwamish, supports local commerce, and returns a familiar silhouette to the South Park skyline.

The new bridge allowed Metro to revise Route 60 to better connect West Seattle and White Center to Beacon, First, and Capitol Hills via South Park and Georgetown.
 
This was an historic year for our efforts to create a more integrated and efficient transportation system that includes buses, rail, roads, water taxis, and ferries – all working together to improve mobility in our growing region.
 
This year we began construction of two new vessels that will be delivered in 2015. These boats – funded by grants – will increase capacity for our water taxis and provide riders with more reliable service. We consolidated the separate King County Ferry District into King County’s Transportation Department, which will reduce administrative costs and allow us to invest those savings into delivering service.
 
Metro Transit, meanwhile, set new records for ridership this year, providing more than 120 million trips, or an average of 400,000 trips each weekday. Seattle voters’ approval of additional transit funding means we can look forward to Metro service improvements in West Seattle starting next year.
 
Residents will also benefit from Metro and Sound Transit doing more to integrate their services – a project I launched this year as the Chair of the Sound Transit Board of Directors. To ensure that public transportation remains accessible to all, the County Council, the Sound Transit Board and I created a reduced-fare program for lower-income riders.
 
To address our region’s long-term mass transit needs, County Councilmember Joe McDermott and I successfully introduced an amendment to Sound Transit’s Long-Range Plan to finally put West Seattle, White Center and Burien on the map for future light rail. Funding for that vision depends on development of a ballot measure, known as ST3, in 2016.
 
This was also a watershed year, if you’ll pardon the pun, for our efforts to improve the human and environmental health of the Lower Duwamish River. After 15 years of scientific research and community input, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its landmark decision that allows the Superfund cleanup of the Lower Duwamish to move forward, building on the progress we’ve made over the past decade at the local level. To ensure lasting results, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and I launched the Green/Duwamish Watershed Strategy to coordinate cleanup efforts not just in the Lower Duwamish, but across the entire 93-mile-long watershed.
 
Finally, I announced  Best Starts for Kids, an initiative to ensure that every baby born and every child raised in King County reaches adulthood ready to succeed. We have to spend so much money on lives gone awry – on bad outcomes like crime, mental illness and addiction – and so very little on the early prevention and intervention that is proven to work. Best Starts will take advantage of groundbreaking UW research on early childhood brain development, while helping school-age kids facing physical or mental challenges, and creating communities that support moms and families. 
None of these accomplishments would have been possible without the partnerships we’ve built with community stakeholders, other elected leaders, and the hard-working public employees who continue to deliver the services that make our region a better, more prosperous place to live.
I wish you the happiest of holidays, and look forward to continuing our partnerships to advance equity and social justice, confront climate change, increase regional mobility and opportunity, and provide the best start for every child.

Dow Constantine is the King County Executive.