Topic: Government & Politics
Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, a child of migrant workers, served eight terms in the Washington State House of Representatives. Her parents came to America in 1919 from Mexico, and from the age of 5 Kenney...
Alice U. Kerr was elected mayor of Edmonds in December 1924, one of the first women mayors in Washington. She served a single two-year term (1925-1927) occupied with issues of a small, growing city, ...
John Phillip "J. P." Kiggins was a prolific politician and a prolific builder in Vancouver (Clark County) during the early decades of the twentieth century. He served nine non-consecutive terms as may...
King County's five Agricultural Production Districts (APDs), first designated in the county's 1985 Comprehensive Plan, represent a continuation of efforts to preserve rapidly diminishing agricultural ...
King County Commissioners were in charge of King County's affairs from 1853, when the federal Organic Act gave the Territorial legislature the power to create county governments, until 1969, when the ...
On November 5, 1968, voters approved King County's Home Rule Charter. It replaced the three-member County Commission (then John Spellman, Ed Munro, and John O'Brien) with a nine-member County Council ...
King County's Farmland Preservation Program protects farmland and open space in the rapidly developing county by using tax money to buy development rights on farms. It is one of the oldest such progra...
Address: 3rd Avenue and James Street, Seattle. The King County Courthouse is a dignified example of early twentieth-century civic architecture in the Beaux-Arts style. In 1931, 10 stories were added ...
Addresses: Des Moines -- S 219th Street and 11th Avenue S; Enumclaw -- Enumclaw Chinook Pass Road; North Bend -- 40 SE Orchard Drive; Preston -- 8625 310th Avenue SE; White Center -- 1321 102nd Street...
The King County Library System (KCLS) operates libraries in communities throughout King County (outside Seattle), a variety of mobile outreach services, a library within the King County Youth Services...
As King County's population boomed at the start of the twenty-first century, the King County Library System (KCLS) made plans to expand. In 2004, voters approved a $172 million bond measure, allowing ...
King County's Equity and Social Justice (ESJ) Initiative was made public by then-County Executive Ron Sims (b. 1948) in February 2008. Citing sobering examples of the effects of inequality, Sims direc...
King County's parks and recreation division was created in 1938, and initially oversaw the development of 150 acres of small parks and playgrounds. Since then it has grown to encompass 26,000 acres of...
King County, Washington's largest county, is the first county in the nation to be named in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), the celebrated civil rights leader and advocate...
A. Ludlow "Lud" Kramer became the youngest Secretary of State in Washington history when elected in 1964 at age 32. He was re-elected in 1968 and in 1972. A moderate Republican, he championed the righ...
Bruce C. Laing, a professional planner, was elected as a Republican to the King County Council in 1979 and spent 16 years on the Council. During his tenure, Laing, a moderate, exhibited an ability to ...
The city of Lake Stevens in Snohomish County, about eight miles east of Everett, is named after the glacial lake it surrounds. The lake was named, on an 1855 map, for Washington Territory Governor Isa...
Russ Lambert was one of Sumas's (Whatcom County) most influential pioneers. An attorney, he incorporated the town in 1891, and helped form its town government. He later represented Sumas in both hou...
Phyllis Hagmoe Lamphere was a longtime prominent Seattle civic leader and, from 1967 to 1978, a member of the Seattle City Council. She was born and raised in Seattle and graduated from Barnard Colleg...
Bertha Knight Landes, elected mayor of Seattle in 1926, became the first woman to lead a major American city. She ran on a platform of "municipal housekeeping," vowing to clean up city government. She...
Arthur B. Langlie was the only mayor of Seattle to become governor of the state and the only Washington governor to regain that office after losing it. Langlie was born in Minnesota and moved with his...
When humans began creating laws for each other to follow, the legal profession was born. As the number of people increased and life became more complex, the number of both laws and lawyers multiplied....
Walter Vernon Lawson was the first African American police officer in the Seattle Department to be promoted to Sergeant (July 1964). He went on to become Seattle's first African American police Lieute...
The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan organization founded in 1920 and concerned with public policy and citizenship issues, grew out of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). U...