From flood responses to a new baby to regional challenges and a tight budget, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay has had a busy first 6 months in his new role.
On June 10, Zahilay shared updates on challenges and solutions in the county in his first State of the County address since taking office at the Federal Way Performing Arts and Event Center.
It was also the first State of the County address of the past 16 years.
Speakers included Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, Kent Mayor Dana Ralph and 11th grade Franklin High School student Sam Pederson-Spaulding.
Pederson-Spaulding’s speech was developed as part of his participation in the Speak with Purpose program in Seattle and explored the power of connection as a tool for positive change.
Zahilay began his speech by highlighting the county’s flood response and sharing appreciation with the multitude of county staff and community partners who worked to save lives and support those who were impacted.
“If I had to describe the state of King County in just one sentence, it would be this: We are living through a period of tremendous change,” Zahilay said.
These changes include positive trends around levels of gun violence and overdose deaths and alarming challenges of continued affordability issues, especially around housing and childcare. Homelessness and changing economic conditions, along with looming threats of technology leading to job loss were also named.
This turning point means that pivotal decisions are being made today that will impact many generations to come, said Zahilay. He also noted the impact of the FIFA World Cup that is currently bringing global attention to the region.
“People choose this region because few places in the world have what we have: breathtaking natural beauty, incredible arts and culture, innovative companies and research institutions, and diverse communities,” Zahilay said.
While he described the region as “one of the most special and remarkable regions in the world,” he noted that in just the past 16 years, King County has grown by more than 400,000 people, and the infrastructure has not been able to keep up.
The new executive’s plan for the county includes a four-prong approach: “Breaking the Cycle,” “Building for Affordability,” “Being in Community” and “Better Government.”
The Better Government aspect of this plan focuses on accountability and function, stemming from concerns about challenges that have “tested public confidence.” To name a few, these have included the nearly $35 billion funding gap at Sound Transit, issues at the Regional Homelessness Authority and other financial management problems found through audits within county departments.
“These issues have built up over years and required us to reestablish excellence as the standard,” Zahilay said.
To deal with these issues, he has created an internal audit director position inside the executive’s office that is now “working with departments to resolve audit findings, strengthen internal controls, improve grant making, and identify risks before they become failures.”
He’s also conducting base budget reviews for the first time in King County’s modern history and is working to “create a centralized function to investigate fraud, waste and abuse.”
To approach government functionality from another angle, he has also changed policy for county staff to require more in-person work in order to increase open hours in several departments and therefore public access to services.
This push for a return to the office has received some criticism saying the “planning has been rushed and unresponsive to their concerns” as KUOW reported in March.
The permitting office has been one of those services with increased open hours, which also ties into his administration’s goals around Building for Affordability, as he focuses on making the permitting process easier, faster and more efficient for housing developers.
So far the changes Zahilay has made have already resulted in “reduced residential permitting timelines by 25%, cleared backlogs and doubled in-person customer service hours for residents and businesses.”
Housing affordability was a central keystone of Zahilay’s campaign, but some of his policy proposals have been found to be built on unsteady ground, as the Urbanist reported in October of 2025.
Despite some setbacks, Zahilay reaffirmed his commitment to “opening at least 500 units of supportive housing or affordable housing, in the next 500 days,” as he said during his speech.
Under the Breaking the Cycle umbrella, Zahilay shared that the “top policy priority is to solve the distinct but overlapping crises of homelessness, behavioral health, incarceration that are harming too many of our communities, especially our Black, Native American, LGBTQIA+ and disability communities.”
In each of these areas, new positions and executive directives have focused on the importance of collaboration and coalition-building. The Breaking the Cycle work group for example will bring together Breaking the Cycle work group, bringing together “service providers, housing organizations, behavioral health experts, public safety leaders and elected officials.”
In looking at public safety, he is investing in both connecting the various first responders from law enforcement to transit security and also looking at broader solutions to issues of violence and crime.
One proposal will include an allocation of nearly $5 million to sustain and strengthen the regional office of Gun Violence Prevention.
This money will go toward building on the office’s “work to prevent violence, intervene with those who are most at risk, respond when violence occurs and support safer communities across the region, but we know that just sustaining this work is not enough,” Zahilay said.
“We also have to strengthen how violence prevention is coordinated across county government and across the region, so we’re going to make changes to bring that coordination closer to the executive office to deliver a more unified approach to community safety,” he added.
Zahilay also announced a proposal to double the investment in childcare for kids through the Best Starts for Kids levy, which will be on the ballot next year.
Another announcement was for a new transit road map through 2038 called Metro’s Next Stop, which would “deliver nine new bus routes, four new rapid drive routes, improve speed and reliability, increase the number of routes running every 15 minutes, and maintain the increased levels of security and behavioral health presence on busses and at transit centers to keep our communities safe.”
For his final pillar of Be in Community, Zahilay shared how he has restructured the executive office completely.
“I implemented a plan to have more community ambassadors out in the field than ever before,” and for the first time, the office now has embedded regional managers across south, east, north, and central King County,” Zahilay said.
In the past six months, Zahilay shared that his time has “visited and continues to build relationships in every single one of the 39 cities and unincorporated areas and in that time have also directly “resolved over 150 cases, helping our residents across the region solve problems and access services.”
In just one more example of collaboration, Zahilay shared that the office has also created a tribal relations lead within the executive office, and in partnership with tribal leaders, their teams are developing the first ever tribal consultation policy in King County’s history to ensure that “tribal sovereignty is respected and incorporated into county decision making.”
“This is not just about consultation, it’s about building lasting relationships rooted in respect, partnership, and a recognition of our shared responsibility to future generations,” Zahilay said.
Collaboration within the county will not be relegated to the executive’s office either.
Zahilay told community members that they should look out for a new opportunity to connect and give back to their community in the coming weeks when residents will be able to sign up for a new program called the Volunteer Corps which will invite organizations to submit service opportunities.
“We’re going to enlist your help in solving our region’s problems,” Zahilay said.
The State of the County event was well attended by community leaders from all over King County, including strong representation from Federal Way.
Each came with their own hopes for what they’d hear from the executive, including David Harrison of Federal Way’s own nonprofit FUSION.
He hoped to see a proactive approach to “solving the issue of homelessness” rather than simply “moving people around” Harrison said. Harrison also hoped to see more guidance around how to adapt to Federal cuts and changes to programs like HUD.
Federal Way in the spotlight
Zahilay shared that he chose Federal Way to host the address because of several recent projects that represent the power of working together.
“Within just a few blocks, you can see what it looks like when our region invests in connection. Next to us is the downtown Federal Way Light Rail Station, which we opened recently to connect thousands of residents to opportunity, and just across Pacific Highway is Booker House, which we opened in December, providing 86 units of housing and services to keep people rooted in their communities,” said Zahilay.
The final reason for the location was that it is named after Councilmember Pete Von Reichbauer, who Zahilay noted “has spent over five decades fighting for South King County.”
“This is the vision of our administration, a connected region where every community is safe, housed, healthy, and empowered to succeed,” Zahilay said.
