Drafter
Clerk 06/24/2025
Title
AN ORDINANCE relating to appointing qualified persons to serve as examiners pro tempore; amending Ordinance 263, Article 5, Section 2, as amended, and K.C.C. 20.22020, establishing an expiration date, and declaring an emergency.
Body
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Findings:
A. Section 896 of the King County Charter requires that the council shall an opportunity for an administrative appeal to a hearing examiner or other body for appeals from the granting or rejecting of an application for zoning variance or conditional use permit.
B. The office of hearing examiner was originally established by the county council in 1969 to fulfill the charter-based function. Over the years, the council has expansively broadened the hearing examiner's role to act on behalf of the council in considering and applying county policies and regulations. Under K.C.C. 20.22.040, the hearing examiner hears appeals from a variety of department decisions, as well as under K.C.C. 20.22.050 makes recommendations to the council on various matters.
C. To efficiently process the variety of matters that now come before the hearing examiner, K.C.C. 20.22.020 empowers the hearing examiner, or the deputy hearing examiner in the event of the absence or inability of the hearing examiner to act, to appoint hearing examiners pro tempore. Over the years, the hearing examiner has appointed several examiners pro tempore, some serving for just one matter, some serving for a matters that arise in a particular area, such as land use.
C. With the positions of hearing examiner and deputy hearing examiner currently vacant, additional hearing examiners pro tempore are urgently needed to process the current and expected hearings.
D. Without the council's ability to appoint examiners pro tempore under these unique circumstances, hearings will be delayed, timelines will be missed, and the rights of residents to expeditious determination will...
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