Drafter
Clerk 11/17/2020
Title
AN ORDINANCE establishing October 12 of each year, Indigenous Peoples' Day, as a paid holiday for King County employees eligible for leave benefits; and amending Ordinance 12014, Section 23, as amended, and K.C.C. 3.12.230.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Popular sentiment is emerging for more formal acknowledgement and celebration of populations long resident in the region that have been historically ignored or suppressed.
2. The land that became the United States has been home for tens of thousands of years to indigenous communities, who built lifeways deeply tied to the land.
3. Over time, those communities developed ways of knowing, ways of being, ways of remembering, ways of praise and reverence, that were profoundly altered by European colonization starting in the seventeenth century.
4. The affirmation of these communities, and the remembrance of those ways contributes greatly to the ancient regional narrative and the store of human understanding and honors their continued contribution to the culture of the United States and King County.
5. In 2020 6.79 million indigenous people reside in the United States and nearly 14,000 indigenous people reside in King County.
6. King County is situated on the historic lands of the Coast Salish peoples.
7. October 12 each year provides an opportunity for celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, and should be established as an observed holiday for employees of King County.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Ordinance 12014, Section 23, as amended, and K.C.C. 3.12.230 are hereby amended to read as follows:
A. All employees eligible for comprehensive leave benefits shall be granted the following designated holidays with pay:
1. January 1, New Year's Day;
2. Third Monday in January, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day;
3. Third Monday in February, President's Day;
4. Last Monday in May, Memorial Day;
5. July 4, Independence Day;
6. First Monday ...
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