Drafter
Clerk 4/19/2007
Title
A MOTION accepting the final report of Elway Research on the council's 2008 budget citizen engagement project; thanking citizens who participated in the process; reporting to the public on the citizen identified countywide priorities, and transmitting suggested 2008 budget policy priorities to the county executive.
Body
WHEREAS, Ordinance 15652 was adopted by the council in November 2006 as the 2007 budget and set "Priorities for People"; and
WHEREAS, Section 1. F.(1) Earning Public Trust, established citizen engagement in policy making as a priority: "Citizen Engagement: The county's budget prioritizes those services that are most important to county residents by funding an initiative to engage county citizens in developing countywide priorities for their county government. In 2007, the council will conduct workshops with citizens to enable them to prioritize their county services on a broad level. The council will report back to the public on the countywide priorities citizens identify. The report will guide alignment of county services to the priorities of the people and will be adopted as a policy directive for development of the executive's 2008 proposed budget. The council will also develop a process for continued citizen engagement with regular reports back to the public"; and
WHEREAS, through a competitive process the firm of Elway Research was engaged by the council to conduct the workshops and to produce a written report on that effort, and
WHEREAS, in March 2007, a total of two hundred thirty-two randomly selected King County citizens gathered in five communities across the county to discuss county government budget priorities. They were recruited to take part in citizens' budget workshops designed to engage citizens in the work of developing the county's 2008 budget, and
WHEREAS, the objective of the citizen workshops was to explore citizen priorities for county spending. Participants were asked to...
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