Legislators Need Public Input on Priorities

Last Thursday I attended a 2009 Legislative Wrap Up session hosted by the coalition of Chambers of Commerce for East King County. Approximately 10 state legislators attended and participated on a panel to share the outcomes from the latest legislative session and the particular impacts to East King County. My key takeaway, besides the fact that the State of Washington has much work to do in too many areas, is that citizens need to have an active voice to enable legislators to represent our views and positions as we might like.

In order to be able to prioritize key issues for East King County, the public has to understand the issues well enough to be able to prioritize where our very limited resources are focused. To understand, citizens must get involved and help themselves become informed. As we become informed, it is incumbent on us to share our views, educate others and help communicate the priorities. It is too easy to sit back and say that education is important and needs money, transportation is important and needs money, healthcare is important and needs money and, well, you get the picture. The challenge comes in defining how much, when, for whom and exactly what. East King County needs people to determine what things are most important. What things are we willing to forego in order to improve in any one or set of areas of deficiency. The resources are less today than yesterday. We must do things differently and with less, not more resources. Help East King County to prioritize our communities' key issues.