Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

I had the opportunity to sit down with new King County Executive, Girmay Zahilay, and discuss his priorities in office and his plans to address a number of crises at hand, from homelessness to major internal financial issues in some departments.

We spoke with him on April 29th.

Here's that conversation.

First and foremost, Executive Zahilay, thank you so much for joining us on The Newsfeed.

My pleasure.

It's great to be here.

You sit here today as the youngest person to hold your position.

You came to Seattle as a child refugee.

How has your lived experience framed your vision for King County?

It frames everything.

I've experienced King County at its best and at its worst.

We came to this country without many resources.

We grew up in low income public housing in South Seattle.

We experienced all kinds of issues like gun violence and communities that need more resources.

And I've seen so many people that I've grown up with get into circumstances that we don't want any of our young people to get into, but because of effective local governments, a good job market, public resources, I was able to go from living in public housing and even homeless shelters at one point to serving as our state's leader of our state's largest local government.

And so that is a story that I want to be available to everyone.

And that's why I do the work that I do.

You've now been in office for five months.

What would you say have been some of your biggest challenges so far?

The biggest challenges in being King County Executive or...?

- Yes.

The issues are so great and so diverse, and it feels like there are more issues coming out every day.

And we have a federal government that's attacking so many of our communities and taking away so many of our resources.

We have a climate that's continuing to become more hostile.

I'm talking about the environment with respect to natural disasters.

We have a housing crisis that is contributing to families not being able to make ends meet.

Too many people living out on the streets, too many communities being displaced farther and farther south.

And so there are just a lot of challenges and limited number of resources and a limited amount of time per day.

And so the biggest challenge is just getting to everything with the limited resources and the limited time that we have.

But I believe that we will keep making progress.

Is there anything sitting at this vantage point, that you would have done differently in this small, short time frame?

I don't think so.

I think it's too early to have regrets.

But absolutely, we can always do better.

King County has faced a ton of issues.

I'm sure you've seen a lot of the headlines, many of the issues preceding our time as executive, but I've also seen a lot of great work from the teams all across King County, addressing the audit findings, making better financial control so that we make sure that every single dollar is accountable and we're protecting taxpayer dollars.

So we're facing a lot of issues right now, but I also believe that we're making progress.

And that gives me a lot of confidence.

Let's move to homelessness, a major issue here in our community.

You've been calling your plans and efforts in this area "Breaking the Cycle."

- Yeah.

Tell us about what that means as it relates to homelessness.

For sure.

I think a lot of people recognize that homelessness, as they see it in King County is not just a lack of shelter, right?

You see so many people out in our community who are going through homelessness and also substance use disorder and mental health issues, violence.

Maybe they get incarcerated and go to the King County Jail and then after they're discharged from that jail, maybe they're back out on the streets without the proper supports that they need.

And so there are just a lot of overlapping issues happening, not to mention any kind of family trauma that may have initiated all of this and led people to snowball over many decades.

And so I call it "Breaking the Cycle," because it's an acknowledgment of so many different overlapping issues that people are facing, and they are often cyclical, where one issue contributes to the next, contributes to the next.

And I want to make sure that through coordination, more resources, and more accountability, that we can break that cycle and put everyone on a path to recovery.

Dialing in right into some of what you said.

You've built this plan on the fact that homelessness is interconnected with so many other crises facing the county in Seattle, for example.

How can you break through and make sure we're making the right progress?

Yeah, the three category areas that I think about when I think about solving this problem are coordination, resources, and accountability.

When it comes to coordination, it's the idea that if all of these systems have a role, whether it's the jail or our public health system or our housing system, then they all need to be talking to each other more.

They need to coordinate better.

They need to catch people who go from one part of the system to the next, and not make it so that somebody exits one part of the system, like our jail, or they leave sober living, or whatever it might be, and they're just back out on the street without the kind of follow up and resources and stabilization that they need to be healthy and housed again.

And so I want that coordination.

Number two is resources.

The scale of the housing crisis and the homelessness crisis is so large that absolutely, we need more resources.

We have shelters in King County that are on the verge of closing because we don't have the resources for them.

We know that there are so many people who are living outside, and the demand for shelter far outpaces the supply that we have.

And so getting more stable resources is a priority for me.

And that's why I want to explore this housing levy concept.

I'm not committed to it yet, but having a dedicated source of money, especially in light of all the resources we're losing from the federal government, is key.

And finally, it's accountability.

I want to make sure that every single dollar that we collect in taxes goes to its highest use, and there is no waste, there is no fraud, there is no abuse.

And we're funding all of the things that work.

And that's what our "Better Government" plan is about.

It's about holding ourselves accountable to being the highest performing local government in the nation.

That is the standard I'm setting and anything less is unacceptable.

You mentioned that levy that you're considering.

With the opportunities as you're out day to day, where do you think residents stand in swaying towards that?

Do you think that that's something that could pass if it's brought to voters?

I think people are conflicted just like I am.

I think people see a clear need for more resources with respect to the types of issues that we need to solve, and at the same time, the level of tax sensitivity that I'm seeing in our communities might be at an all-time high because the cost of living is going up.

People are feeling like the money that they do have is not going far enough to cover even their basic needs.

And so going out and asking people for more taxes right now, it's a tough proposition.

And that's why I'm not coming out and saying, we're absolutely doing this.

I'm saying we're exploring this.

We're going to look at the trade-offs.

We're going to make sure that we fix all of these issues that people are seeing in the headlines right now.

And at the same time, we can't abandon our commitment to the most vulnerable people in our community.

And that means making sure that the big shelter in SODO that is set to close in May of 2027 because we don't have the resources for it, that's a problem because we can't just displace hundreds of unhoused people out into the streets.

That's something that our taxpayers and our communities don't want either.

Let's get to some changes here at the county since you've come into office.

You've made a series of sweeping employee changes, and that includes restructuring and consolidating offices, which prompted some outcry.

What do you want people to know about the staffing changes and why you made those?

Yeah, I think that King County, because we are not used to administration changes and turnover the way the city of Seattle is, for example.

We had the same executive for 16 years, whereas City of Seattle has a new executive every four years, it seems like.

that people are not used to change at King County.

And so the same thing that every new administration does, which is bring in their own people for the Executive Office, somehow perceived as something different than what it was for us.

We absolutely brought in our own people, like every new administration does.

And I absolutely restructured the Office around what I believe I was elected to deliver on.

And that is "breaking the cycle," better government, being in community and having more presence outside and building for affordability.

And so the changes that you see in my Office are restructuring our Office to advance those core priorities that I was elected to deliver on.

And I will say that there's not a single function that was lost in the transition.

Anyone who is, maybe scrutinizing the changes will not be able to point to a single service that was disrupted, a single function that is no longer happening.

Every single function continues to happen.

It might be in a department or it might look different.

It might be in a different location, but there is no service disruption.

In January, speaking of some of those changes, you announced a mandatory return-to-office three days a week.

Just in late April, a group of county employees participated in a protest, calling the policy counterproductive and a waste of taxpayer money.

Why is it important to have county workers in office at least three days a week?

Yeah, first and foremost, it's what the voters and our communities expect.

Every time I went out and I talked to people throughout my campaign, they said, "we are perceiving lower customer service, lower responsiveness in county government," and we believe that having some kind of more presence will help with customer service and more productivity and more responsiveness.

And as somebody who has seen both sides of being mostly remote versus having a combination of in-person and remote, I absolutely see a huge difference.

There's a huge difference in collaboration in productivity, in accountability.

And so that's why I say that we need to be in office at least some number of days a week.

That being said, there is no doubt that there is a lot of benefit to remote work as well.

When people say that it helps them save money to be at home and be with their families and drop their kids off at school.

I believe that 100%, as somebody who has two babies myself, I believe that.

And that's why we're implementing a permanent hybrid work arrangement.

If you had proposed this arrangement five years ago, people would have been jumping for joy like, "oh my goodness, a hybrid work model."

That is something that staff and employees would jump for joy for.

And so I believe that we need a balance.

I definitely don't support a five day return for office workers.

I think it should be capturing the benefits of both sides, and that's what I'm proposing.

Let's talk about another prominent issue and it's transportation right here in the county.

You're on the Sound Transit Board and getting light rail to Ballard, West Seattle, and even Everett is costing a lot more than was previously estimated.

What do you think it is that King County residents want to see?

Is it getting to Everett or is it the Seattle neighborhoods?

I think first and foremost, they want us to deliver on voter-approved projects within budget.

I think those are the two things that they want.

They don't want us to abandon any projects that we've committed ourselves to.

And they understand that facing a $35 billion deficit means that we have to deliver things on a particular pace and scope that will allow us to deliver within the budget that we have.

And so that's what I'm committed to is not abandoning a single project, continuing to advance all projects forward, and understanding that some things will have to be delayed or changed based on the money that we have.

Moving forward on all projects means that if any projects are shovel-ready and ready to be built right now, we should absolutely build them.

And that's why I think that we should build West Seattle, because it is shovel-ready.

By the way, shovel-ready is a technical term, and that technical term has been met with respect to West Seattle, so I think we should build that.

When it comes to Ballard, all of the information that I have received, and I've been asking us to go as far as possible in Ballard, is that getting to Market Street which is the terminal of that station is not currently affordable.

But what I'm asking for is go as far as possible, be aggressive, be creative.

And if that means going one stop up, two stops up, I haven't seen the exact numbers and configurations yet, but I am holding Sound Transit's feet to the fire and making sure whatever is possible and going as far as possible with an eye toward, we're going to get there eventually, but I want to go as far as possible right now, as soon as we can.

Let's talk about the Graham Street Station here in the Seattle area.

Is that likely on the chopping block?

I want us to build that.

When it comes to infill stations, which are stations in between existing stations, that is a far less expensive proposition than building a whole new line like West Seattle or Ballard or whatever it might be.

And so I think we should build it.

I think that the communities over there deserve it.

They've been asking for it for a long time, same as Boeing Access Road.

And so anything that we can do, I want to leave no stone unturned on advancing those infill stations as well.

Last year, a metro driver was killed after an altercation with a passenger.

What can you do in your authority to urge Metro to implement stronger safety measures for not only drivers but for riders?

It's been a top priority since I was on the Council.

When I was on the King County Council, I led efforts and collaborated with our communities to invest in more mental health outreach workers and more transit security.

And then just this past year, we approved Executive Shannon Braddock's proposals to invest $27 million in more security features like those closed off compartments to protect drivers, and also more security officers on there as well.

And just continuing to have presence.

I believe in a presence model of public safety, which means the more customer service professionals are on board, the more transit security officers are on board, the more mental health professionals are nearby to address issues, the safer the environment will be.

And so I continue to make sure that we have those investments to have presence and infrastructure that our drivers and our riders need to be and feel safe.

We talked about it a little bit in the beginning of this conversation, and as you have stepped into office, you've inherited a set of financial troubles in a few King County departments and also agencies.

Is the county working fast enough to provide that transparency that folks are looking for?

I believe DCHS is moving very aggressively to meet all of the requirements to solve these problems.

They are on pace to achieve all of the recommendations in the audit, the famous audit that everybody knows about now.

All ten recommendations are on pace to be achieved.

That means fraud prevention training.

It means more site visits to actually put eyes and ears on programming to make sure that there's that accountability.

It means assessing and moving away from risky payment models.

It means better invoicing.

All of those recommendations are on track to be met, and I think there is way more work that we can and should and must do.

And that is my expectation.

Again, my central priority as the new executive is to make King County the best run local government in the nation.

Anything less is unacceptable.

And so those are the types of changes that you'll see through my "Better Government" executive order, or the work that we're doing to hold King County Regional Homelessness Authority accountable.

That is a top priority.

And we're going to get into those those agencies, right back to the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

That report or audit, rather, found at least $13 million in funds were unaccounted for.

You said it raised serious concerns about internal controls and fiscal management of that agency.

Two King County Council members are calling to disband that agency.

You haven't gone that far.

What kind of changes, and as you alluded to some of those, are you considering, based upon the steps that the agency has taken?

I would say that those findings in that forensic report were shocking and unacceptable.

And in the short term, the Seattle mayor and I have put forward a list of requirements for the agency to respond to that will stabilize the organization, that will hold it accountable, that will have them respond to us in writing by May 8th, the types of changes that they need to make, and explanations for those shocking findings that I wrote before.

So in the short term, a lot of changes need to happen.

The status quo is unacceptable.

What we do in the long term is something that needs to be carefully vetted and understood before we take drastic actions, like treating this agency like it's a light switch that can turn on and off.

It's not.

There are contracts.

There is federal funding at risk.

There are people's jobs.

And most importantly, there are services that we don't want to disrupt to the people who are living unhoused on the ground.

And so all options are on the table.

We are aggressively assessing all those options.

At the same time, as the county executive or as the Seattle mayor, no one's going to accept it.

If we say we're getting rid of this agency, and we don't have an answer for what comes next, right?

We have to have the requisite level of confidence that whatever changes we make, whether that's within this organization or away from this organization, are going to be better than what we have.

And that takes a lot of work.

It requires us to move urgently, but methodically and thoughtfully at the same time.

Let's get back to talking about the Department of Community and Human Services As it stands today, taxpayers are looking, from what we've heard, transparency.

How do you plan to ensure that taxpayers receive that transparency and that trust in this department?

My "Better Government" executive order last month is designed to achieve accountability.

It's designed to move us to becoming the highest performing organization that we can, and it's designed to have the transparency that you're talking about, because that's exactly what taxpayers deserve, and it's exactly what the communities who benefit from our services deserve.

And so a few things that we're doing are, number one, we have hired an internal audit director.

This is somebody who is going to look at all of our departments across all of our functions in King County and identify any risks, make recommendations for what needs to change, make recommendations for how we can hold every department accountable and protect taxpayer dollars.

They are regularly going to host an accountability subcabinet, which brings together all of our department directors, with the internal Audit Director leading to share best practices, identify issues, hold people accountable, and they're also making recommendations for how we structure our accountability systems.

So we need a central place for people to call if they see fraud and they want to report fraud.

We need a central place to investigate those issues, and those are the systems they're going to be building out.

We're also, for the first time in history, going to do a base budget analysis.

That means, unlike what usually happens, which is King County rolls over 90% of the budget from one biennium to the next and just makes changes on the margins.

Instead, we're going to build our budgets from the ground up.

That's going to allow us to take a microscope and look at all of our programs everywhere that we're spending money, find cost savings, find the programs that are delivering results, sunset the programs that are not delivering results and really and truly hold ourselves accountable financially.

So those are just a couple of the examples that my executive order directed, but there's a long list that I can share with you.

One question about FIFA.

Soon the spotlight is going to be on this area for the World Cup.

What are you doing in terms of working with local partners to ensure that visitors that may be immigrants and folks that are spectators here that are immigrants feel safe, given what we've seen with ICE?

Well, first of all, as you know, King County runs most of our transit systems around the region.

So I do consider this regional government as the connector for the whole region, not just Seattle.

Obviously, Seattle is very important, but the whole region.

And so we are going to be delivering much more bus service during that time.

60 more bus lines during match days, 40 more bus lines during non-match days.

We've worked aggressively to connect the region through Sound Transit.

As you know, we got the Crosslake Connection this year to connect east and west, and the whole region is going to be more connected.

People can come from all over the place without a car to be able to get to the games, and we want to make sure that we highlight all the great things that are happening all around the region, not just in Seattle.

So there are going to be viewing parties all over the place that we're going to be able to elevate.

We're going to work with our small businesses to make sure that some of that economic activity comes and reaches every corner of the region, and all at the same time, we're going to be making sure that we protect our communities.

That means our sheriff's office is going to be working with local agencies to keep our communities safe and have counterterrorism efforts.

It also means that we're going to double down on our commitment to protecting our immigrant and refugee communities.

As you know, I put forward an executive order related to immigrants and refugees earlier this year that says that we're, to the extent of the law, we're not going to be coordinating with or collaborating with ICE.

They are not able to use our local resources for their enforcement purposes.

I've directed our sheriff's office to make it very clear what their role is with respect to ICE.

They're going to be recording.

They're going to be asking for credentials.

They're going to be making sure that they announce themselves as local law enforcement and not ICE in case there's confusion.

And so there's just a lot of work that needs to be done, but King County is going to be working very closely with all of our partners to make sure that FIFA is the amazing experience that all of our residents deserve.

We thank you so much for your time and this opportunity.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much, Paris.

- You're welcome.

- Appreciate it.