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IN THE KING COUNTY race for county executive, the candidates have been pared down to two in the August 18 primary. The five-way race that preceded the narrowing of the field took a familiar tone.
In the past year, due to the economic slowdown, our members in King County stepped up and readily recognized the difficult budget the County was facing. Although their decision was not an easy one, they were the first group of any size in the public sector to agree to concessions resulting in a program of 10 days off without pay spread out through the calendar year 2009.
We saved some of our fellow employees jobs, not to mention a better than 4 percent savings to King County.
Without nearly a mention of the sacrifices the employees of King County made in the collective bargaining process, candidate Fred Jarret an east-side Republican turned Democrat loudly proclaimed throughout his failed re-election effort that the employees’ health care needed to be cut and he would make it a priority.
Others jumped on the bandwagon, ignoring the previous efforts of the unions and the county employees to be realistic about what had been occurring to county revenues.
As a matter of fact, this union has been a leader in coming to grips with the financial crisis that has now, we hope, hit bottom — not only in King County, but also in Seattle, Snohomish, Kitsap, Thurston, Grays Harbor and many other jurisdictions.
We’ve recognized the obvious and worked with the various administrations to save jobs and ultimately save services.
All types of proposals were floated during the King County campaign by the candidates, including one that would have you pay more for health care if you made over a certain level of income.
Under Ron Sims, cooperation between the County and the union was part of a long-standing rational bargaining process. Pot shots by either side were avoided in the press and things got done. King County’s wellness program, while continuing to be refined, is a national trend setter and it saves dollars.
Now ultimately running for arguably the state’s second-most important elected executive position is not the same as actually doing the job. It’s been a long time since throwing public employees to the mob was viewed as unproductive. We can take our lumps and will continue to do so.
But if one of your motives is to be an effective manager of a local government — and in this case a large local government — a good idea is not to “kick ’em” in the head before you ever reach the front door.
You might just find we are pretty reasonable to deal with!
