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For the first time in 16 years, King County has a new Executive at the helm
Girmay Zahilay is leading one of the largest local governments in the country.
King County faces a multitude of crises: from homelessness, to major internal financial issues in some departments. We sat down with him to talk about his vision for the office.
Paris Jackson, Cascade PBS: Executive Zahilay, you sit here today as the youngest person to hold this position. You came to Seattle as a child refugee. How has your lived experience framed your vision for King County?
Zahilay: It frames everything. You know, I've experienced King County at its best and at its worst. You know, 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 now serving as 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 about five months. What would you say has been some of your biggest challenges so far?
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 – and I’m talking about the environment - with respect to natural disasters. We have a housing crisis this 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 a 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.
