(The Center Square) – King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci is running for county executive with the intention of connecting the county’s transit system, addressing juvenile crime rates, and addressing looming budget deficits that could lead to service cuts.
Balducci announced her campaign on Nov. 13, one day after current County Executive Dow Constantine said he was not running for reelection after serving in the role for 15 years.
She will immediately be tasked with budget challenges.
The current projections have the county’s costs exceeding expected revenues by about $150 million through 2026. That works out to approximately 400 full-time positions.
If elected, Balducci will continue pushing for the state to get rid of a 1% cap on property tax increases as a way to increase funding needed to prevent more cuts to essential county services.
Since 2001, the state has instituted a 1% annual cap on property tax increases. Washington counties do not have the ability to impose business and utility taxes, unlike cities and the state.
Balducci told The Center Square she would “not say ‘no’ to progressive taxes” in order to shore up funding. She added that county residents who have lived and contributed to the county for years should be able to continue to do so without the burden of the county relying entirely on their property taxes.
Balducci has been a major figure in the county’s transportation work since her time as a Bellevue City Council member and mayor from 2014 to 2016. While the executive head of Bellevue, she prioritized transportation safety after a tragedy in which a driver turned toward oncoming traffic and was struck by a vehicle that ended in the death of a toddler in a stroller.
“That was really the moment that I sat down with all of our transportation engineers and said, ‘How do we do everything that we can do so that these sorts of things don’t happen?” Balducci asked during a phone call with The Center Square.
Before Balducci left Bellevue to join the King County Council, she successfully had her “Vision Zero” program to eliminate traffic deaths and serious-injury collisions on city streets by 2030 adopted by the Bellevue City Council in 2015. That program is still being utilized by the city.
Balducci, a Sound Transit board member, has been a prominent figure in King County’s work to create a regional transportation system. This includes her work in building transit-oriented affordable housing and pushing for the light rail system to extend eastward to Bellevue and Redmond.
“I have dedicated my career to local government [and] I have fought hard battles for things like building light rail in east King County,” Balducci said.
The completion of the Sound Transit Light Rail System’s eastside expansion is also likely to boost the local economy. Balducci said the types of employees that King County’s larger companies are looking for expect a modern transportation system that does not force them to drive everywhere.
Balducci pitches that the county reutilize a transportation funding district to provide some money toward road construction, but emphasized that the next county executive needs to explore new strategies to provide long-term funding toward the region’s road network.
Juvenile crime is also a continually growing concern in King County. In fact, last September, mayors of Renton, Kent, Auburn and Federal Way wrote a joint statement calling for a return to accountability in approaches for both social services and juvenile justice systems as a result of worsening youth crime statistics.
Balducci previously ran the county’s Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention. According to her, the county detention center used to hold around 200 young people a day. Prior to the pandemic, that number was around 50-60 per day due in part to the county requiring diversion through home monitoring and community-based programs.
Balducci believes the latter is the better approach due to giving troubled youth more hope and developing skills to support themselves.
“I do think that ultimately having young people have a healthy and supportive community around them – is the path to success,” said Balducci.
However, she is also in favor of a “full-spectrum approach” that applies support and diversion, while also providing all the needed resources in order to enforce accountability.
Earlier this year, the King County Council rejected Constantine’s call for closing the Juvenile Justice Center in Seattle by 2028 in favor of transitioning juvenile offenders into private settings.
The center, which was intended to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, opened in 2020 with a $242 million price tag.
Balducci is in favor of keeping the detention center open, touting her work to build the facility.
“As jail director, I was the person who advocated to build a new juvenile detention facility,” Balducci said. “It was important to me to provide adequate conditions for the young people who are in detention and to make sure that we are using it properly.”
The Center Square also interviewed King County Assessor John Wilson on his campaign for King County executive. King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay is also running for the county lead, but his campaign did not respond to The Center Square’s multiple requests for an interview.
