New growth

Pierce County Executive, Bruce Dammeier announcement.

Springtime in my yard is always exciting for me.  I love the energy and freshness as my yard comes back alive from its long winter break.   The birds are chirping when I take Kanga out for a walk in the morning and we seem to have more bunnies than ever!

Spring also means work – but satisfying work.  A fresh-cut lawn always looks great.  And of course, there are always new plants or flowers to be planted.  I enjoy bringing a new pop of color to the yard or filling in a gap with a new shrub.

Did you know some of our colleagues at the County take “recycling” to a whole new level – and can help bring new growth to your yard or planter box?  Learn more about the amazing work they do in the most recent episode of Inside Pierce County.

Our Sewer Division was promoting SoundGro yesterday at the Career Fair held out at the Annex.  I was proud to see so many of our employees sharing the important and challenging work they do with nearly 200 potential colleagues.

I visited the tables hosted by IT, Human Services, the Sheriff’s Department, Sewer, Surface Water Management, Parks, Traffics, Maintenance and Operations, Emergency Management, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and more.

And out in the parking lot we had lots of equipment – showing off the work we do.

I was particularly interested in seeing our team that conducts video inspections of sewer and storm drain lines.  They have several cameras that crawl through pipes ranging from 6-inches to 72-inches in diameter!

The “new growth” of recruiting and bringing aboard new employees takes work – but it is satisfying work!

Finally, we all need to be alert for opportunities to foster “new growth” for our residents – enabling them to take advantage of our services more easily and effectively.  Often this means we have to see things from their perspective. What works well for most might not work for all.

I learned this week we have 6,800 pages on our main County website!  This is a powerful tool to make our work accessible and transparent to our community.  But online services are not necessarily the best option for all of our residents.

Take voting, for example. It is the foundation of our democracy.  We need to make sure that every eligible voter can easily cast their ballot and that those votes are accurately counted.  Our Auditor’s team has been doing very important work on both of these key priorities.  Learn more about removing barriers and becoming an ally for the people of Pierce County in this video.

Want to learn more about becoming an effective ally for our residents?

To make it easier for you to get started, I did a bit of searching on LinkedIn Learning, the free learning tool that is available to all County employees. I typed in “How to be an ally” and the search returned 315 classes!  Here’s the link:  How to be an ally: Online Courses, Training and Tutorials on LinkedIn Learning

I want to close with a reminder to join me next Wednesday for my annual State of the County address.  We are facing many challenges in our region, and we have promising opportunities to move forward together.  I hope you will join me virtually via www.piercecountywa.gov/sotc

Thanks for reading.