Kent mayor highlights new city facilities during annual address

Kent Mayor Dana Ralph hit on a lot of topics during her more than 90-minute State of the City address.

Ralph, in her eighth on the job, told the crowd Thursday evening, March 20 at the Kent-Meridian High School Performing Arts Center that she kept on talking because she had so many good things to share. Ralph announced earlier this year that she is running for reelection for a third four-year term. Voters first elected her in 2017.

Here are few highlights from the address:

New operations center

The $35 million, 83,000-square-foot Kent East Hill Operations Center is under construction across from Clark Lake Park, south of SE 248th Street and east of 124th Avenue SE. It will house the Parks Department’s East Hill crew, most of the Public Works Department and a portion of Kent Police Department operations, including evidence storage. It also will host the city’s Information Technology data center.

“It is one of the biggest projects that our city has undertaken in many years,” Ralph said. “This new building will provide much needed additional space for staff who currently use the maintenance and operations facility down in the Valley at the Russell Road shops.

“Honestly, conditions down there have not been the greatest. We have not done a good job of keeping up with the demand and need for space. It was built over 30 years ago and Kent’s population has grown by over 64% in that time (to 140,400). That means the mandate for services, the need, the equipment and the number of people has also grown.”

Ralph said the facility will open later this year and it’s going to make “a huge difference.”

“You have to take care of the employees that take care of us,” she said.

New administration center

Ralph highlighted the new administrative services building as another way the city is keeping up with its growth.

The city recently bought for $11.25 million a former Boeing Employees Credit Union (BECU) call center building at the CenterPoint Corporate Park, 20610 68th Ave. S., to house many employees who now work in the Centennial Center, 400 W. Gowe St., and everyone who works at City Hall, across a parking lot from the Centennial Center.

“Our City Hall on Fourth Avenue just isn’t cutting it,” Ralph said. “It’s had structural challenges and no longer meets the needs of our staff in terms of space.”

Ralph said purchasing a new building made sense because of the expensive cost to try to renovate City Hall.

Employees at the Centennial Center are expected to move to the new office in 2026. The Centennial Center will become the new home of the Kent Police Department and house Council Chambers, to keep it downtown. The Police Department is now in an old former library just south of City Hall.

The City Council at its March 18 meeting approved a $2.4 million consulting contract with Houston, Texas-based Athenian Group to help with the campus relocation.

“I want to thank the council for approving those contracts at their last meeting and really helping us move our city forward,” Ralph said.

The mayor said decisions on moving city offices to new facilities is something that had to be done.

“We are going to make sure we are setting our city up for the next 50 years,” Ralph said.

Public safety

Despite a bill dying this month in a legislative committee in Olympia for the second consecutive year, Ralph plans to keep banging the drum louder to get approval from the Legislature for the city to enact a sales tax, without a vote of Kent residents, to pay for more police officers.

Ralph wants a sales tax of 3 cents on every $10 purchase to help raise an estimated $12 million a year to pay for 30 or more officers. Kent currently has 170 officers.

“For years now, you have heard me describe, the council describe and the police chief describe the staffing challenges we have in our department,” Ralph said. “Simply put, we do not have enough police officers and support staff to provide the level of public safety we deserve.”

Ralph said the lobbying of legislators will go on.

“We are not giving up on this effort,” she said. “We are going to keep making those trips to Olympia. I want to say thank you to our Kent City Council who have supported this effort and made it clear to our Legislature that the priority for our city is funding for public safety. …We are going to continue to work to secure that funding. We really don’t have any other choice.”