State Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, said Tuesday he is running for for King County Council Position 5 to replace Julia Patterson, who announced last week she will not seek re-election after 12 years on the council.
“It’s hard to imagine someone in South County who has a better understanding of local government or has a tighter connection to this community.” Patterson said in a Upthegrove media release. “Dave Upthegrove will hit the ground running and serve this community with distinction.”
Upthegrove was born and raised in South King County. He attended Lakeside High School in Seattle before earning a bachelor of arts degree in environmental conservation from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Upthegrove is currently Chair of the House Environment Committee and also serves on the Local Government and Transportation Committees.
Upthegrove has been involved in education policy, sponsoring and passing legislation to improve the teaching of civics and to better meet the needs of recent immigrant students, according to the release. Upthegrove has led high-profile environmental initiatives to clean up Puget Sound and to clean up soil at schools and day cares contaminated by a local Asarco copper smelter. For this, the Washington Conservation Voters named Upthegrove their “Legislator Of The Year” in 2011.
“I’ve spent 12 years now working in Olympia learning the ins and outs of the laws that govern our region,” Upthegrove said. “I’ve worked with our businesses, our cities, our human services organizations, our labor unions and our groups working to protect our environment and our quality of life. This is and always will be my home. That’s why I want deepen my level of public service as the next member of the King County Council.”
Council Position 5 serves the communities of Kent, Des Moines, Burien, Normandy Park, Renton, SeaTac, Tukwila and parts of unincorporated South King County.
At the state level, Upthegrove represents House District 33, which includes part of Kent as well as Des Moines and SeaTac. He is in his seventh term in the House. He was re-elected in November to a two-year term that expires the end of 2014.
He previously worked for seven years on the staff of the Washington State Senate. He also has worked intermittently on the Patterson’s staff.
Patterson represented the 33rd District in the House and the Senate for nearly a decade before she left the Legislature and was elected to the King County Council in 2001 when she defeated Pam Roach with 58 percent of the vote. She was reelected in 2005 and 2009.
For more information, go to upthegrove.com.
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