Dear friends and neighbors,
As your senator, my goal is to make sure that our community benefits from the hard-earned tax dollars you send to Olympia. I spend every day of the Legislative Session explaining the needs of our community to my fellow elected officials and building relationships so we can bring that money back where it came from.
Last week, lawmakers in Olympia took a major step forward, passing a long-overdue $4.2 billion construction budget funding vital infrastructure projects around the state like public schools, colleges and universities, parks and environmental projects.
I’m extremely pleased that every city in our local community has something to look forward to.
• Carnation gains state funds to revitalize downtown and create a vibrant business district so residents can access small business services in their own community, and to attract tourists visiting Remlinger Farms to drive the extra two minutes to Carnation and support our local merchants;
• Black Diamond gains funds to cover the cost of rebuilding Black Diamond Elementary School;
• Maple Valley gains funds to construct a new memorial honoring our veterans and their service;
• Issaquah gains funds to build a bridge over the creek in Confluence Park;
• North Bend gains funds to rehabilitate the historic Tollgate Farmhouse;
• Falls City gains funds to upgrade wastewater infrastructure; and
• Snoqualmie gains funds to enhance the Northwest Railway Museum.
At a regional level, we provided an additional $5.3 million in state funds to continue our quest to make Lake Sammamish State Park a crown jewel of the Washington State Parks system.
I’m ecstatic about this construction budget because it makes sure that our hard-earned tax dollars are used for projects in our community, as opposed to subsidizing projects in other areas of the state.
Now that we have passed the budget, we will be shifting our focus to identifying projects to include in a 2018 supplemental construction budget and building bipartisan support so that our community gets its fair share of support and investment.
Best regards,
