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AN ORDINANCE providing for the submission to the qualified electors of King County at a special election to be held in King County on November 3, 2015, a proposition authorizing a property tax levy in excess of the levy limitations contained in chapter 84.55 RCW for a consecutive six-year period at a first year rate of not more than 14 cents per one thousand dollars of assessed valuation, and limiting annual levy increases to three percent in the five succeeding years, all for the purpose of funding prevention and early intervention strategies to improve the health and well-being of children, youth and their communities.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Approximately twenty-five thousand children are born in King County every year. County residents under age eighteen comprise twenty-one percent of the county's population. Nearly half of people under age eighteen in King County are people of color.
2. Eighty-five percent of the human brain is developed by age three. According to early childhood development experts, basic skills necessary to be ready to learn in school and be successful as an adult, such as self-esteem, motivation, coordination, prioritization, management of incoming information, attention and distraction control, are developed by age five before children go to school.
3. A second significant time of brain development is adolescence. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the parts of the brain responsible for controlling impulses and planning ahead, which are the hallmarks of successful adult behavior, mature during adolescence. Adolescence is also the critical period when young people learn to form safe and healthy relationships, and when many patterns of health-promoting or potentially health-damaging behaviors are established.
4. Although King County as a whole is a thriving, prosperous region, there is evidence that some of our children and youth are in danger of being left behind. The percentage of children f...

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