King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Lar­ry Phillips, long a fix­ture on the state’s largest coun­ty’s leg­isla­tive body, announced today he has decid­ed not to run again in Novem­ber and will retire at the end of the year, when his cur­rent term expires.

“It has been an hon­or and a priv­i­lege to serve the peo­ple of King Coun­ty and the region, rep­re­sent­ing the Fourth Dis­trict on the King Coun­ty Coun­cil,” Phillips said in a state­ment post­ed to his web­site. “It has been inspir­ing to be con­sis­tent­ly immersed in the deci­sion mak­ing of our region in meet­ing the many challenges—and changes—of the past two decades.”

“But now it is time to set a new course; con­se­quent­ly I do not intend to seek re-elec­tion this fall to the King Coun­ty Council.”

“This deci­sion is not reached eas­i­ly. While I still pos­sess the ener­gy and desire to help our region meet the many chal­lenges growth pos­es to our qual­i­ty of life, and remain com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing the val­ues we hold close in this unique and beau­ti­ful home we share, I hope to do so in new ways.”

Phillips has served many times as coun­cil chair, and is a tire­less advo­cate for strength­en­ing our tran­sit sys­tem and pro­tect­ing our environment.

Phillips’ deci­sion to retire will almost sure­ly set off a big scram­ble for his seat, pos­si­bly includ­ing sev­er­al state leg­is­la­tors (who won’t have to risk their own seats to run for Phillips’ seat) and maybe even a cur­rent city coun­cilmem­ber or two.

The 4th Coun­ty Coun­cil Dis­trict is sit­u­at­ed in north Seat­tle and takes in a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of neighborhoods.

As we get reac­tion to the news of Phillips’ retire­ment, we’ll update this post.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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