About Us

Who We Are

Countywide Community Forums (CCF) is a nationally recognized program of King County designed to make democracy more user-friendly. The CCF model brings the public forum to your living room, neighborhood coffee shop, or workplace. It follows a high-tech, high-touch format that allows people to meet in small groups, learn about issues, and provide feeback to county officials.

The CCF Mission

Engage: King County public officials want to know what people think about issues. The forums are offered 2 to 3 times a year during a 30-day window. Individuals choose the time and place. Whether it is a living room, workplace or a public space, forums are designed to be convenient gathering spots. Time at a forum is spent covering topics that are relevant to public policy and of interest to the people of King County.

Educate: Forum participants review background materials and view a video that presents diverse opinions from community leaders. After viewing the video, participants deliberate among themselves, learning from each other's experiences in a way that helps them structure and expand their views.

Inform public officials: Participants fill out a detailed survey on a selected topic. The surveys are compiled into a report that is published on the King County website and presented to the King County Council, the public, and to the media.

Who Oversees CCF?

The County Auditor oversees program operations and guarantees the integrity of the data collected from the surveys. The selection and approval of forum topics are done through an Advisory Citizen Councilor Steering Committee comprised of county elected officials, representatives from local colleges and universities, Superintendents of public school districts, tribal organizations, and other groups from across King County.

From the original Preamble of Initiative 24:

Freedom of speech, freedom of petition and freedom of assembly are hollow rights if people feel unable to be heard.

Freedom to be heard is not mentioned in the United States Constitution and thus is a right reserved to the people under the ninth amendment.

The purpose of this initiative is to enhance citizen participation, civic engagement and citizenship education in government. There is a need to create a citizen councilor network of small discussion groups, open to all citizens, self-funded and using symbolic and sustainable dialogue to communicate among political and other community leaders and the people at large.

One key to a sustainable community is an informed and sustainable dialogue among leaders and people. Citizens need new, more convenient and effective ways to share their opinions with other citizens and the leaders of their organizations, institutions and governments. This is a process of building social capital through both bonding and bridging dialogue and improving community mental health and happiness -- one of the goals of all governments, which seek, as they should, to protect and enhance the basic human rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."