King County helps create a new economic alliance in Snoqualmie Valley
With administrative support from King County Local Services, four cities and the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe built a partnership to bring economic vitality to their communities and surrounding unincorporated areas. The new Snoqualmie Valley Economic Alliance will soon apply for its first federal grant.
A new alliance
Following a year of collaboration, King County, four cities, and the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe have established the Snoqualmie Valley Economic Alliance. This historic intergovernmental partnership agreement will coordinate equitable support for local businesses and lead economic empowerment services across the valley.
This partnership was made possible in part from a $5.25 million allocation made by the King County Council in 2020 to help communities in unincorporated parts of the county that were hit hard by the COVID pandemic. With grants and administrative support from the county’s Department of Local Services, and in response to community requests, the county created the King County Economic Alliance in 2022 to help businesses in unincorporated areas recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19.
Through that program, the county’s Economic Alliance Program Manager, Anjilee Dodge, organized meetings in the Snoqualmie Valley with the cities of Carnation, Duvall, North Bend, and Snoqualmie, as well as the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe. Together, they created the Snoqualmie Valley Economic Alliance, a group built on sharing resources to bring economic strength to their communities and the surrounding unincorporated areas.
Over the past year, the four cities and the tribe each laid out their own values, goals, focus areas, and priority lists, leaning on one another for expertise and becoming a group greater than the sum of its parts. They also learned about ways to increase their chances of securing larger federal grants.
