Sarah Halstead, community education coordinator with the Kent Police Department, told the Council the department has been a participant in two Washington Traffic Safety Commission programs and is entering the second year of both awards. She said the dedicated DUI officer grant funds salary, benefits, education and outreach and supported a staffing pattern that included a dedicated traffic officer, David Castro, who has been working four 10-hour shifts and whose car was wrapped to identify his role.
Halstead said the DUI award is part of a three-year grant and that the department would begin year 2 on Oct. 1, 2025, running through Sept. 30, 2026. "Officer David Castro is one of our traffic officers. He is our dedicated DUI officer," she said during the presentation.
Halstead also described the Target Zero corridor project, a multi-jurisdictional enforcement and education effort that grew from a fatal crash in Fairwood in March 2024. The Target Zero grant centers on a roughly 10-mile corridor from north at Highway 169 south to Highway 18 and combines enforcement, teen driver education in high schools, speed culture campaigns (including "Slower is safer" yard signs), pedestrian-bicycle grants for community groups and coordinated enforcement with Renton, King County Roads, King County Sheriff's Office and Auburn.
Councilmember Boyse moved to accept $200,000 in Washington Traffic Safety Commission funds for the dedicated DUI officer program, amending the budget and authorizing expenditure and necessary agreements subject to final terms acceptable to the police chief and city attorney; the motion passed unanimously. Councilmember Boyse then moved to accept $125,000 for the 2025-26 Target Zero grant under similar terms; that motion also passed unanimously.