Karen served nine years on the Tumwater City Council, and three years on the Tumwater Planning Commission prior to that.
Along with Commissioner Wolfe, Commissioner Valenzuela was a co-founder of the Interjurisdictional Forum on Homelessness in 2003, and now represents Thurston County on its successor organization, the Thurston County HOME Consortium. She helped establish Tumwater's 3-year-old farmers market, is lead on Tumwater's newly established sister city relationship with Mubende, Uganda, and was a leader in the recent adoption of an ordinance to designate a new manufactured home park zone in Tumwater.
Commissioner Valenzuela has been a public health worker for 20 years, and hopes to concentrate her Commission work on preservation of agricultural lands and critical areas in the county, climate change, and sustainability issues.
