By Jack Mayne

The Kent City Council named city Prosecuting Attorney Sara Watson, a longtime Kent employee, as employe of the year at its regular Council meeting on Tuesday, March 19.

Prosecuting Attorney Sara Watson.

Watson’s first job was as a Kent summer worker watering city flower beds, said Mayor Dana Ralph. She then spent a year working for Americorps and Smith College in Northampton, Mass. before returning to the Northwest to attend law school at Seattle University. After graduating from law school, the mayor said she spent two years as an criminal defense attorney in Orange County, California.

Watson was hired in 2014 as a prosecuting attorney and “enjoys working for the city where she grew up,” Ralph said. “She says it is important to have a leadership that thinks outside of the box,” and she helped start the Kent DUI Court in 2017.

“It means a lot to be working in Kent,” she said, adding that when she was working as a prosecutor in California it was “it was easy for me to see that things were being done the right way in Kent, prosecute with compassion but hold defendants accountable. I am proud of it,” referring to the DUI court she was instrumental in launching.

Mayor Ralph also swore in new officer Shaun Brooks before the Council members.