Representative Deb Eddy
As a lawyer, community activist, former mayor and public policy expert, Deb Eddy brings a wealth of non-partisan experience to the job of State Representative.
She moved to the 48th District in 1980 and was a founding board member and early volunteer for the Eastside Domestic Violence Program. In the late 1980s, Deb helped establish the Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods, shortly after her neighborhood was annexed into the city. This grass-roots group championed a variety of changes in city policy, including the establishment of neighborhood associations and increased public involvement in major city decisions. By 1993 she had decided to run for Kirkland city council.
Deb went on to serve six years as a councilmember, two as mayor. During this time, the Council approved the Kirkland Performance Center, planned for the Kirkland Teen Center and took an aggressive position in acquiring parks land, all while holding the line on property tax increases.
During her tenure, she focused on land use and development issues in Kirkland and served on a variety of regional boards, including the Seattle-King County Public Health Board and the Regional Water Quality Committee.
In 1999, Deb retired from the Kirkland council to take on the directorship of Suburban Cities Association, representing 37 King County cities with a population of almost 800,000. Until 2004, she facilitated and brokered agreement among the cities and the county on a number of issues, including human services funding, distribution of housing targets and the creation of a multi-government body to restore salmon habitat. In 2004, she was a senior fellow at the Cascadia Center for Regional Transportation, researching and writing on transportation governance structures.
She has served on a variety of nonprofit boards, including the Eastside Domestic Violence Program, Suburban Cities Association and the Municipal League of Seattle-King County. Most recently, she helped found Washington Appleseed, a nonprofit devoted to providing new opportunities for attorneys to work on social justice issues. She works as a policy and public involvement consultant.
Deb holds degrees from West Virginia University (1976, BS) and the University of North Carolina (1979, JD). She has been married for 26 years to husband Jon, a former law professor and commercial attorney who now teaches and consults on international legal issues. She has three grown children, all of whom were educated in the public schools, and two grandchildren, pictured here at Kirkland's 4th of July Parade this year.