I am reaching out to let you know that I will be retiring as your judge effective Dec. 31, 2025, the end of my term of office. I am doing this so that you, as the voter, can select my replacement in November because I truly believe that the people are in charge, not me.

I want to thank you as a member of this community, as well as thank Mayor Jim Ferrell and the Federal Way City Council for trusting me in this position over the past 17 years, and I hope that I earned every ounce of that trust. Thank you to my current and past staff, my current bench mate Judge Bales, and my former bench mate Judge Rebecca Robertson because they breathed life into this court. I owe a special thanks to my original clerk, Tiziana Giazzi, who is now our court administrator, because of her unwavering commitment to me and to this court through the trials and tribulations of the past seventeen years. Finally, indescribable gratitude is owed to my immediate and extended family who weathered the peaks and valleys of this life experience with me.

Leaving my position with a prestigious law firm and leaving as president of the Federal Way School Board to accept this appointment in 2008 did not come without a price, a price that I gladly paid so that the people of a community that I called home since 1967 could have trust and confidence in their local court. I can sum up this sacrifice by letting you know what I used to say as I navigated one curve ball issue after the other, “the only consolation prize is that it will increase the price of the book rights.” I wrote in this paper after one such issue arose:

“If you are afraid of criticism, then do not hold public office. As a public official, you are sometimes put between a rock and a hard place where criticism is guaranteed regardless of what course of action you take. You can choose the rock, the hard place, or just stay stuck between them by doing nothing.”

I went on to write:

“In the end, I had the choice of doing something or doing nothing. I can live with being criticized for the choice I made in doing something. I could not have lived with the criticism that would have come with the choice to do nothing.”

This will end 34 years of service to this community starting when I was appointed as the first chair of the city’s Board of Ethics in 1991. I also served on the city’s Human Services Commission before becoming a judge. I am humbled and grateful that you as the readers of this newspaper named me Best City Leader in 2022 and that you felt I earned the distinction as one of the top three city leaders since 2015.

My commitment to education continued after leaving the school board to take this position and I am also grateful and humbled that I was named a “Hero” of the District in 2018 and 2022.

However, I am most grateful that you gave me the opportunity to serve you. It has given me purpose and has served to make me a better human being in the process.

I have many options available to me in retirement, but retirement will not change my belief that life is about duty and purpose. I will use that deeply engrained belief as I continue to try to be a voice for the people of this community and our state, especially the consumers of our justice system.

Thank you,

Your grateful servant.

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David Larson is a judge with the Federal Way Municipal Court.