When the City of Burien passed an ordinance banning public camping in certain areas, it expected enforcement to follow. What happened instead revealed something deeper: a city that can make laws but not necessarily enforce them.

Burien, like many smaller cities in South King County, does not operate its own police department. Instead, it contracts with the King County Sheriff’s Office under an interlocal agreement. King County also polices areas of unincorporated county in Renton, White Center, Skyway, etc. The arrangement offers efficiency, allowing cities to rent county-level resources instead of funding a department outright.

That efficiency comes with limits. The Sheriff’s Office enforces within the bounds of county and constitutional policy, meaning local ordinances cannot compel enforcement if they conflict with broader legal standards. When the Sheriff’s Office, guided by the County Executive’s legal interpretation, determined that Burien’s camping restrictions conflicted with precedent and shelter requirements, enforcement stopped.

In a single decision, a city’s legislative authority met its administrative ceiling.

Across Washington, smaller municipalities face the same tradeoff. Outsourcing functions like policing, jail contracts, and public health brings capacity but also dependence. What looks like partnership is, in practice, a trade of efficiency for autonomy.

For residents, that structure blurs accountability. Who do you call when a law goes unenforced: the mayor, the sheriff, or the county executive? The overlapping lines of authority make it easy for each side to cite legal caution and hard for the public to see who is responsible for results.

Burien’s ordinance was valid on paper but unenforceable in practice, a quiet example of how local democracy can lose traction even while exercising it.

Burien can still write its own laws. It just cannot promise they’re enforced.