ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, September 23, 2011
www.issaquahreporter.com
Strange bedfellows Redistricting could link Issaquah-Wenatchee, Samm. -Whatcom County BY NAT LEVY REPORTER NEWSPAPERS
Robin Kelley, Salmon Days Festival Director, has dedicated 20 years to helping organize the annual festival, which has grown to be one of the largest on the Eastside. This year the festival is Oct. 1-2 in downtown Issaquah. CELESTE GRACEY, Issaquah Reporter
RETURNING HOME 20 years ago, festival director Robin Kelley rediscovered her connection to salmon and Issaquah BY CELESTE GRACEY CGRACEY@ISSAQUAH-REPORTER.COM
For Issaquah native Robin Kelley, Salmon Days is about homecomings. As a youth she couldn’t have left small town Issaquah quicker, but over a decade later the festival helped bring her back into the community. She’s now dedicated 20 years of work to Salmon Days, most of which she’s served as its director. Even before her return home, Salmon Days made its mark in her life. The first time she encountered the festival was on her wedding day. She planned to be married at her childhood church, St. Michaels, in 1976. The day of the wedding, the road to the chapel was blocked for the festival. So when the newlywed couple drove off, cans rattling behind the car, they moved through the thick of festival, joining the celebration with
SALMON DAYS GUIDE INSIDE All of the details for this year’s Salmon Days Festival can be found in a pull-out section inside this issue of the Reporter. The “ofhishal” guide includes a calendar of events for Oct. 1-2, details on how to best get there, and a complete list of events for kids. one of their own. Since it was founded 42 years ago, it has grown from a small-town celebration, where neighbors would go to see each other, to one of the largest festivals on the Eastside. Last year Salmon Days attracted 180,000
people over two days to a city of 30,000. Organizers plan this year’s celebration, Oct. 1-2, to be of equal stature. Most of those visitors are from the Eastside, and they come because they have a positive connection to the city, Kelley said. The festival is no longer a town celebrating its community, its about a region celebrating Issaquah, Kelley said. “It’s really powerful to get to share it.” Kelley, whose maiden name is Hailstone like the historic feed store, grew up in Issaquah when it had with a large Labor Day celebration. When that event petered out, the chamber organized a celebration of the salmon’s return to the town’s hatchery, she said. Then, too, visitors would go to Issaquah creek to view the salmon, she said, as she looked out her office window toward the SEE KELLEY, 5
Issaquah residents could find themselves in a congressional district with residents of Wenatchee and Chelan while people in Sammamish could be grouped with those in Whatcom under one proposal to redistrict the state. A state commission is drawing up new boundaries for what will be 10 congressional districts in the state and new lines for legislative districts. The districts are adjusted every 10 years after the most recent census to make sure each member of Congress represents the same number of people. The Wenatchee/Whatcom County proposal– only a draft for now – by commission member and former State Rep. Tom Huff, is far different from those proposed by former Sen. Slade Gorton, Tim Ceis and Dean Foster. New maps for the state’s congressional and legislative districts are due to be completed by Jan. 1, 2012, but members say that are aiming for a Nov. 1 deadline to give the public time for comments. The other three proposals take a different track. Gorton keeps Issaquah and Sammamish remain pretty much as they are today in a district that includes northeast King County and north Pierce County. Ceis and Foster would put Issaquah and Sammamish with such cities as Redmond, Kirkland, Edmonds and other cities north of Seattle. Regarding legislative districts, Gorton keeps Issaquah in the Fifth District, but puts Sammamish in the 41 District with Newcastle and Mercer Island. Ceis puts Issaquah in the 41st District and Sammamish in the 45th District. Foster puts Issaquah into the 41 District with south Bellevue and Mercer Island, and most of Sammamish in the 5th District. Huff leaves most of Issaquah and Sammamish in the 5th. The committee is taking comments from the public on the draft maps up until its Oct. 11 meeting.
Nat Levy can be reached at 425-453-4290.