SUCCESS AT STATE
SCANDINAVIANS CELEBRATE
Athletes win in track, tennis, golf — Page 9
Community invited to annual Lefse Fest — Page 6
The IssaquahPress
Issaquah’s only locally owned newspaper
www.issaquahpress.com
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Goo in Tibbetts Creek is deicer, not hazardous By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com As he lives near Tibbetts Creek and frequently walks along the shore, Issaquah resident Steve Engelbrekt said it was hard for him not to notice the black tinge that appeared in the creek at about 2 p.m. May 25. The blackness appeared around state Route 900 and Newport Way Northwest, Engelbrekt said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he added, saying he really didn’t get much of an answer when he called the city about the problem. Engelbrekt said he didn’t know how long the water remained black, but said contamination stuck around “for quite a while.” According to Issaquah Police, a female jogger flagged down a passing patrol car and reported an “odorous, black fluid flowing down the hillside” at about 5:30 p.m. May 25 in the 7500 block of state Route 900.
Police Cmdr. Stan Conrad said the black goo probably looked more disturbing than it actually was. According to Conrad, what leaked was road deicer from a storage unit near the Talus development. Conrad added the leak consisted mostly of molasses and posed no threat to the creek or surrounding landscape. The remote deicer tank was vandalized, with locked valves forced open, said Howard Walker, sewer and storm water operations manager for the city. He said most of the deicer was caught in storm drains before it reached the creek. The Washington State Department of Ecology inspected the creek and found no problems, Walker also said, stating they even noted live, young salmon in the water. The city took steps, Walker continued, to clean the storm water system in the immediate area. “We believe there was not any environmental impact,” Walker said.
Route 200 to change service area, extend to Highlands On June 8, the Route 200 Freebee bus will be extended to the Issaquah Highlands Park & Ride via Southeast Black Nugget Road and Highlands Drive Northeast to improve rider demand and route performance. The new routing means riders will have a connection between the Issaquah Transit Center, downtown and north Issaquah, and the Issaquah Highlands, King County Metro said in a news release. To extend the route without requiring additional revenue, two
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200, Page 5
The car flipped over and apparently immediately caught fire. The car was fully involved, Huffman said, when firefighters arrived. Luckily, both youths escaped the vehicle with only minor injuries. Huffman added the youths were left at the scene in the custody of their parents. Police also were on site, but it is not clear if the driver was charged in connection with the accident.
Darigold wins county environmental award Issaquah’s Darigold Inc. was one of 72 local industrial facilities that recently earned environmental awards from King County’s Industrial Waste Program for dedication to business practices that protect regional water quality in 2014. Each year, the Industrial program, part of King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division, honors local facilities whose business practices contribute to regional pollution-prevention goals. Darigold was one of 25 facili-
TOP HONORS
EFR chaplain Shelley Frey named to local Hall of Fame
portions will be affected: 4The 220th Avenue Southeast, Southeast 51st Street and East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast loop north of Southeast 56th Street, which serves Microsoft, Siemens, Federal Express and other offices, will be discontinued. 4The Fred Meyer and Home Depot loop on East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast and Southeast 62nd Street also will
Teen driver flips car on Squak Mountain Eastside Fire & Rescue responded with three units at about 7 p.m. May 30 when a car flipped over on Squak Mountain. With a teenaged driver behind the wheel and one teenage passenger, the car was headed up the mountain when the driver hit a switch back and apparently lost control of the car, EFR Battalion Chief Glenn Huffman said.
By Greg Farrar
Eastside Fire & Rescue chaplain Shelley Frey (right), with the audience in attendance, hears the accolades from mayor Fred Butler as she is presented the city of Issaquah’s Hall of Fame award during the 36th annual Community Awards Banquet May 28.
ties that earned Silver Awards for having no King County monitoring discharge violations in 2014. Since 1969, the Industrial Waste Program has required industrial facilities to pretreat wastewater before discharging it into the sewer to protect the King County’s treatment system and its workers as well as the environment and public health. Learn more about the King County Industrial Waste Program at www.kingcounty.gov/industrialwaste.
By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com
ships…. and the fun we can have together,” she said. In introducing her, Alan Finkelstein, chairman of the board of directors for the Issaquah Chamber of Commerce, said Donovan had approximately 30 years of marketing and public relations experience, including 10 years in the entertainment industry. He noted her work includes the sometimes monumental task of organizing shuttles during community events. But besides her work for the city, Finkelstein also mentioned Donovan’s volunteering work with her children’s schools. Donovan later said she first moved to Issaquah in 2003, but she also noted she has a sister here and had been visiting the city on a regular basis since 1990. She talked a bit about living in the Portland area and working as a concert promoter. Which led, by the way, to her mentioning a new series of blues shows to be put on at the Front Street Shell station this summer. The shows will run July 16 through the end of August. Once she arrived in Issaquah, Donovan became a member of the city Human
“You never know where you are going to end up,” said Shelley Frey, one of four chaplains with Eastside Fire & Rescue. On the day of this interview, May 29, Frey responded with firefighters to the death of a 55-year-old woman on the plateau. The woman happened to be the mother of her daughterin-law’s best friend, a situation that made her presence even more palpable. For about 11 years, Frey, 55, has been on call as a chaplain for EFR. For her obvious enjoyment of and devotion to the job, Frey was named the 2015 entrant into the Issaquah Hall of Fame. Frey’s day job is managing assessment data for the Issaquah School District. She says the district has been wonderful to work for and always allowed her to leave her duties there to take on her duties as an EFR chaplain. Frey has been called to the scene of any number and type of incidents — car accidents, hiking or climbing mishaps, boating accidents. She said that luckily there are very few fires locally for which a chaplain’s services are needed. If necessary, Frey said EFR chaplains handle death notifications to families. For most emergency calls, Frey said she arrives about 20 minutes into the incident. First responders probably have been on the scene for at least that amount of time. She usually meets first with whoever is in charge on scene and gets filled in on the situation. If there are family members or survivors, she next meets with them. “Then it’s fly-by-the-seat-ofyour-pants-time because you
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See FREY, Page 5
By Greg Farrar
Karen Donovan, executive director of the Downtown Issaquah Association, thanks and pays back her respects to the community as she was honored with the Citizen of the Year award from the Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce. Meet all the Community Awards recipients on page 6.
DIA director Karen Donovan named Citizen of the Year By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com Art Walks. Wine Walks. Holiday events. Concerts at the historic Shell station on Front Street. And one, new upcoming event on which she was not about to spill the beans ahead of time. In her role as executive director of the Downtown Issaquah Association, organizing such happenings in the downtown area are some of the more visible parts of Karen Donovan’s job and her contributions to Issaquah. But Donovan has her hand in numerous other projects, from helping plan a new streetscape for Front Street to being an active participant in the Downtown Vitality Task Force. For her efforts, Donovan was named 2015’s Citizen of the Year during the city’s annual Community Awards dinner May 28. “Issaquah is the best place I’ve ever lived,” Donovan said during a brief acceptance speech. She noted she had lived in several spots before landing here. As for her job as civic promoter and organizer, Donovan said it’s all about working with people from throughout the city. “It’s all about relation-
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