Meet local, regional candidates
Local mother-and-daughter team Cycle the WAVE
Runners head downstream for Salmon Days races Sports,
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Swap costumes for Halloween
Community,
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www.issaquahpress.com
THE ISSAQUAH PRESS
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 • Vol. 112, No. 40
Locally owned since 1900 • 75 Cents
Issaquah gunman: ‘Something big is going to happen’ Investigators recovered 952 rounds of ammunition from shooter’s body
By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter Just before midnight on a Thursday last month, a man stopped at Issaquah City Hall and asked for assistance from a police officer. The man, slender and balding, carried a handgun tucked into his waistband — unusual, perhaps, but not illegal. The responding officer approached and asked the man to turn over weapon. The man — later identified as Ronald W. Ficker, the man responsible for a downtown Issaquah shootout Sept. 24 — agreed, and handed the firearm to the officer.
Then, he launched into a story. “He said that he was in danger,” King County Chief Deputy Steve Strachan said Sept. 28, days after Ficker died in a shootout on the Clark Elementary School campus. “He also said that he had an invention that would save the planet.” The episode at 11:31 p.m. Sept. 15 started a series of strange interactions between Issaquah police and Ficker. Officers ended up fatally shooting him in a gun battle at the downtown Issaquah school as terrified residents and spectators at a youth football game at See SHOOTING, Page A2
BY GREG FARRAR
King County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Steven Strachan points out in a picture the ditch on the east side of Clark Elementary School from which Ronald W. Ficker took a 'tactical' position and fired at Issaquah police Sept. 24 and where he was killed in the shootout.
Friend describes gunman as kind, laidback guy Conversation offered clue to mental turmoil By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter
“He wasn’t some maniac. Something just snapped and I don’t know what.” — Mark Risdon Ronald W. Ficker’s longtime friend
The reason Ronald W. Ficker engaged in a fatal gun battle against Issaquah police at Clark Elementary School continues to elude detectives, but the gunman’s Ronald Ficker self-described best friend said the only clue to the incident came less than 48 hours before the Sept. 24 shootout. Mark Risdon, Ficker’s longtime friend, last spoke to the gunman just after 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22 — the night before police said Ficker rented a silver Kia Forte at a Seattle rental car counter. The vehicle surfaced in Issaquah the next morning after police said the sedan stalled along Interstate 90 and again near a downtown intersection. Police fatally shot Ficker on the Clark Elementary campus at about 11:40 a.m. Sept. 24.
“The content of our conversation gave me a lot of concern,” Risdon said. “He just wasn’t making sense. He was talking, he was saying something about going into outer space.” Risdon suggested watching a movie the next night, but in the end, decided not to call Ficker after the odd interaction. In the conversation, Ficker did not mention plans to rent a car or travel. “I was kind of afraid to call him, because the conversation that we had Thursday was, well, alarming,” Risdon said. “I wish I had called him.” Risdon said he attempted — but failed — to reach Ficker’s physician to discuss the episode. Risdon said Ficker had not said anything similar before the Sept. 22 conversation. “When I talked to him Thursday,
See FRIEND, Page A2
INSIDE THE PRESS A&E . . . . . . . B10
Opinion . . . . . . A4
Classifieds . . . . B8
Police blotter . . B9
Community . . . B1
Schools . . . . . . B7
Obituaries . . . . B3
Sports . . . . . . B4-5
See Page B10
Salmon Days delivers mild, wild fun Issaquah’s annual celebration returns for 42nd year
By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter Organizers promised a wild Salmon Days Festival. The mild temperatures — misty clouds on Oct. 1 yielded to stray sunshine Oct. 2 — belied a rowdy theme, and crowds turned out in droves for the salmon-centric celebration. The festival unfolded as a tribute to the untamed under the theme “Wild Things!” — a riff on the classic children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are.” Salmon Days spanned Issaquah, from hydroplane races on Lake Sammamish to booths lined up downtown to a floatfilled parade inching along city streets. The festival lured more than 150,000 people to Issaquah as the annual autumn celebration returned for a 42nd year. To celebrate the occasion, Maple Valley resident Bob Taylor ordered a Flintstonian turkey leg from a Foods of the World booth along the trolley track and tore off a bite from the outsized drumstick. “They’re fresh out of the oven and they’re a whole meal you can hold in one hand,” he said as wife Mary Ann nibbled a dainty-bycomparison salmon-topped Caesar salad nearby. Salmon Days hordes descended on the Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery gift shop and stripped commemorative lapel pins and other souvenirs from racks. Children snapped up blank T-shirts for fish prints — smearing paint-coated fish against the fabric — in a barbaric-but-artistic display fit for a feral festival. Even the fish print activity offered a chance for vest-clad, sign-carrying FISH docents to share facts about salmon. “I was so surprised at the people who don’t know the salmon life cycle, even people who live right here,” FISH Executive Director Jane Kuechle said. “It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, they die? You kill them?’ It’s kind of like, ‘Yes, that’s what happens.’ Little kids want to know why and we say, ‘Well, that’s Mother Nature.’”
From mild to wild Beneath the trappings and trimmings, Salmon Days celebrates spawning salmon in Issaquah Creek. Crowds jammed the bridge across the creek on the hatchery grounds and pressed close to portals to see the fish up close. “Hopefully, people understand the life cycle of the salmon, the importance of the ecology,” Kuechle said. “All of that can only help people be better stewards of the environment.” Duvall residents Cliff and Beth Nelson offered a civilized display at a booth for Puzzled Postage — images from stamps crafted into Lilliputian puzzles. The effort requires some precision craftsmanship from the husband-andwife team. Jake Szramek headed north from Salem, Ore., to Salmon Days to offer handmade wooden toys — cars, trains, even a pirate ship beneath billowing sails. “Everybody has to have a hobby, this is mine,” he said. “My wife likes to travel, I like to make toys.” Salmon appeared almost everywhere on the festival grounds — in the creek, in artwork crafted from ceramic, wood and metal — and on plates alongside coleslaw at the Kiwanis Club of Issaquah Salmon Barbecue. Sammamish resident Jeroen de Borst left the Sammamish Plateau to introduce his family to Salmon Days. “For our first time here, we had to have salmon at Salmon Days,” he said from a table at the Kiwanis Club barbecue.
PHOTOS BY GREG FARRAR
Above, Salmon Days Festival visitors descend on Front Street on Oct. 1. Below, the S’Duk Albix parade float, with Snoqualmie Tribe members, enthralls Grande Parade spectators. See more photos on Page B1.
From wild to mild Redmond resident Gail Greenwood donned a leopardprint sprawl and matching bucket hat from a Salmon Days seller Oct. 2 and bounced along as The Fabulous Roof Shakers performed a blues- and rock-inflected set on the Front Street Stage. “We come every year for the fabulous artwork and for the live See SALMON
DAYS, Page A3
Federal government declines to list Lake Sammamish kokanee as endangered Population is in decline, but local stock is not ‘distinct’ from other kokanee By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter Federal officials decided dwindling Lake Sammamish kokanee salmon do not qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act, prompting a chorus of disapproval from local officials. The species’ decline concerned U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials, but did not merit the fish being listed under the act. The agency announced the decision Oct. 3. The once-abundant kokanee declined in recent decades, perhaps due to construction near creeks, increased predators, dis-
RAIN GAIN
ease or changes in water quality. In recent years, the number of salmon in the late-fall and earlywinter run has dwindled to fewer than 1,000 in some seasons. Kokanee return to only a handful of creeks — Ebright, Laughing Jacobs and Lewis — to spawn. Scientists estimated the total 2010 run at 58 fish, including the 40 kokanee spawned at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery in a last-ditch effort to save the species. The decision came after the agency spent four years to review the Lake Sammamish stock’s health. “I am surprised and disappointed by this decision,” County Executive Dow Constantine said in a statement. “Our native Lake Sammamish kokanee are on the brink of extinction and we have had to resort to emergency hatchery supplementation — basically life support — to make future recovery possible.” The agency determined the
SALMON COUNT
Last Week’s Rainfall: (through Monday) .53 inches
Chinook: (through Oct. 3) — 723,000 eggs, 500 fish in hatchery ponds, 436 fish allowed upstream, 292 fish spawned
Total for 2011: 50.49 inches
Kokanee: 1 Coho: 5 Sockeye: 2
Total last year: (through Oct. 5) 43.16 inches
Lake Sammamish kokanee population does not meet the definition of a “listable entity” under the “distinct population segment” policy. Officials said the species offered no evidence of a “special significance to the well-being of the species throughout its range,” and therefore did not qualify for Endangered Species Act protection. Similar kokanee thrive in other waterways around the globe. “Despite the reasoning behind today’s decision, we will do what is right and continue to work with our partners and the Fish & Wildlife Service to halt the decline of our local fish,” Constantine added. The kokanee spawning program receives support from the Fish & Wildlife Service, King County and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Mayor unveils 2012 city budget By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter Construction could start on a long-planned park along Issaquah Creek, North Issaquah landowners and the city could partner to tackle transportation problems, and police could step up traffic enforcement if the City Council approves the 2012 municipal budget Mayor Ava Frisinger unveiled Oct. 3. Frisinger offered a $32 million general fund budget — dollars used to fund police and fire services, community development and planning, parks and recreation, and municipal government. The proposal is not as austere as the budgets Frisinger proposed in recent years. The council adopted a $30.4 million general fund budget in 2011. The increase stems in part from increased debt payments on council-issued bonds for city construction projects.
See KOKANEE, Page A5
QUOTABLE “Be thrilled when you should be thrilled. When you’re at the top of the roller coaster and you’re going down, scream and have a great time. When the world kicks sand in your face, know that it’s temporary.”
— Mitchell Maxwell Broadway producer and author interviewed by Steve Tomkins, longtime Village Theatre artistic director (See story on Page B10.)
See BUDGET, Page A5
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