On behalf of the citizens of Maple Valley, we members of the Maple Valley City Council want to applaud the years of service Laure Iddings has given to the residents of the Maple Valley area. Before serving as Maple Valley’s first mayor, Laure chaired the Greater Maple Valley Area Council, the forum that discussed the issues facing the greater Maple Valley area prior to incorporation. Her public service dedication led her to chairing the city of Maple Valley Incorporation Committee, guiding the important process that led to the incorporation of the city of Maple Valley just over 12 years ago. Her leadership in promoting the advantages of incorporation culminated in an 80 percent vote in support of incorporation. As the city’s first mayor, she worked tirelessly with the City Council and Maple Valley citizens to cultivate a vision for the City that has stood the test of time. She was a smart leader for our city, with a keen understanding of the land use, environmental, building, budget, and administrative issues to be dealt with. As evidenced by her re-elections to both the Council and office of mayor for 12 years, citizens and councils trusted her leadership. As mayor, Laure was ever cognizant of the critical balance between unavoidable suburban development, building on the rural past and cultivating the natural surroundings that attract residents to Maple Valley. The bottom line was her strong desire to have Maple Valley be a great place to call home!

One of the first tough issues the City Council had to deal with as a new city was regarding police services. Under her guidance, she and the first City Council made the difficult choice, electing to contract for services with King County rather than immediately attempt to build an internal police agency. Over the years, with the citizens’ involvement and the dedicated service provided by the officers assigned by King County to serve as the city’s police department, the city of Maple Valley became one of the safest cities in the State. In 2008, for all listed cities in Washington state with populations 10,000-25,000, the city of Maple Valley ranked the third safest city in the state per part one crime index rates, and seventh in the state for all cities over 10,000.

The policy foundation developed by Mayor Iddings and the City Councils of the past twelve years resulted in steady improvements to the city’s roadways, including state highways; construction of Take-A-Break Park; development of the city’s excellent Parks and Recreation programs; ownership and revitalization of the Lake Wilderness Park and Lodge and construction of The Den to serve the area youth. The city also purchased several properties for future use, including the Summit Park and Ball Field property and the Maple Valley Place/Legacy Site acreage. The city of Maple Valley comprehensive plan, the parks, recreation, cultural and human services plan and the Witte Road corridor study, are just three of the long range planning tools developed under the mayor’s leadership, all focused on the citizen vision of “a well-planned city with a safe, healthy and aesthetically pleasing environment.”

The 2010 City Council, on behalf of all citizens of Maple Valley, sincerely thank Laure Iddings for her efforts on behalf of the citizens of Maple Valley.

Mayor Noel Gerken

Councilor Bill Allison

Councilwoman Linda Johnson

Councilor Dana Parnello

Deputy Mayor Victoria Laise Jonas

Councilor Layne Barnes

Councilor Erin Weaver