A new flag will fly over Walla Walla
By Terry Murry on Friday, July 30th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WALLA WALLA – A new design for the Walla Walla city flag was adopted by city council Wednesday. The new design replaces the previous city flag which has been in place since 2008.
The winning design was submitted by Lindsay Tebeck of Walla Walla, who described it as: “The lines prominent in this design are representative of Walla Walla’s notorious rolling hills, Blue Mountains, and many streams. The drastic yellow circle, whose color comes from the Washington state flag’s emblem, symbolizes the rising sun. It both adds body to the hills by peaking over them and casting a reflection in interpretative waters below. The green in the hills and blue in the sky are also pulled straight from the Washington state flag.”
The chosen design was one of 78 designs created and submitted by members of the public during a two-phase design contest held by the city. The purpose of the contest was to engage residents by inviting them to participate in a city process.
As the request of the city council, members of the Walla Walla Arts Commission reviewed the entries and voted for their favorites, which resulted in six finalists. Along with the previous city flag, these six designs were presented on the city website, and the public was given an opportunity to vote for up to three of their favorites. A total of 1,065 electronic ballots were cast, with 2,754 individual votes.
The top three vote-getters in public voting were presented to the arts commission, whose members chose to bring two of the designs to the city council — the design that received the most votes (618) by the public, and the design that was unanimously preferred by the arts commission, which received the third-most votes (460) by the public. After considering the two submitted designs and the previous city flag (which received the fourth-most public vote (356), the council voted, 5-1, to adopt the design preferred by the commission as opposed to the peoples’ choice as the new city flag. The city council also voted, 6-0, to frame and display the previous city flag as a piece of city history.
