Joshua Hiler, Commission Chair, Joshua.hiler@outlook.com & Kate Burke, City Council Liaison, kateburke@spokanecity.org
Monday, March 1, 2021 at 4:48 p.m.
After 400 submissions and 300 semifinalists the Spokane Flag Commission has reached the zenith of its process and selected 12 finalists to advance to a binding vote of the public. Partnering with the Spokane Public Library, the Flag Commission will be opening a voting portal where the public will be able to rank the finalists to decide which one will become the fourth official Spokane flag, replacing the ungainly and publicly unknown current flag which dates from the late 1970s.
“While it’s been a long road getting to this point, we’re incredibly excited to let the public make the final choice,” says Spokane Flag Commission Chair Joshua Hiller. “It was amazing to see how much interest there was from both Spokane and abroad to design a new flag, and it was a hard choice to narrow down to just 12 finalists – there were dozens of incredible designs, but we think this set offers a diverse group of options.”
The Flag Commission has selected these finalists out of the top 100 most popular semifinalist flags, as chosen by the public in an online survey in December 2020. The Commission (comprised of citizen representatives of each of Spokane’s 3 council districts, the Spokane Tribe, the local arts community, and the City government) picked designs which they felt offered a diverse set of options – and now it falls to the public to make the final pick.
The Flag Commission aims to open the public vote within the first week of April, and voting will be open for one month. Voters will need to have a Spokane Library card to vote – registration (for City of Spokane and Spokane County residents) is free and you can sign up either before or during the voting window to cast your vote.
Sign up for a Spokane Library Card here: https://www.spokanelibrary.org/signup/
An alternative voting portal will be provided to allow Spokane Tribe members who may not have free access to SPL to cast their votes as well.
About Spokane Flag Commission: The City of Spokane has had several flag designs throughout the years and adopted different designs as the official city flag in 1912, 1958, and 1977. Lloyd L. Carlson, who also designed the famous "Mobius strip" symbol for the World's Fair held in Spokane, Expo '74, designed the current city flag. The City of Spokane intends to update its flag to provide a symbol of which all people in Spokane can be proud and which represents the city we love.
