After working to preserve Valley history for more than 10 years, Cristy Lake was appointed to the King County Landmarks Commission on Aug. 6.

As a commissioner Lake, a lifelong Valley resident, will help oversee the development of policy and planning for the historical preservation programs for the county and review and decide on nominations for King County Landmark designations.

“So if there is a new building that someone wants to list as a landmark, we review and decide on certificates of appropriateness for alterations to a King County landmark, or if there is a plan to demolish a landmark property,” Lake said.

Lake first heard about the opening for a commissioner on the Association of King County Heritage Organization’s Facebook page and got in contact to learn more about the position.

She said she didn’t think she’d pursue the position herself.

“I never in my wildest dreams expected to actually be appointed, but I wanted to know more about what the commission did and they decided they wanted somebody from the Snoqualmie Valley specifically to better represent broader King County,” she said.

“And with my museum background they thought I would be a good candidate.”

Lake, who has a master’s degree in historical archaeology from the University of York in England, is the assistant director at the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum in North Bend and the volunteer coordinator and collections registrar at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie. Her role as a King County Landmark Commissioner is an addition to those two roles she has as a Valley historian.

The commission has monthly board meetings in Seattle, but if there is a specific landmark issue in another city the group will move the location of their meeting and will include local representatives to provide context, she said.

“If there is specific landmark in a specific city that is being looked at, sometimes they will have a special meeting in that town and in those cases there is a 10th special commissioner that is appointed to represent that community,” Lake said. “Snoqualmie has a landmarks district so they have a representative, it’s Dave Battey. For North Bend it’s Cindy Walker. If they are meeting to discuss a Snoqualmie landmark Dave would come to that meeting and it would be in Snoqualmie instead of Seattle.”

The preservation of local landmarks and historic places and objects is not only beneficial as a reminder of our past, but can have real effects on cities and towns. Owning a landmark property encourages additional historic research and distribution of the information, it can foster civic pride and also qualify for assistance from the county through grants, Lake explained.

“It also allows you to possibly deduct some of that cost from your taxes, but does require review of any changes you make and it helps improve the economy by promoting local history and can help stabilize and improve property values of historic districts,” she said. “There is a huge heritage tourism impact to the community.”

In this new role, Lake will be able to use her perspective as a Valley resident to not only provide context for decisions concerning Valley landmarks, but also to apply her perspective to other places around King County.

“Our history and preserving our past is important to have a strong culture and I want to do what I can to support that,” she said. “King County is one of the fastest growing areas in the nation and with development you inherently lose some of your archaeological and historic resources as things are developed. Preserving that whether it’s preserving a historic building or the data from what had been there is vital and I want to do my part to help preserve that.”