Town council election victors cite key goals

With ballots having been counted, recently elected La Conner Town Council members are now adding input regarding goals they hope to achieve in their upcoming terms.

That post-election math includes factors ranging from infrastructure planning and finding solutions to La Conner’s housing crunch to improving access to town meetings and addressing sea level rise and other local environmental concerns.

Rick Dole and Ivan Carlson, III, who successfully ran as challengers in this year’s elections and incumbent MaryLee Chamberlain, who won her contested race, shared their initial priority lists for future council action with the Weekly News on Thursday.

Dole, a town planning commissioner and U.S. Navy veteran with an engineering background, topped his list with water and wastewater facilities upgrades and developing strategies for funding said work.

Few would disagree with that focus.

The town is bracing for mandated major multi-million-dollar improvements at its nearly half-century-old wastewater treatment plant over the next decade. Mayor Ramon Hayes has expressed hope that monies can be secured from new federal infrastructure legislation to cover at least a portion of the projected cost.

Construction of the plant in the 1970s, which replaced septic tanks with secondary sewage treatment, was a key factor in transforming La Conner from a sleepy village to its present status as a popular destination town.

Hayes has said protecting La Conner’s infrastructure is essential in maintaining the town’s competitive edge.

“You can’t have a first-rate community with a third-rate infrastructure,” Hayes insisted in an earlier interview with the Weekly News.

Second on Dole’s list is a more immediate – and certainly visible – area of attention.

“Flood control,” he stressed, “given our recent experience.”

As Dole spoke, Skagit County was recovering from its most serious bout of flooding in three decades. Earlier in the week he had taken pictures of high water lapping onto a sidewalk near the Moore-Clark building and Swinomish Channel rising elsewhere along the waterfront.

La Conner is particularly vulnerable to flooding and as a result the council has committed funding toward construction of a new protective dike section on the north edge of town.

Dole has also identified as a third critical objective the need to provide housing opportunities here for low-income residents.

“We’ll have to research how to achieve this goal,” he acknowledged.

Given a choice, Dole said he would like to serve on the council’s parks and port, facilities and/or streets & safety committees.

“As for committee assignments,” said Dole, “I would defer to the wishes of the two senior members of the council, MaryLee Chamberlain and Mary Wohleb, since they have been on their respective committees for some time.”

Carlson, a volunteer firefighter and fourth generation La Conner resident – his great-grandfather, Bert Carlson, was a local business owner and civic leader – is emphasizing both short-term and long-range goals for the town.

In the former column, he lists the need to promote greater public access to Town council sessions.

“I would like to work on making our meetings more accessible,” Carlson told the Weekly News. “An all Zoom format does not work. Our current hybrid model has people spilling onto the streets.

“We need to figure out how to meet in the large room (at Maple Hall) and still provide an option to Zoom in,” he said. “We need to hire an IT (Information Technology) consultant.”

Carlson, whose family has extensive maritime industry experience – his dad, Ivan Carlson, Jr., served as a Washington State Ferry System captain and is now a seasoned Puget Sound pilot, assigned to handle large container ships – is a proponent of launching long-range efforts to mitigate the impact of sea level rise.

“For a long-term goal,” he said, “I would like to position our town for sea level rise. The 10.5-foot-high tide we had on Tuesday coupled with high water in the river had the water level up to the street many places in town.

“We also have 12-foot tides a few times a year,” said Carlson. “We need to act now.”

Chamberlain, who serves as the council’s ombudsman in addition to assignments on the panel’s facilities and streets & safety committees, has a handful of areas she wants to address in her new term.

They are:

* ”The health and safety of our town as it relates to our infrastructure needs – managing the necessary upgrades and financial stewardship.”

* ”Dealing with climate mitigation – taking into consideration best planning practices and the unique needs of a town bordered by a channel and a flood plain.”

* ”Establishing a reasonable Town communication plan that reflects attention to the growing complexity of information and better meets the needs of a diverse population.”

* ”Exploring ways we can conduct our Town business so that we are consistently being conscientious about environmental impacts.”

Chamberlain, like newcomers Dole and Carlson, is eager to get to work on hers and the council’s ever expanding to-do list.

“I welcome a continued opportunity to serve this town,” she told the Weekly News.