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Because of its desirability and geographic constraints limiting growth, La Conner has long dealt with a housing crunch, especially with affordable housing. Those conditions have now contributed to a pressing side effect: homelessness. In his written report delivered in advance of the April 23 Town Council meeting at Maple Hall, Town Administrator Scott Thomas noted that homeless people have begun camping overnight at Pioneer Park. “The town has experienced ongoing issues stemming from homeless individuals camping in the park, primarily r...
Town planning commissioners trod a familiar path at their April 16 public meeting. The five-member advisory panel, which is in the process of drafting updates to the transportation element of the La Conner Comprehensive Plan, revisited options for potential future traffic flow and parking on South First Street. Discussion didn’t end there. Commissioners will take up the topic one more time at their May 7 session, during which they could agree on recommendations to forward to the Town Council for consideration. Commissioners and residents h...
A new schedule starts at Town Hall next week. Beginning April 29, the building will be open for town business from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday. It will be closed on Fridays so that staff can work on various projects without interruption, Assistant Planner Ajah Eills told the Weekly News. “We appreciate the community’s flexibility to allow us to make this change,” she said. “On Fridays, we will be doing some long-term planning and work related to our Five-Year Plan.” While Town Hall will be closed on Fridays, it will open 30 m...
Math is cool again. That’s the message La Conner School Board members heard during their one-hour public meeting Monday night. Math teachers Dan Hansen and Julia Johnson shared with the board via Zoom how the district’s new curriculum has contributed to greater content mastery and perhaps more important, increased student confidence and development of critical thinking skills. Hansen noted how his students now appreciate the role geometry plays in everyday life. “They realize how geometry fits into the world,” said Hansen. “It’s so prevalent i...
The La Conner High School baseball team bounced back from three straight heartbreaking, one-run, extra-inning road losses to post convincing wins at Quilcene and Darrington. The Braves defeated Quilcene, a traditionally strong baseball program, by a 7-1 margin on April 17 and then trounced NW2B/1B rival Darrington 12-1 on April 19 to sweept the two-game season series. La Conner thus improved to 5-5 overall and 2-4 in league action going into a scheduled April 23 home game with conference foe Mount Vernon Christian. La Conner plays at Orcas...
Other teams brought larger rosters, but the host La Conner Middle School girls’ junior varsity track team had Faith. As in Faith Jenkins, who won three solo events to lead La Conner to top honors in its portion of a nine-school junior varsity track meet at Whittaker Field last Thursday. Jenkins, a seventh grader, swept the girls’ short sprints. She clocked 13.39 in the 100 meters and hit the 200-meter tape in 29.08. She captured the high jump with a leap of 4’-0”. Jenkins also joined teammates Rory Bird, Mia Delage and Cecilia Keith to place s...
Home or away, it didn’t matter where La Conner golfers played to win last week. The Braves were equally strong at their Swinomish Links home course on April 16 and at the Battle Creek Golf Club on Tulalip Reservation on April 18. La Conner edged visiting Lummi 137-148 with Corran Eisen taking top medalist honors by carding a low score of 43 over nine holes. The team scoring was based on the top three nine-hole scores recorded by each team, La Conner assistant coach Galen McKnight told the Weekly News on Friday. La Conner enjoyed an even w...
The Swinomish Casino & Lodge has had a run of bad luck lately. Having braced for a busy April and heavy traffic volumes from the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, the gaming center and dining venue 8 miles north of La Conner has been closed since April 6 while an unspecified cybersecurity incident is investigated. Cyberattacks are usually aimed at accessing, changing or destroying sensitive information. They can also involve extortion via ransomware or interruptions in normal business procedures. Internet service at the Swinomish property...
La Conner School Board members want input on what approach should be taken as they seek a successor to Superintendent Will Nelson, who is stepping down after three years. Nelson announced earlier this month that he will be leaving June 30 to accept a teaching post at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The board’s superintendent search process began Monday when school staff participated in the first of two listening sessions designed to discuss filling the pending vacancy. The second session, targeting community participation, is at 7...
A recent training exercise was so well-received that Skagit County Fire District 13 officials are considering another such drill in the La Conner area later this year. The March 30 windstorm scenario was so successful that the local fire district, which serves rural La Conner and the Swinomish Reservation, may stage a wildland fire training event during the peak of dry summer conditions here. “I suggest we have a similar drill for a wildland fire on the reservation,” Capt. Ted Taylor told fire district commissioners during their meeting at the...
Town council members last week paved the way to pay for future work on La Conner’s streets, sidewalks and trails. The panel during its April 9 public meeting unanimously approved a 0.1% sales tax to fund the town’s new Transportation Benefit District. The council action is tentatively set to take effect July 1. Council members opted for the sales tax rather than an increase in local vehicle license fees to provide revenue for the TBD. Town Administrator Scott Thomas said the sales tax will be paid in part by those who drive to La Conner to sho...
Earth Day is a global event that encourages people to act locally. And those activities don’t have to be limited to April 22, the 54th anniversary of the day universally recognized as the start of the modern environmental movement. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community is a prime example. On April 25, Earth Day initiatives start at 8 a.m., including a plant project at John K. Bob Ball Park, fish net recycling by the web shed off Moorage Way, tidying up at the rain garden and a general clean-up at Swedebs Park. There will also be a noon potluck...
First Street isn't the only place in town with parking issues. The Whittaker Field parking lot on N. Sixth Street was jammed with vehicles April 10 when La Conner hosted the annual Skagit Showdown Track & Field Meet, drawing teams and fans from 2A Burlington-Edison and Sedro-Woolley and 1B Mount Vernon Christian. Some visitors thought their only parking option was inside an open gate leading to the school bus garage. One driver even parked in front of the gate, briefly causing heartburn for La...
No rest for the weary. That age-old mantra applied to the La Conner High School track teams last week. Just three days after hosting the much-anticipated Skagit Showdown, La Conner thinclads competed at the 24-team Cashmere Invitational April 13, where senior Tommy Murdock swept the boys' hurdles events and eighth grader Kiana Jenkins placed second in the girls' 200-meter dash. Murdock captured the 110s in 15.00 and 300s in 40.23 to pace the Braves, who finished eighth on the leaderboard. The...
Travel wasn’t kind to the La Conner High School baseball and softball teams last week. The Braves suffered a pair of heartbreaking one-run extra-inning losses while the young Lady Braves were dealt double-digit setbacks during visits to Coupeville and Friday Harbor. The Braves were edged 9-8 at Coupeville last Thursday and 5-4 at Friday Harbor Saturday. Each NW2B/1B league contest was decided in the bottom of the eighth inning as when La Conner dropped a 13-12 verdict at 1A Sultan on April 2. “It’s hard to believe we’ve lost three straigh...
It was an astounding Saturday afternoon in La Conner on several levels. That's thanks to the annual downtown Skagit Valley Tulip Festival Parade presented by Astound Broadband. A large crowd descended on First Street – cars were parked as far away as S. Fourth and Caledonia – to take in the now not-so-impromptu serpentine, which has evolved over four decades into a well-organized, half-hour, must-see event. The 2024 edition featured emergency vehicles entered by La Conner Hook & Ladder, Ska...
The La Conner School Board took its first small steps Monday toward finding a new district superintendent. A shorthanded board met for about 15 minutes in closed executive session to discuss the process for hiring a successor to Dr. Will Nelson, who announced his resignation March 29 after three years as the district’s lead administrator. He accepted a teaching post at Western Washington University in Bellingham. No action was taken during the closed portion of the meeting, in part because only School Board President Susie Deyo and board m...
Working with several documents the past few weeks, members of the Town Emergency Management Commission are now on the same page. The local advisory board, which is developing a Community Emergency Management Plan for La Conner, has moved closer to completing the ambitious project after reviewing similar plans from Skagit County, the City of Anacortes, Shelter Bay, the Swinomish Tribal Community and other entities. Commissioners indicated during their April 2 public meeting that they’re ready to consolidate those outside resource materials i...
There’s no dead end when it comes to debating the future of S. First Street. The oft-discussed topic was again the focal point among town residents and planning commissioners during a 90-minute public meeting April 2. The last word on the subject still appears a long way off. The panel and audience discussed one-way traffic, angled parking and retaining the status quo for the narrow street that accesses the historic waterfront and retail core. They agreed that more data is needed before forwarding recommendations to the town council. To that e...
The shorthanded La Conner Braves baseball team had a long afternoon in Sultan April 2. The 2B Braves, minus key starters for a non-league spring break road game, trailed early but rallied late to force extra innings before falling 13-12 to the 1A hosts. La Conner (3-3 overall) erupted for nine runs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the score at 11-11. Braves reliever Kenai Zimmerman then set Sultan down in order in the home half of the seventh, pushing the contest to an eighth frame. In the top of the eighth, La Conner took a brief 12-11...
A La Conner Elementary School student is getting an advanced education on the hardwood. Josie Catubo, an 11-year-old fifth grader, is making the grade as a member of the Pacific Northwest Rain girls' youth basketball program. Founded by former Mount Vernon High School and Western Washington University hoops standout Tyler Amaya, Pacific Northwest Rain is the premier basketball training center in Northwest Washington. "I practice twice a week and we have about six tournaments a season," Josie...
The Skagit County Pioneer Association has cemented the lineup of honorees for its annual summer picnic in La Conner, one weighed heavily with civic leaders based in Concrete. Concrete Herald editor-publisher Jason Miller, Valerie Stafford of the Concrete Theatre, John Boggs of the Concrete Heritage Museum, and longtime Concrete Food Bank coordinators Marty and Adrienne Smith are this year’s recipients of the Pioneer Spirit Award. All will be formally recognized at the annual Pioneer Picnic here on Aug. 1. Their selections were confirmed during...
La Conner School District Superintendent Will Nelson, the face of the local district for the past three years, is about to do an about face in terms of his professional career path. Nelson announced in an email to district staff last Friday that he will leave his position in June as lead administrator at La Conner Schools to accept a teaching post with Western Washington University in Bellingham. In an email delivered as students and staff embarked on their weeklong spring break, Nelson did not divulge a specific reason for his departure other...
The public is getting a chance to tell Skagit Transit where to go – in a polite way, of course. The area's public transportation system, which last year celebrated its 30th anniversary, is hosting a series of open houses through April 10 designed to gather input for SKAT's long-range service plans. Skagit Transit Marketing and Public Affairs Liaison Cheryl Willis said a key component of the current open house series is to determine if there is demand for a micro-transit option on Fidalgo I...
Five years ago, 10th District State Rep. Dave Paul successfully lobbied his colleagues in Olympia to provide funding to build the La Conner Swinomish Library. Paul was at the library for a March 27 town hall that included several of La Conner's appointed and elected officials, including Mayor Marna Hanneman. Those attending the forum asked Paul questions related to education, housing and Washington State Ferries. Perhaps most important, they secured Paul's commitment to back La Conner's...
