Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 1385
NAVAL AIR STATION WHIDBEY ISLAND - Naval aviators Lt. Cmdr. Lyndsay Evans, the flight officer, and Aviator Lt. Serena N. Wileman died when their EA-18G Growler crashed near Mount Rainier Oct. 15 during a routine training flight. Both were 31 and from California. The U.S. Navy released their names Monday after family were notified. The Growler aircraft from Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130 crashed east of Mount Rainier. Search and rescue teams were first dispatched from NAS Whidbey Island to...
More rain than average fell in September, with the 1.6 inches of rain Sept. 25 almost as much rain as most Septembers have gotten this century, an average of 1.9 inches. For the month, 2 inches fell in just six days; the 0.2 inches on Sept. 14 was the only other precipitation greater than a tenth of an inch. After no rain the first nine days, it rained four of the next five days, with four events under 0.01 inch. The 2 inches of rain was the ninth year of at least 2 inches of precipitation....
The world premiere of “Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers” is one of the many highlights of the 12th annual Friday Harbor Film Festival this weekend, Oct. 25-27. The 16 full length documentaries and 21 short films are shown twice on five screens at three venues. “Fish War” covers over 50 years of indigenous tribal fishers fighting to secure their treaty rights with legal battles ending in the U.S. Supreme Court and now the fight to save salmon. “Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers” producer Philip Grabsky is coming from London for question and answer sessions. T...
Total turn around. The $68,591 reported in sales tax revenues to the La Conner Town Council in September by the state’s Department of Revenue is the highest ever for the month, $5,315 above last year’s, and the second highest total in 2024. After below normal collection totals four of the first five months this year, sales taxes the last three months total $203,359, 42.7% of the year’s total and putting the town on course to meet this projected income for the year. Likewise, the $6,798 firetruck sales tax receipts are a record for the month...
Great staff, great results: The La Conner Weekly News won 37 WNPA best newspaper awards at the annual Better Newspaper Contest of Washington's community newspapers, a bit short of doubling last year's total of 21. More individuals, 14, won in more categories. Weekly News staff swept first, second and third place five times, including art reviews, art features and general and topical columns. Bill Reynolds led with 11 certificates, with first place for a news and an education story. He shared...
By Ken Stern OLYMPIA – Four Skagit County organizations won $2.8 million in grants, 5.6% of the $50.3 million the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board awarded for 145 projects across the state to improve habitat for salmon, steelhead and bull trout, the board announced Sept. 30. Almost half ($21.6 million) was funded through the Climate Commitment Act and targeted restoration of shorelines and riverbanks – riparian areas – essential to salmon. Forested riparian areas create micro...
The Concrete Herald is for sale, Publisher and Editor Jason Miller announced in the October editorial of his monthly newspaper. “After more than 15 years at the helm, I’ve decided to pass our hometown newspaper to its next caretaker,” his editorial starts. Interested? Call Miller at 360-630-4603....
Everyone has a chance to prepare for an earthquake at 10:17 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, when people across the state of Washington – and internationally – get to practice. Millions of people worldwide will participate in earthquake drills at work, school or home. The Washington website from shakeout.org has webpages for “learn(ing) the latest,” planning your drill, checking the stats for finding that one million Washingtonians have signed up – and how many nationally and worldwide are participating – and apps for playing and sharing. Register fo...
Residents and tourists alike will find that vehicles only travel south on La Conner's First Street starting next Wednesday, Oct. 9. Since early September, Town of La Conner staff have been promoting First Street will become one way southbound, and Commercial Street will become one way eastbound. The change was made from widespread concern for public safety. The larger size of today's vehicles that park on both sides of the street impede first responders' equipment in emergencies. This week La...
Well over 500 Mount Vernon and Skagit County residents cheered the ribbon cutting ceremony of the $61 million Mount Vernon Library Commons building Saturday morning. The loudest acclaim and applause throughout the program were recognizing city and HKP architectural firm and other contractors' staff. Jill Boudreau, Mount Vernon mayor from 2011-2023 and project administrator for the Mount Vernon Library Commons since 2023, was the master of ceremonies. She received a standing ovation as well as a...
Finally. October is here, the home stretch. It is now 34 days to election day. Oh my god, still five more weeks till the campaigning ends. Since almost every one of us is ready to cast our vote for president and, if many of us had our way, we would have voted in January, or the day after President Joe Biden turned the reigns over to Kamala Harris in July, why can’t we vote tomorrow, or next Tuesday? We can’t because the U.S. Constitution sets the date of national elections. So, let’s change the Constitution. That starts most readily with petit...
Decades before "The Addams Family Musical" played Broadway, another weird family made theater audiences gasp and laugh. And generations before Freddy Kreuger slashed his way around the silver screen, Boris Karloff frightened movie goers as Frankenstein. Theater aficionados know that the Brewster family in the 1941 smash hit "Arsenic and Old Lace" was oddly dysfunctional and frightening in different ways, with a sinister psychopath brother who has had plastic surgery to look like Boris Karloff....
At 7 p.m. tonight, people wanting the La Conner Weekly News to exist in 2025 are meeting in the La Conner Civic Garden Club on South Second Street. The possible audience extends to anyone reading these words. Perhaps that includes you. The newspaper you are holding, whether reading a paper copy or reading on your phone or computer, what is your weekly news? Is it highlighting last week's events in our community, from the winners of the giant pumpkin contest at Christianson's to a state economic...
Step into the Wayfinder Café on North First Street and the first thing you will see are freshly baked desserts on top of the deli case. That is, unless co-owner J.J. Grant is behind the counter. Not because he is a big guy – he is – but because his large bright smile will capture your attention. While the name change from former owner Scott Dean's Wayfinder Deli to Wayfinder Café, is one word, the word café captures the essence of Krista Ericson and Grant's business. Dean emphasized fresh,...
At Saturday’s Meet the Mayor session at the La Conner Swinomish Library, Mayor Marna Hanneman ended the hour upbeat, telling the seven assembled they were awesome and that she was encouraged. “I keep saying it takes a village,” she said, suggesting, “let’s take it on the road,” to Shelter Bay and other communities, in a collaborative effort to tackle greater La Conner’s problems. And while she noted, “It’s all of us, farmers, merchants, the Tribe, Shelter Bay,” everyone at the table had faithfully attended most of these near monthly meetin...
Just like last year. The $60,800 in August sales tax revenue reported to the Town of La Conner by the state’s Department of Revenue is $20 below 2023’s collection. The eight month total is 67% of the budget’s projections, on target, with the next two months the highest grossing every year. The $6,070 collected for the special use fire tax tops 2023 by six dollars. It will exceed its revenue estimate, standing at 81% with four months remaining. More visitors are staying over. The $22,440 hotel motel tax total is an August record, 13% above...
Over 50 willing poets of various accomplishments and ages – and an overwhelmingly female audience – overflowed the Museum of Northwest Art's second floor meeting space Saturday afternoon for a free one-hour poetry class with Seattle poet Susan Rich. She spoke to them for maybe 20 minutes before setting them free to roam and examine the museum's art, charging them with putting themselves into the paintings and to pull something original out of the art by their written words. This is ekp...
There will not be a recall election against three Skagit County officials. The Washington state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Cody Hart Aug. 29, finding the charges in his petitions against Prosecuting Attorney Richard Weyrich, Auditor Sandra Perkins and Sheriff Donald McDermott to be legally and factually insufficient. The nine judges concluded Hart’s petition failed “to specify substantial conduct clearly amounting to misfeasance, malfeasance or violation of the oath of office” as he alleged. Hart had lost in Snohomish County Super...
Cruising over from Shelter Bay for scoops of ice cream at O'Neil's Confectionery and Soda Fountain seems the perfect way to end a Labor Day afternoon in La Conner. And what better way to putter over, literally, than in a bright red mini tugboat complete with to-scale tire fenders? That is what Keri and Michael Palasz did about 5 p.m. Monday. Rum raisin was her first choice while he was planning on mint chocolate chip. Keri was piloting their recently acquired boat, bringing it into La Conner's...
The U.S. Navy has until May 1 to present a new environmental impact statement on effects of noise from the EA-18G Growler jets based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones set the deadline in his Aug. 16 ruling and termed the Navy's failings serious violations of the National Environmental Policy Act requiring a new EIS. He noted, "[T]his Court found that the Navy 'selected methods of evaluating data that supported its goal of increasing Growler operations'...
The 2 inches of rain on Aug. 23-24 was the most precipitation during an 11-day period that totaled 2.6 inches, the month's entire rainfall. Only 2016's 2.9 inches and the 6.3 inches in 2004 were higher for August this century. The rain was 113% above, 1.4 inches over, the century's average of 1.2 inches. There has been an inch or more of rain 10 years since 2000 but only three Augusts since 2015. Of the eight years with less than half an inch of rain, four have been since 2017, including 0.5...
13 issues printed since July 5, 2017. 16 weeks to paper’s final issue. Monday is Labor Day, the last of the summer season holidays and the unofficial start of fall. It is the picnic and barbeque holiday, the gather friends and family together occasion, the toast the kids before they head off or back to college or return to the classroom holiday. It is a holiday that is uniquely American, as if our laborers are special, and separate from the riff raff of all the other workers around the world. The U.S. Congress created Labor Day in 1894 to d...
How much would you spend to win a seat in the Washington state Senate? To continue representing Legislative District 10, incumbent Sen. Ron Muzzall (R-Oak Harbor) spent $462,878 ahead of the Aug. 6 primary. That is $18.72 for each of the 24,724 votes he received. That won him 48.2% of the vote. He may spend that much more trying to win reelection in November. His opponent, Janet St. Clair, an Island County commissioner, came in second, both in votes and campaign spending. In gaining 23,391...
The 2023 lawsuit pitting Tulip Town against Andrew Miller's then-new across-the-road Tulip Valley Farms was dismissed Aug. 8 in Skagit County Superior Court. Tulip Town's motion was granted to have its claims dismissed without prejudice. The farm business had alleged Miller, its former partner and CEO of its parent Spinach Bus Venture Group, engaged in unlawful "duplicitous conduct" and breach of contract in starting Tulip Valley Farms. Miller countered that the partners operating agreement allo...
The Aug. 6 primary election results were certified by the Washington Secretary of State after the Weekly News went to press Tuesday, but the winners were all known from the first vote count. Only some 60 ballots remained to be counted by the Skagit County elections office staff. In the three-county state legislative district 10, an estimated 30 ballots were outstanding in Island and Snohomish counties. The most competitive race in November will be between State Senator Ron Muzzall’s (R-Oak Harbor), the primary winner with about 48.2% of the v...
