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Maybe the 50 or so people attending the Climate Resilience conversation Sunday at the Anacortes Senior Center did not provide $7,500 worth of advice for changing the trajectory Skagit County residents – and everyone – are facing as the climate changes. But facilitator Dave Peterson made that unscientific estimate at the meeting’s end. The University of Washington forestry professor is with the Skagit Climate Science Consortium, scientists working with local people to assess, plan and adapt to climate related impacts. “Where do we go from here?...
What is the difference between last week and this week? Answer: Last week everyone was at the end of the third year of the coronavirus pandemic. This week we all step into, no not its fourth year but the first year of what the World Health Organization in January termed a global health emergency. When the United Nations' backed World Health Organization declares a global health emergency, pay attention. We can breathe a sigh of relief that we are out of the three-year grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemics are defined as everywhere, able to...
Peter Anderson, owner of the Limedock building, 109 North First Street in La Conner, has filed a permit application with the town planning department to create two residential apartments by remodeling the second floor office space. Two gabled dormers will be added to the roof. The town planning commission will hold a hearing March 21, 6 p.m. in Maple Hall. Comments will be accepted at the public hearing. The meeting will be on Zoom, also. Those submitting comments automatically become a party of record and will be notified of decisions. The...
Anacortes sold home prices are the highest by far of Skagit County markets this year, at $832,000 for the median price for the 24 homes that closed in January and February. February’s Anacortes market was even hotter, with a median sold home price of $935,000, 12.4% higher for the17 homes, 10 more than sold in January. Anacortes prices raised Skagit County’s February median sold home price to $487,000. Mount Vernon was the only other market with prices above the median, at $503,000 for the 23 homes that closed. Burlington was close, at a $48...
Update, March 17 at bottom SWINOMISH RESERVATION — Early the morning of March 16, before 1 a.m., the two locomotives of a BNSF train heading east from an Anacortes oil refinery derailed along the Padilla Bay waterfront within site of the Swinomish Channel, behind the Swinomish Casino. One spilled its fuel to a berm on the land-side of the tracks, the unified command for the incident reported. This report is primarily from the news release from the unified command. Responders arrived on the s...
Peter Anderson, owner of the Limedock building, 109 North First Street in La Conner, has filed a permit application with the Town of La Conner planning department to create two residential apartments by remodeling the second floor office space. Two gabled dormers will be added to the roof. The town planning commission will hold a hearing March 21, 6 p.m. in Maple Hall. Comments will be accepted at the public hearing. The meeting will be on Zoom, also. Those submitting comments automatically...
Yes, February was cold, with nine nights of frost, four in a row Feb. 22-25, where the month’s low of 20.4 degrees Feb. 24 fell. That day the average temperature was 27.1 degree. February’s daily average temperature was 39.6 degrees, 1.6 degrees below average for the century. The average morning low of 33.8 degrees was 0.9 degree below the century average; the month’s average daily high of 45.5 degrees was two degrees below average this century. The high went above 50 degrees four times in the first 10 days, but not after that. Rainfall was a...
Ouch. Ouch everywhere, for everybody. New La Conner Schools Deputy Superintendent of Finance Dave Cram's initial assessment is that 490 students will enroll in the school district next fall. That is down 35 kids from today and 100 from 2021. It is not good news that the pain is nationwide, that national and local media are reporting on drastic drops in the numbers of pupils attending public schools, with no upturns in sight. This sea change is no more anyone's fault than a flood or a wild fire. There are larger reasons, root causes, as carbon...
With March's arrival are a flurry of activities, not late winter snow but opportunities to join together in fun and games, literally, and, in one instance, to change, literally. There are also very real storm clouds hanging over Shelter Bay. The month's first joyous get together is the La Conner Rotary Clubs’ annual farmer and merchant dinner on the 6th in Maple Hall. All farmers and merchants get dinner and an evening of hearing from organizations of community plans and projects, ventures toward a more sustainable future. The La Conner Chamber...
The status of salmon in Washington state is not good and will not improve markedly without a substantial, sustained increase in funding, Gov. Jay Inslee’s Salmon Recovery Office State of Salmon in Watersheds report summarizes. The status: “Fourteen population groups of steelhead trout and Chinook, coho, chum, and sockeye salmon in Washington State are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.” The assessment is blunt: “No salmon species have been removed from the federal Endangered Species Act list in Washing...
La Conner’s tourist economy slowed a bit last fall, but not much, as the January tax revenue reports to the town council show. The Town of La Conner’s sales tax revenue of $43,391 is $1,830 higher than 2022’s total and the second highest ever for the month. The $4,333 in the Town’s renamed Special Use Fire Tax Revenue was also the second highest January ever, 5.5% above 2022. The $9,175 hotel/motel taxes collected is 12.6% below 2022 but less than $200 below 2020’s total. It is the third highest for the month. Revenues from utility programs sta...
Jess Walter is in Whatcom County March 2-4 for five events for 2023’s “Whatcom Reads,” including a tips and suggestions session on writing. His 7 p.m. March 3 reading at the Mount Baker Theatre is free, but tickets are required. Information: whatcomreads.org/events/ How cold has your family been? Hopefully, they are not suffering in a difficult economic or political climate this year, or even in your lifetime, but reflect on the generations your family has been in America, or perhaps throughout its history: For how long has comfort been the n...
Shelter Bay Community board of directors Judy Kontos and Dan McCaughan were sanctioned by their board Feb. 15 based on findings of an ethics committee appointed by the board. Kontos and McCaughan were provided “Board Sanction” memorandums by Board President Wendy Poulton Feb. 16. Shelter Bay residents were informed of the temporarily restricted roles for the two in a community Board Member Update email Feb. 17. The two were elected by Shelter Bay residents to the board in May on reform platforms critical of the board leadership. McC...
UPDATE: The show will go on. Get tickets and go see "Prelude" this last week of its run, March 3-5. That old story line: "Boy meets girl." Then: Girl falls for boy. Boy falls for girl. They marry. Boy loses girl. When the story turns in a strange fantastical way you have an original plot and the play "Prelude to a Kiss." It opened before an enthusiastic and friendly audience Feb. 17 at the Lincoln Theatre. Peter (Matthew Twining, in a strong performance) is the slightly disheveled, somewhat...
Boaters mooring their vessels at the La Conner Marina will pay more this year. At its Feb. 14 meeting Port of Skagit commissioners approved an 8% rate increase for all moorage slips. Harbormaster Chris Omdal had briefed commissioners the week before, pointing to supply and demand and the rates at marinas in the region, inflation and the expense of infrastructure replacement. With the new rates, a 50-foot covered slip is $973. The monthly cost for that size slip at the Everett Marina was $1,036 last year. Omdal reported that La Conner is at the...
CORRECTION: The Feb. 15 version of this story incorrectly reported that the 1986 La Conner Town Council took legislative action in passing an ordinance and later made a legislative amendment to the Town's Comprehensive Plan in paragraph 4. The story below has been revised with the correction that the legislative action the council took was “passing a motion.” Posted Feb. 17. The Center Street condominium project proposed by Brandon and Katie Atkinson is closer to construction. Last Wednesday Town of La Conner Hearing Examiner David Lowell den...
Dear fellow citizens. Help, please, by paying attention to your state government and taking a stand to keep public records public, available to you – and to the journalists and activists. Tell your legislators and Attorney General Bob Ferguson that the documents created by legislators elected to serve citizens must be seen by citizens and not blocked behind a legislative privilege they claim and desire but does not exist. What do legislators tell us all the time? That they work behind the scenes, that they meet day and night – sometimes in clo...
What is more American than farmers on their farms? They were the first colonizers, clearing the land, putting down roots, both literal and figurative, forging the future out of the sweat of their brow, the force of their will and the strength of their imaginations, planning and plotting an ordered world as much out of their hopes for tomorrow as from steering a plow. Who was right behind farmers, chronicling, championing, challenging and questioning their every move? Some romantics might list journalists, maybe ahead, maybe just after the clerg...
UPDATE AND CORRECTION: Skagit County Planning & Development Services updated its “notice of development application with optional SEPA DNS” for Pacific Outdoor Advertising erecting a sign at the I-5 Conway intersection Feb. 7. The notice now states construction of “a 2-sided static (not digital) billboard” has been applied for. That changes the original Jan. 31 application’s a “2-sided/faced Static electronic billboard sign” was applied for. The deadline for written public comments is now 4:30 p.m. Feb. 24, advanced from Feb. 17. Only environm...
January was cloudy and felt damp, but it was not wet. The 1.7 inches of rain was only 43% of the century's average for the month and 2.3 inches below the 4.0 average inches of January rain since 2000. It clusters with the other years of less than two inches of rain: 2017, 1.6 inches and 2019, 1.8 inches. There have been four or more inches of rain 11 Januarys, with five years since 2013. Almost half the month's rain, 0.8 inches, came down Jan. 24-27, with 0.35 inches the 27th and 0.6 inches Jan. 26-27. While there were 16 days of...
The good news is raising the nation's debt limit is not a problem. The U.S. Congress has always voted to pay its bills– and will this spring. The source of those debts, of course, came from Congress first approving the annual budget and the corresponding appropriations. Our elected officials have a matching obligation to agree to pay for what they already committed to spend. That is what running the government – or a business, or a family – is. There is planning, spending to execute programs agreed to and paying all the bills as they come...
Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Arlington) has a solution for Congress reaching the debt ceiling: pass legislation removing the budgetary ceiling. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) has again introduced a bill, The End the Threat of Default Act, that strikes from the U.S. Federal Code the term “debt subject to limit” and inserts “the face amount of obligations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the United States Government.” The U.S. is one of two democratic countries that has a statutory limit that, being set, has to be raised. The bill has 42 cospons...
The timing is perfect to go see "Barefoot in the Park," playing for two more weekends at Whidbey Playhouse after opening Feb. 3. It is set in a New York City brownstone in February 1963. It is February here and even more so in the apartment there, which has a hole in the skylight, allowing snow in Don't worry. Neil Simon's script is taken to heart in this well acted and directed production. You will keep warm from laughter. The cast uniformly hits all their cues and play well with each other. The action swirls around Corrie (Karina Andrew),...
A fire in a 50 ft. cabin cruiser on a rack at Latitude Marine Services south of La Conner Thursday afternoon was readily extinguished by crews from Fire District 13, with assistance from multiple area fire departments. Assistant Fire Chief Jami Jurdi arrived first to the 12:42 p.m. call, in Engine 1321 from Station 2, Snee Oosh. Fire Chief Wood Weiss came from La Conner. Weiss reported “flames burst out from a cabin window” as his crew was suiting up. They then “began hitting the fire from the outside.” There was concern of “the high exposure...
What do you get when you combine one of the most successful food coops in the state donating $100,000 to probably the most successful farm incubator organizations in the nation? A guaranteed and growing food supply to co-op customers and discerning shoppers throughout the Skagit Valley and beyond. On Jan. 26 some 400 co-op members and farmers filled Mount Vernon 's Lincoln Theatre to celebrate the partnership between the Skagit Valley Food Co-op and Viva Farms. The evening started with local...
