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It's not over till it's over. While the future of the La Conner Weekly News remains uncertain after this issue under Publisher Ken Stern, he remains hopeful. He is more so after a Tuesday morning phone call with Andrew Ashmore, board chair of the La Conner Community News community group that's seeking to buy the Weekly News. At a meeting with Ashmore, Washington Newspaper Publishers Association director Ellen Hiatt, and retired publisher Dave Gauger on Friday, Dec. 13, Ashmore tendered Stern an...
The effort by the La Conner Community News group to purchase the La Conner Weekly News and secure its future into 2025 and beyond appears to have fallen short, but not for lack of effort. Unless an angel investor comes forward in the next two weeks, the final issue of the La Conner Weekly News under publisher Ken Stern will hit the streets and mailboxes on Dec. 18. "It's a sad day for La Conner," Mayor Marna Hanneman said. "It takes a village and when something important in the village goes, it...
The La Conner Kiwanis Club is sponsoring a drive to help fill the La Conner Schools Care Cabinet. The cabinet is filled with health care and hygiene items, socks, T-shirts and snacks. It’s available to all students, anytime they need something. “Imagine getting to school with wet feet because of a puddle you didn’t see or you couldn’t find your scrunchie to get your hair out of your face,” said Kiwanian Joy Neal. “Or you spilled lunch down the front of your shirt. Kids need to feel comfortable in order to learn.” Kiwanis members are asking th...
The community group working to secure the future of the La Conner Weekly News now has an interim board of directors and a name that reflects its mission: La Conner Community News. Board President Andrew Ashmore said the group has completed its articles of incorporation with the state and can now do business. It has an Employee Identification Number for the IRS. Tillinghast Postal & Business Center is providing a free mailbox. A Gmail account will soon be active. Joining Ashmore on the interim board are Jerry Willins, vice president; John...
The process to create community ownership of the La Conner Weekly News is moving forward following the Sept. 25 community meeting that drew more than 60 interested people. A small group from that meeting gathered Oct. 3 at the La Conner Swinomish Library to start the next steps of organization and fundraising. Andrew Ashmore has been spearheading the community effort, and he expects more people will offer to help or serve in some capacity. He said the meeting focused on creating an interim...
About 60 La Conner area residents filled the Civic Garden Club Sept. 25 to consider the future of the La Conner Weekly News. Publisher Ken Stern, 69, has made clear his plans to retire in December, after seven-and-a-half years of ownership. In his efforts to sell the newspaper over the last two years, he's had several nibbles from prospective buyers, but "it hasn't gone very far," he said. None has made an offer for the business, priced at $250,000, which is less than its 2023 gross revenue of m...
It's no secret that La Conner Weekly News Publisher Ken Stern wants to sell his newspaper. Stern is 69. He is ready to retire. Stern envisions younger, ambitious journalists buying the business, maybe with the community's help. But if that doesn't happen soon, the final La Conner Weekly News rolls off the press on Dec. 18. Finding Ken 2.0 has not been easy. There are plenty of journalists who can run this newspaper, but none have made an offer on Stern's asking price to buy a profitable...
Everett Herald newsroom union members staged a one-day strike and picketed with dozens of supporters through downtown Everett on Monday to protest the newspaper owner's decision to eliminate 12 of its 23 reporters and editors, and then deleting its own coverage of the news. Citing Carpenter Media Group's failure to respond to contract bargaining requests and meet other demands, the Everett NewsGuild announced an indefinite extension of their strike in a press release the Guild issued Tuesday...
The state's top educators want to learn why some Native American students struggle with literacy more than their peers, so they're traveling the state to hear from families. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community gym was the second stop for Henry Strom, executive director of the Office of Native Education for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and his staff. They came from an information-gathering session in Yakima. Next, they'll talk to Native educators in Suquamish. About 50...
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community has notified the federal government it intends to sue for its failure to protect threatened and endangered salmon runs. In a 15-page document submitted Feb. 22 to the Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior, tribal counsel Earthjustice of Seattle claims the federal government has violated two sections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). “The Swinomish people’s way of life and livelihoods, as well as pro...
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is looking into how and why Marion County sheriff’s deputies and local police raided the Marion County Record newspaper office and the homes of its owners and the town’s vice mayor Aug. 11. Police seized computer equipment and cell phones from Record staff and the vice mayor. The case quickly gained national attention as an unprecedented violation of established American press rights. “Freedom of the press is the core value when we think about our democracy,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pi...
The 0.06 inches of rain last week, 0.03 inches Aug. 7 and again Aug. 9, measured at Washington State University’s Memorial Highway Mount Vernon station, was not drought-breaking precipitation. Far from it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture national crop and livestock map shows all of Skagit County in drought for agriculture. The drought area is based on U.S. Drought Monitor data. And the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook by the National Weather Service shows the drought persisting through October. According to Washington State University’s WSU...
Five households in Channel Cove lost water overnight when a valve failed after routine maintenance by La Conner Public Works staff on Aug. 8. Supervisor Todd Park said his crew had been “exercising a valve” when it apparently failed and started to leak after they finished their work. Jodi Dean, executive director of Home Trust of Skagit, the landlord, said she got tenant reports of standing water in the grass. “I called (Director of Public Works) Brian (Lease) and said, ‘Hey, listen, I’ve got some water standing out there,’ so we had his cre...
Emotions ran high during a July 18 meeting of the Home Trust of Skagit board, its director and residents of its Channel Cove community. Home Trust of Skagit Executive Director Jodi Dean invited residents to the meeting to explain changes at Channel Cove related to the completion of five new housing units and parking revisions. Some Channel Cove residents said the changes caught them by surprise, especially recently installed bollards that prevent residents from driving on the fire lane to...
Should you want to watch a first-run movie or two (or possibly three) from the comfort of your own car as Americans did decades ago, you'll need to hit the road for the Blue Fox Drive-In, just south of Oak Harbor on Highway 20 at Moore Landing Road. Used to be that many American towns had a drive-in movie theater. Today, the Blue Fox is one of just five drive-ins left in all of Washington. The Blue Fox Drive-In has been a Whidbey Island entertainment mainstay since 1960. In some ways, it still...
