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After years of lobbying by town officials, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to fund a study aimed at building a dike to protect La Conner from flooding from the Skagit River. Under the Corp’ dike proposal, if the study proves the project to be feasible, it would be built in 2018. And the agency is ready to fund $100,000 for the feasibility study, which will begin this year. If the engineering study costs exceed that first chunk of money, the town would kick in for half the overage. Should the plan move forward, a new levy would be bu...
Under its new Trust Improvement Use and Occupancy Tax Code, the Swinomish Senate has decided to adopt a policy granting tax exemptions to low-income seniors and disabled people. Most of the homes in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned Road neighborhood were removed from the county property tax rolls on Jan. 1, as a result of a federal court ruling that determined homes build on leased tribal trust land are immune from property taxes. However, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, the sovereign government of the Swinomish Reservation, will...
Here’s a lump of coal for the old Christmas stocking: The owners of at least 2,500 parcels in the La Conner area will see their property taxes take a leap in the new year. With 931 parcels worth around $138 million coming off the 2015 property tax rolls and state laws that allow the bills to automatically shift to the remaining taxpayers when property is made tax exempt, the average La Conner area homeowner will pay around $400 more for civilization next year. On Monday, the La Conner School D...
With the 931 parcels coming off the La Conner area county tax rolls, taxpayers for the remaining 2,500 parcels in the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 could be left holding the bill for about $480,000 more in property taxes. On Tuesday the Swinomish Indian Senate announced the amounts it will contribute to the La Conner School District, Fire District 13, Medic 1 ambulance service and La Conner Regional Library District. Last month the Senate, which is the governing body of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, decided that the...
The end of November, which is this Sunday, is the final day for taxing districts to submit their levy requests to the Skagit County Assessor. Each year, the Assessor determines the property values, and assigns a levy rate for every $1,000 of assessed valuation for each property, collects the property taxes and passes the money through to the various agencies. In the La Conner area, this year’s deadline is charging at county, agency and tribal officials at the speed of light. Swinomish Indian Tribal Senate, La Conner School District, Fire Distri...
To ease the minds of homeowners who live on tribal trust land in the La Conner area, the Swinomish Indian Senate on Tuesday announced that the property tax for 2015 will be equal to what Skagit County would assess if the property were to stay on the county tax rolls. “Taxpayers can rest assured and budget for their taxes in 2015 just as they have in the past,” Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby said in a prepared statement. Meanwhile the Tribal Senate, which is the governing body for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, continues to work on a...
La Conner’s Maple Hall could be sporting an array of solar panels by next summer, if the town approves a contract with Glacier Energy, Inc. Kevin Maas, the principal of Glacier Energy, made a presentation to the Town Council last week, proposing to build a community solar project on the roof of Maple Hall, which would eventually generate electricity and lower the town’s energy bill. The idea for green energy is not new for the town — there is a photovoltaic power installation at the wastewater treatment plant, helping to lower the ene...
Residents along Snee Oosh Beach near La Conner were greeted with a horrible sight on Monday morning. The shoreline was littered with dozens of bodies of animals that had been skinned. “It is one of the worst, horrific things I’ve seen,” said neighborhood resident Stephanie Dickinson. At first, residents, including Lynn Beebe and Chris Weiss, thought the carcasses resembled otters, which are common in our area. But no, the hapless creatures turned out to be crab bait that somebody dumped, accordi...
The Swinomish Tribal Senate has pretty much put the kibosh on the possibility of tax refunds for the 931 La Conner area homeowners whose property is coming off the county tax rolls next year. What hasn’t been finalized is the level of funding the public entities who rely on those tax revenues will receive in the future and how much of the tax burden could be shifted to the remaining property owners. Under state law, people can request tax refunds for up to three years. There were five people whose buildings are on leased tribal land in S...
Skagit County Public Health is monitoring a person to rule out the possibility of Ebola exposure, public health nurse Amie Tidrington confirmed Tuesday. Due to patient confidentiality laws, she was unable to provide any other information, such as gender or whereabouts of the person. However, a letter to first responders from the county’s Department of Emergency Medical Services stated that the person recently returned from Liberia. Apparently the traveler con-tacted the health department just to let authorities know, even though the person h...
Court documents indicate Thomas Schlicker was fired as Swinomish Police Chief “for cause” and that his bank account was frozen, and the bank wouldn’t say who authorized it. So far, the only information shedding any light on the situation comes from court filings in a lawsuit against the bank brought by William Johnston, the Bellingham attorney Schlicker hired last month. The Washington State Patrol is investigating a possible criminal case against Schlicker “over an allegation of misappropriation of tribal funds,” said the agency’s spokesman R...
The Swinomish Indian Senate has adopted a formal tax code aimed at eliminating the possibility of refunds for the 931 parcels coming off the county’s tax rolls. A federal court decision exempting all structures on tribal land from property taxes opened the possibility that homeowners on leased tribal land in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & be Damned Road neighborhood could seek up to three years of property tax refunds. While the owners have never been taxed on the leased tribal land their homes sit on, the county has been assessing taxes on the...
La Conner residents have been hearing early morning shotgun blasts announcing duck hunting season. Even though it sounds like there are plenty of shooting enthusiasts around, town officials started hearing from people who dislike guns when a new business opened on Morris Street. Kim Wilder says she was surprised at the reaction of a few local residents when she and her husband, Brett, opened Doc Holliday’s Mercantile and Guns. Still, she said she expects the controversy to die down as people b...
Although a federal court ruling made 931 La Conner area properties on tribal land exempt from county property tax, on Tuesday the Swinomish Indian Senate decided to take action preventing tax refunds to homeowners on leased tribal land. The Senate, which is the governing body for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, voted to establish an interim tax on improvements on reservation trust land that is equal to the amount assessed by the county going back to 2011. Taxpayers on those lands will receive credit for all taxes paid to the county and...
With 931 La Conner area parcels coming off the property tax rolls, people are wondering what their tax bills will look like in 2015. Homeowners in Shelter Bay and on Pull & Be Damned Road won’t be paying property tax to the county next year. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be paying for tax-supported public services. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Senate has formed a committee to work out a tribal tax code. Meanwhile, the smaller pool of people who will continue to pay their county tax bills could face big increases, unless the tribe takes actio...
Crews have been taking apart the old La Conner Elementary School brick by brick this month, and about 90 percent of the materials are being recycled, said School District Superintendent Tim Bruce. The demolition is expected to be finished by Monday. But before construction of the new La Conner Middle School can be built on the site, pilings will have to be put deep into the ground to support the buildings. The influence of the Swinomish Channel and tides makes it necessary to install more than...
Skagit County Assessor Don Munks declared that most of the homes in Shelter Bay and in the Pull and Be Damned Road neighborhood will be removed from the 2015 tax rolls. At the same time, the Swino-mish Indian Senate reached a consensus that there will be a property tax on those homes levied by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Senate established a committee to work out the details. Meanwhile, homeowners on the 931 properties coming off next year’s county tax rolls are expected to pay the second half of their 2014 taxes, which is d...
With 931 parcels coming off the county’s property tax rolls next year, the financial state of the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 and hundreds of taxpayers rest in the hands of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Senate. On Tuesday, the Skagit County Board of Commissioners essentially directed County Assessor Don Munks “not to break the law,” in the words of Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt. To that end, Munks said his office has removed from the county’s 2015 tax rolls all homes and other structures that were built on leased...
Agencies and taxpayers are nervous over the financial impacts of a federal court ruling that makes most of the properties in Shelter Bay and on Pull & Be Damned Road exempt from property taxes. If the 931 homeowners on leased tribal land decide not to pay the second half of this year’s taxes due on October 31, as some owners have suggested, the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 are going to be scrambling to fill huge budget holes. Worse, if the homeowners sue to have up to three years of property taxes refunded, the agencies and sm...
The Port of Skagit has been notified that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is funding $820,750 to dredge the south end of Swinomish Channel. The Corps has contracted with American Construction Co., Inc, which was the same contractor for the dredging done last year. This year’s project is expected to start in late September and wind up around Christmas. The work will be confined to the south end of the channel, where silt accumulates the quickest. When the navigable channel fills in with silt, larger vessels cannot use the waterway. The f...
Now that the Skagit County Assessor’s Office has crunched the actual numbers, it is apparent that the federal court’s tribal land tax ruling would hit La Conner worse than originally thought. Dave Thomas with the Assessor’s Office said that if the ruling stands, there will be a total of 931 properties taken off the tax rolls with a combined value of about $138 million. That is the number and value of homes on leased tribal land in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned neighborhood — the only area in Skagit County that the federal rulin...
An 8-inch water pipe burst underground Monday night, flooding the south end of La Conner’s Third Street near Pioneer Park and leaving Shelter Bay faucets dry. Witnesses said the blowout occurred at around 8:30 p.m. The town’s Public Works crew spent the rest of the night digging up the street to replace a section of pipe and restore service to residents in Shelter Bay. The water was back on before noon, though some residents reported lower pressure and murky water in the pipes, likely due to...
The federal court ruling that made at least 1,000 La Conner area homes exempt from property taxes is in the hands of lawyers. County officials have said the affected properties will be removed from the 2015 tax rolls. Meanwhile, the county is advising residents whose homes are on leased tribal land to pay their taxes this year, “until we get this sorted out,” said RC Cavazos, chief deputy with the Skagit County Assessor’s office. The second half of the 2014 property tax is due Oct. 31. The move stems from a United States Court of Appeals for t...
Skagit County government officials are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a huge cut in tax revenue resulting from a federal court ruling that eliminates property tax for every building on tribal land. That means most of the approximately 900 homes in Shelter Bay, a gated community built on leased land that the federal government holds in trust for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, are now exempt from property taxes. Skagit County Commissioner Ron Wesen said buildings on tribal land will be removed from the 2015 tax rolls. In the...
A small committee chaired by La Conner Town Councilman John Leaver is planning the 2014 Art’s Alive! exhibition, now that the Chamber of Commerce has stepped back. Leaver said he, artist Eve Chomiak, resident Frances Simmonds, artist Patty Weber and gallery owner Dave Cassera are working to put on a “classy, refined show” at Maple Hall Nov. 7 through 9. So far the group hopes the invitational show will focus more on local artists, with local gallery owners invited to set up displays featuring artists they represent. Now back under the auspi...
