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Last week the Anacortes American highlighted the Navy’s decision to end negotiations regarding their planned Growler Jet expansion on Whidbey Island. On Sunday an Everett Herald editorial declared the need for the Navy to return to discussions with key stakeholders, and to “act as a good neighbor to the communities that are its hosts”. The current noise impact is already severe but plans to increase training exercises by nearly 400 percent and the number of jets by 39 percent will have devastating results in surrounding communities. Durin...
I am tired of hearing the recurring complaints re NASWI (Naval Air Station Whidbey Island) “jet noise” from a small but highly vocal band of NIMBYs, and their unrealistic “solutions” to a “problem” that does not exist. Unless they were here prior to 1942 when the Naval Air Station first became operational, their complaints have absolutely no validity. The Air Station’s primary mission is not about to change, and the operational squadrons based there are not going to move “somewhere else” to satisfy the whims of a few malcontents. NASW...
Who remembers this picture? October 1983. The cold war was churning with Ronald Reagan at the helm, but Mikhail Gorbachev was not yet on the scene. I had returned from the Peace Corps a decade before, but the international spirit was still alive in me. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States were high, threatening mutual nuclear annihilation. I was a new mother with a two-year-old and pregnant with a second child. I didn’t want to see my babies grow up in a world saturated w...
In the old days I would have gotten telephone calls, but in our modern age I received texts that Dixie Otis had passed. The news is everything that happens, isn’t it? Beginnings, endings, life, death, the pulse of the community, the good, the bad, the sad. Technology changes but the need to share and connect is a constant in humanity. The tools we use to stitch ourselves to each other are different from our parents’, but the need to be woven together is the same. The evening before, Saturday, the line to Santa was still long at 6 p.m., though t...
Dear valued longtime readers and new subscribers: Thank you for wanting to have the La Conner Weekly News come to your home. Thank you for supporting this newspaper, your community newspaper. Subscribers, new and old, thank you. The last two weeks have been quite a surprise and even a bit amazing at the newspaper office. The Saturday after the paper provided envelopes, 20 subscriptions were in the paper’s mailbox. The next Tuesday the combined total was 50. New subscriptions, and renewals, keep arriving in response to the paper’s three-week out...
The next chapter in Swinomish carver Kevin Paul’s often cutting-edge career will be written by himself. And it’s quite a story to tell. Paul, whose carving has been featured on the Discovery Channel and a wide range of publications, is among those artists invited to contribute to “The Barn Shows: In Their Own Words,” a much-anticipated book project being compiled by Dick and LaVonne Reim of Fir Island. After being the subject of numerous scripts and articles, Paul now has the opportu...
There was a time when Tobin Meyer didn’t have a clue what the future held. But because of his ability to recognize and sift through clues, Meyer has a clear idea now of the direction his career in law enforcement will soon take. A Skagit County Sheriff’s Sergeant who for 20 months has staffed the department’s La Conner Detachment, Meyer is returning to Mount Vernon starting at the end of the year. He has been tabbed by Sheriff-elect Don McDermott to serve as Chief Criminal Deputy in charg...
In a brief interview while filling food boxes at the La Conner Sunrise Food Bank Dec. 3, U.S. Rep Rick Larsen (D, Everett) made these points: On the Navy’s expanding Growler flights: The Navy’s response to an October letter he sent “was not positive” and “not the last word in getting the Navy to respond to concerns that the community has.” He cautioned his position will not go “as far as the Sound Defense Alliance wants to go.” He said he was working to “have the Navy understand” its r...
There was mystery in history here Thursday night. A mystery years in the making, in fact, one in which secrets from the past were unlocked as part of an ongoing Golden Anniversary celebration at the Skagit County Historical Museum, atop what La Connerites used to call Auto View Hill. A standing room only crowd gathered in the museum’s east wing to witness the long-awaited opening of a time capsule embedded in one of the building’s walls nearly a half-century ago. Geraldo Rivera should’ve been...
BEST LIGHTED BOAT PARADE, EVER – Reports Mike Sisk, Swinomish Yacht Club commodore: “We had 28 boats enter the parade this year We had a number of yacht clubs in the area participate, with the furthest boat coming from Shelton.” Additional parade summary and photos, page 5. – Photo by Nancy Crowell...
Dixie Otis had a way with words, a knack for saying just the right thing to lift one’s spirits, to encourage and inspire. Not even death, which came unexpectedly on Sunday, can silence that voice. Dixie’s genuine compassion, tireless enthusiasm and unconditional support for the community to which she devoted her life’s work and cheerful volunteerism continues to be heard in the heartfelt condolences shared by many here upon learning of her passing. Those words speak volumes about someone whose...
