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A big shout out to our community for making the Conner Waterfront Park “Fun Raiser” at Hellam’s Vineyard last Friday night a huge success. Special recognition goes to Ollie Iverson and Ken Lee for their efforts in organizing the event. Big thanks to the Town’s staff for their administrative support and to Scott Thomas, Town administrator for staffing the collections at the door. All five Parks Commissioners were there to support the event. The desserts provided by La Conner School Culinary Club were awesome. Thank you Jeff Hellam for providi...
Thank you all, It was a packed house as Jeff Hellam opened the doors for us at Hellam’s Vineyard Friday night and everyone who came was there to make sure the pavilion at Conner Waterfront Park will be built. The two major donors were there, Shell Refinery and La Conner Rotary. They both gave deeply to start the initial fund raising and they, along with countless individual donors, had gotten us close and this event put us over the top. The crowd was loud and happily bid on the three wonderful donated items. Earlier Mayor Ramon Hayes e...
Collection of taxes was $1,928,815 from Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned this year. The levy rate of $12.3500 per thousand is higher than the levy rate in the county’s tax area 1580, which, before the Great Wolf decision, used to include these two areas. That levy rate is $11.4983. In previous years the Swinomish always used the same levy rate. The Tribe contributes $660,000 to the La Conner School District. Using the levy rates from area 1580, the Swinomish will contribute $141,000 for Fire District 13, $25,764 for the La Conner Library, a...
This is my response to Chairman Cladoosby’s and Superintendent Meissner’s “levy facts” statement in the Feb. 13 Weekly News. McCleary Fix: The Legislature increased the state property tax to “fully fund basic education”. It also capped the permissible levy tax rate and restricted levy monies to non-salary expenditures. Last August teachers in many school districts around the state, including La Conner, threatened to strike at the behest of their union, demanding substantial salary increases drawn on McCleary funding. Analysts and news editor...
Aaron Reinstra was born to be a fire chief. The La Conner Fire Chief, to be exact. As a kid he would sneak along when his dad was called from home to the fire hall for emergency runs. Reinstra was just eight or nine at the time, but it only seemed natural to catch those rides given that multiple generations of his family have served as La Conner firefighters. Reinstra’s own service dates to 1991. Today he is La Conner Hook & Ladder’s new chief, succeeding Josh Morrison, who stepped down fro...
The smelt weren’t running Saturday but little kids from about three to seven or more were, on the boardwalk and on First Street, searching for treasure while being chased by their parents and grandparents. Families and single guys came to La Conner in search of the not so much elusive as not-present smelt for the La Conner Rotary Club’s 54th annual Smelt Derby Family Festival and Smelt Run Saturday. A school of herring were sighted and several caught, but a seal popped up and the herring lef...
Edison artist Margy Lavelle paints with conviction. In fact she pours so much energy into the process of moving paint across canvas she’s been known to knock her piece down or punch a hole in it. She then makes that action another part of the piece. That recently happened as part of her series The Flight of Gabriel, and she coarsely patched that hole, and painted over it. The result is a piece that is at once rough, energetic and poignant – and that has its own story to tell. Lavelle is n...
Liberty Spangle arrived in Everett Friday boasting a lineup featuring twin 6-foot-1 inside scoring threats Maisie Burnham and Aleena Cook. But it was Justine Benson and the La Conner High Lady Braves who came up big with a convincing 54-44 Regional hoops triumph that wasn’t as close as the final score indicates. La Conner (20-3) led by as many as 20 points in the fourth period before coasting to the win and earning a spot in the winner’s bracket tomorrow (Thursday) of the state 2B Hardwood Cla...
Go to Skagit Valley College’s Phillip Tarro Theatre to see an energetic and disciplined cast perform Shakespeare’s “Richard II.” The large cast is well dressed, especially Richard (Michael Trochie), in his gowns and highly embroidered robe, with its three foot train. Director Damond Morris’s Richard is a super-agent, confident from the opening scene, when he banishes Henry of Bolingbroke (Matthew Small) and Mowbray (Eli Young), to the end when he nearly out fights the assassination team that murders him in prison. Neither is historica...
There were not very many fish but the weather turned out favorably and lots of people were in town. It was interesting to see that this year’s winners were all from out of town, Seattle being the furthest. The Treasure Hunt was also a great success as all the Treasure Chests were empty and over 50 Treasure Maps were distributed. Lots of kids also enjoyed fish printing and families came out for a delicious pancake breakfast. The Rotary club of La Conner puts on this event year after year to bring people to town and to give families something to...
The U.S. Navy has been urged to put on hold its plans to expand Aircraft and Aircraft Operations at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and “accept and carry out recommendations” of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for minimizing and mitigating noise the expansion will create. This is the conclusion delivered in an eight page letter from Council Chair Milford Wayne Donaldson dated Feb. 19. The letter recognizes the significant impact to historic properties from the proposed expansion. The letter, to Navy Secretary Richard Spe...
It’s official: The La Conner School District replacement educational programs and operations levy’s approval was certified Feb. 22 by Skagit County. The final vote count was 1,135 to 487. The 70 percent yes vote was the highest ratio of the three county school districts approving replacement levies. The 1.5 mill levy will raise some $874,000 annually in 2020 and 2021. It is a reduction of almost one dollar of assessed valuation. It is not a new tax but replaces the expiring two year levy. Interestingly, the La Conner precinct’s 65 percent appro...
Go to Mt. Baker Theatre March 7 to hear Timothy Egan discuss his 2009 history of the nation’s largest wildfire, which in the summer of 1910 blazed out of control in Idaho and Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, killing more than 85 people. That’s almost the same number, 86, who died in the not so poetically named Camp fire which destroyed Paradise in California last fall. This countywide Whatcom Reads is sponsored by that county’s library system. That is the power of libraries: to make connections, bring people together and open windows to view th...
