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A first person report from the field of Saturday’s Daffodil Craft Bazaar. We had a steady stream of people stop by the booths: Visitors who just saw the tents, someone who learned about the event from another place in town and lots of locals shopping. There were 14 vendors with a good mix from birdhouses to wreaths. The vendors seemed pleased with the foot traffic and said they had good sales. Kiwanis members underestimated the desire for daffodils. We ran out of flowers within the first hour o...
Let the games begin. In fact, they already have. The La Conner High track teams swept a league meet at Coupeville on Friday. The school’s softball team hosted NW2B/1B rival Darrington Saturday afternoon, dropping a 25-3 verdict in four innings. La Conner’s golf teams traveled Monday to Grace Academy, while the Braves baseball program was scheduled at Friday Harbor yesterday. Those represented the first La Conner High sports action in nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed campu...
Tuesday night the La Conner Town Council had the purchase of Hedlin’s Ballfield on their agenda. The Council was to approve an agreement with Frank Jeretzky, a commercial loan officer with Mountain Pacific Bank, to buy the property for $800,000, about $25,000 more than the Town’s asking price. The deal enables Landed Gentry Homes, a leader in residential development in Skagit County for more than four decades, to build 10 single-family homes on 70 per cent of the nearly two-acre site, which for...
Town Councilmembers learned that February’s sales tax receipts of $48,036 were a near record high for the month when they reviewed their March meeting packets. This follows January’s $52,155, which was a record and 56% over the 2020 report. Finance Director Maria DeeDee’s assessment, “so far this year they are coming in pretty good,” is an understatement. The two month total is 31% of the year’s projected $328,202 sales tax receipts, as listed in the council packet. The $101,190 is at least 20% higher than the same two month period any of the...
Monday was International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world. It is always a good idea to look back, whether it is two days or two centuries, almost as critical as looking forward. The future is where everyone lives. We can take this slogan with us: “‘Choose to Challenge.” It was the theme for International Women’s Day, March 8, 2021. It is the theme for a year and for a lifetime. “A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change. So let’s all #ChooseToChallenge.” It is as easy as raising your hand. That is the message...
COVID-19 has a lot to teach the human family. The underlying chronic malaise of the body politic is glaring inequality and its consequence, sheer poverty, which means lack of adequate income, shelter, health care, food, job security and education. In short, human misery. School is a great leveler, and without it children from poorer homes are having almost insuperable difficulties trying to continue their education through home-schooling. It has been hard enough for middle-class families in book-lined homes. What happens to children in noisily...
As the pitiful craziness grows called “cancel culture,” and freedom of speech is denied, I want to submit just one quotation: “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” Frederick Douglass (born a slave, became a free man, was a friend to Abraham Lincoln, and a hero to Martin Luther King). Nancy Burlison Shelter Bay...
The Swinomish Tax Authority reduced the levy rate for 2021 to $11.98 per thousand from $12.35 per thousand. The assessed value of homes in Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned remained roughly the same, so most taxpayers will see a 3% decrease in taxes. The Swinomish government plans to collect $2,142,674 in taxes from Shelter Bay, Pull & Be Damned, Thousand Trails and Dunlap Towing. It will contribute $1,077,702 to three taxing districts. These are: Fire District 13 at $200,000, La Conner Library at $27,702, plus $250,000 to a sinking fund for...
Confronting the financial challenges caused by COVID-19 continues to be my primary focus during this session. Although there is growing confidence the rapid deployment of the vaccine may end the health pandemic, the economic impact will be felt long into the future. Unemployment continues to be a problem as thousands of individuals and families wonder how they will keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. Some industries have been more wounded than others, with jobs in retail, restaurants, even dentist offices, wiped out across...
Douglas Little Bison passed away on December 27, 2020. His life partner and stepchildren were with him. He was the great-grandson of Chief Big Foot (Si Tanka), leader of the Miniconjou-Lakota, whose Sioux band perished at Wounded Knee in 1890. His parents Wallace Little Bison and Buenna Schuler Bison preceded him in death. Doug was well known as a talented and remarkable sculptor. With more than twenty bronze sculptures to his credit, his award-winning work is in art collections and displayed...
Vernon “Butch” J. Hertz, beloved husband and father, passed away at the age of 75 in his home in Mount Vernon WA, on February 28, 2021, surrounded by his family. With great love comes great loss. We are heartbroken that he is gone, but grateful to have loved him. He packed a lot of life into his 75 years. Butch was born in Bremerton, WA, on December 21, 1945, to Joseph W. Hertz and Carol V. Mathews. As a young boy, Butch and his family moved to Mt. Vernon. During high school he participated in...
The La Conner School Board held a special meeting Monday that lived up to its name. It was termed “special” because it opened with a walking tour of the campus. What was truly special came next. The members convened their first in-person meeting in a year – since the COVID-19 pandemic forced closure of schools statewide last March and led the board to conduct its public sessions on the Zoom tele-conferencing platform. Masked and socially distanced, board members met in the district administration building to hear updates on La Con...
Monday, March 1 1:29 p.m.: Can’t go back – Deputies responded to a possible vehicle prowl. Deputies contacted the suspect and determined there had been no crime. The suspect was issued a trespass admonishment from the Farmhouse Inn. La Conner Whitney Rd., Greater La Conner. Tuesday, March 2 5:53 a.m.: Not the first time – Complaint of speeding vehicles on 3rd street. N. 3rd St., La Conner. 2:08 p.m.: Another speeder – Deputies responded to a report of a Porsche speeding on Fir Island Rd. Deputies checked the area, but were u...
This recipe is from my dad’s cousin, Joann Vanderpool, who lives in Tennessee. I look at her cooking almost every day on Facebook. She posts today’s meals and meals she made a few years back. I saw this recipe and thought, what a perfect thing to make for our nephew’s, Jason Paul, birthday. Jason grew up in our household when he was young, around 4 years old. The year I was pregnant with our daughter, Katherine; two of my husband’s sisters, Kimberly and Karen, asked if their boys could live wi...
Five affordable homes will be built this summer at Home Trust of Skagit’s Channel Cove campus. “We are out for bids,” Jodi Dean, Home Trust of Skagit director, told the Weekly News Tuesday. “The building committee will look at those bids at the end of the month.” Her cautiously optimistic goal is to have families gathering in their living rooms around their Christmas trees in December. The homes will be sited at the north end of the campus, off Park Street south of Caledonia. There will be three single family homes and a side-by-side duplex. A...
Given the chilly, overcast and occasionally windy day, our First on First Friday went well. We had nine out of nine reserved chalk boxes taken, which included kids of all ages! Watch out for those Wild, Walking Women of La Conner, “BJ & her Crew.” And we even scored a bonus tip of appreciation from longtime resident Stuart Hutt. The “Sloughmander” Glen Johnson, showed, sans his second skin costume and chalked up a beautiful Chinook Salmon. He made page three of Saturday’s regional newspaper...
