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The weather has not cooperated or coordinated itself with this year's Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, but sunny days are surely here again for Andrew Miller's new Tulip Valley Farms operation. His Bradshaw Road operation, in partnership with Larry Jensen and Shannon Perkes, continues to be open for business after an April 7 agreement between his lawyer and counsel for Spinach Bus Venture Group, owners of Tulip Town. Miller was sued on March 28 to halt his operations by Tulip Town's owners in Skagi...
Skagit County Superior Court judge Laura Riquelme sided with the five executive committee members of the Shelter Bay Community board of directors Friday, denying a request for an injunction that could have led to their removal from the board and would have prevented them from making financial decisions, including approving the community’s 2023 interim lease with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. In a near hour-long hearing attended by 15-20 Shelter Bay residents and watched over Zoom by another 45, attorneys for defendants Wendy P...
Last spring, Judy Kontos won election to the Shelter Bay Community’s board of directors on a platform of increasing transparency and ushering in reform as part of the nine-member governing panel. This time around, Kontos didn’t fare well when Shelter Bay residents marked their ballots. Kontos was recalled on a 343-149 vote last Wednesday when in-person and mail-in ballots were tallied. Kontos, whose career background is in finance with extensive experience as a mortgage broker, was sanctioned and suspended from the board in February pen...
The Swinomish and Tulalip photographer, filmmaker, podcaster and author Matika Wilbur shares her Indian/Spirit name "Tsa-Tsique," meaning "she who teaches children," with her mom, Nancy Wilbur. During an hour phone interview, Wilbur shared the story of her decade long journey leading to her new photography book "Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America." The 10 inch by 10 inch 416-page book can be ordered now. Her research took her to all 50 states. It started in 2012 as a Kickstarter...
Saturday is the 53rd anniversary of Earth Day. In the giddy, heady days of the early 1970s – with or without pot – people celebrated recycling. Going farther meant reusing and reducing. Reflect on that, on how radical the concepts of reusing goods has become. In the 1960s parents and grandparents returned pop bottles back to the grocery and redeemed the deposit, with the bottles going back for washing and getting refilled. Fewer new glass bottles needed to be made. Aluminum cans once did not exist. And when was the last time any of us took a r...
The Democrat-dominated state legislature, fully endorsed by a sympathetic Democrat governor, has been “fine-tuning” highly restrictive measures that adversely affect gun ownership in Washington State (House Bill 1280). When enacted – likely on an "emergency" basis – this law restricts the purchase, sale, trade and importation of a variety of semi-automatic rifles erroneously referred to as "assault weapons” in the language of the bill and by the mainstream media. This misstatement of fact is done intentionally to influence public perceptio...
Recently, some friends have asked us why we moved from Shelter Bay into the town of La Conner. The simple reason is, we lost trust in the board to act in the best interest of the community and we lost faith that the board would begin to act in the best interest of the community. Our trust started eroding with the outcome of the Rainbow Park fiasco. We were told it was in the best interest of the community to bail out a sitting board member to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. When we asked questions, we were told to attend...
As a resident of Shelter Bay, I’m grateful for La Conner Weekly News coverage of the community’s recent challenges. Because we are a very significant segment of the wider community, we unquestionably have an impact outside the confines of our neighborhood. So, it is appropriate for the local newspaper to cover the activities of our board and members, despite the apparent wishes of some to avoid that particular source of light. Thorough, balanced news coverage demands skepticism, rather than meek regurgitation of officially sanctioned com...
The Rotary Club of La Conner is once again selling field cut tulips at $6/per bunch of 10, from their two booths. One is near the La Conner roundabout, the other is in Shawn O’Donnell’s Farmhouse Restaurant parking lot. Both booths are open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday to Monday, closed Tuesdays, as long as there are tulips. All profits are returned to projects here in town and to help elsewhere. See you there, Ollie Iversen La Conner...
Very few of us are racist or know people who are racist. Few of us stay quiet when racist remarks are made. That is what polling and folks discussing race in America or in their community say. Yet I know that I very definitely crossed the street once when three Black men were coming my way. Was that caution race-based? So, a few of us are racist. Many argue that there is not systematic racism. So substitute power, control and fear as motivations driving individuals and individuals in charge of institutions to act. Statistically and...
All parks are free in Washington on Earth Day, April 22. Day entrance is free on lands managed by Washington’s State Parks, Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fish and Wildlife. For National Park Service parks, it is the first day of National Park Week. A Discover Pass is not required....
Nobody anticipates a train derailment in their backyard. Nobody, perhaps, except Skagit County Fire District 13 Training Officer Chris Olbu. A model railroader, Olbu led a detailed tabletop exercise at the district’s SneeOosh Road fire station earlier this year, presenting the many scenarios that can arise when a train derails. As fate would have it, about two weeks after practicing moving model emergency vehicles around the train track Olbu had set up on the fire station’s second floor, two BNSF locomotive derailed near the Swinomish Cas...
Our legislature reviews hundreds of proposed pieces of legislation during sessions. This year, with the help of our team, I have drafted and introduced twelve bills. Six passed the House and five passed the Senate. So far, two have been signed by the Governor with more scheduled. As a first-time legislator, I would like to share how proposals become law with a bill that I’ve introduced this year, House Bill 1658, which allows high school students to earn credit for paid work experience and f...
The Town of La Conner won’t be caught with its pants down while drafting rules regulating adult businesses. Its Town Council last Tuesday unanimously adopted a six-month emergency moratorium on development applications within commercial, commercial transition and residential zones while controls addressing adult-oriented businesses are enacted. The action stems any attempt to locate here before specific regulations are adopted. “The moratorium,” planner Michael Davolio said, “will address anything that might come up in the interim.” Restricti...
Tyrone McLeod has been a builder much of his life, the elaborate ramp he installed at a Morris Street home across from The Slider Café is a prime example. He has built even more goodwill here over time. That was much in evidence Friday when La Conner service organizations held a spaghetti dinner fundraiser to benefit McLeod and his family, which last winter lost to fire the house he had labored five years to build on Swinomish Reservation. The event raised several thousand dollars with...
The Coupeville High School baseball team stole a win at La Conner last Thursday. Not that the visiting Wolves eked out an unexpected NW2B/1B triumph. A veteran Coupeville lineup, ran wild on the basepaths –19 stolen bases – and prevailed 12-2 over the youthful Braves, who averted a shutout when Kenai Zimmerman delivered a bases-loaded two-run single in the third inning. La Conner, falling to 1-7, kept within striking distance up until the game's midpoint. The Braves received a solid start fro...
La Conner High School hurdles standout Tommy Murdock took top honors in his races at the Skagit Showdown Meet in Sedro-Woolley last Wednesday. Students from various sized schools competed, but Murdock was clearly in a class by himself. The junior swept the boys' 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles, hitting the finish line in 0:16.02 and 42.00, respectively. The reigning state 2B hurdles champ placed a strong third in the 100-meter dash, clocking an 0:11.46 finish, behind Carsten Reynolds (0:11.17)...
A La Conner High School student group is proving you can play around and learn at the same time. The school’s extracurricular theater arts program group is presenting Neil Simon’s popular comedy “The Odd Couple” with six shows at the Bruce Performing Arts Center starting this Friday at 7 p.m. Performers include Jack Dougliss, Eleanor Drews, Gabe Barnett, Jonathan Gonzales, Rachel Haley, Madoc Hiller, Olie Phillips, Emily Smith and Josi Straathof. They are also gaining valuable math, carpentry, team-building and public speaking skills as they...
Shakespeare does not have to be difficult. Here is a great way to make his work accessible: weave it with American musical comedy. Combine lavish costumes, a 13-piece band, an energetic, uniformly top-notch cast, great direction and producing and whisk it into the spring Skagit Valley College music department's theatre production and you have "Something Rotten," which is really a must see show at the Lincoln Theatre April 21-23. Whether you are smart or clever or funny or like singing or...
Friday was tulip-flowers-in-bloom day, a wonderfully sunny day, if still cool and with a bit of a breeze. It was as much officially the start of the tulip tourist season as the first pitch and Opening Day was for the Mariners two weeks earlier. It was the day La Conner's merchants have been waiting for since, well, Christmas. Morris and First street curbs were lined with cars and shoppers populated sidewalks in clumps in and around the business district. Up Third Street some went in returning...
The turmoil continues in Shelter Bay. Resident Judy Kontos filed five petitions, one against each executive committee member of the Shelter Bay Community board of directors, Thursday, April 13. The day before Kontos, elected to the board in May, was ousted from the board by a 55% yes vote of 492 of residents. This followed Kontos’ sanction and suspension from the board in February. “Collectively, I delivered over 1,000 signatures,” Kontos told the Weekly News Monday. Each petition had 220 signatures, she said. Community rules require 25% of th...
Glass artist Toots Zynsky speaks at the Museum of Northwest Art April 29, 1 p.m. Her work is included in the exhibition, “Geppetto’s Children: Italo Scanga at Pilchuck Glass School.” Zynsky will talk about her career as an artist using the distinctive “filet de verre” technique she invented, her work both past and present, the impact and influence of working with Dale Chihuly and Italo Scanga and what it was like being at the founding of Pilchuck Glass School. RSVP online:monamuseum.org/events/artist-talk-toots-zynsky. Suggested donation,...
Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-02) is inviting high school-aged students who live or attend school in Washington’s Second Congressional District to showcase their artistic talents in the 2023 Congressional Art Competition. Art submissions and forms are due to Larsen’s office no later than Monday, May 1, at 5 p.m. All art entries must be original in concept, design and execution. Students can find details and a full list of contest rules larsen.house.gov/helping-you/2023-art-competition.htm Source: Office of Rick Larsen...
The April 22 Earth Day poets reading in celebration of National Poetry Month at 7 p.m. at Pelican Bay Books are Kevin Murphy and local Randy Dills, fine readers with much to say about the natural world. They have new books out. Pelican Bay Books: 520 Commercial Avenue, Anacortes. Source: Madrona Last Saturday Series...
The trail between the beach at the Anacortes Ferry Terminal and the Ship Harbor Interpretive Preserve is closed indefinitely. King tides and winter storms destroyed the boardwalk and dramatically changed the fragile wetland and the public is being asked to stay out. Visit the Washington State Ferries Facebook page for updates and information about the Anacortes Ferry Terminal. Source: Washington State Ferries...
