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To the Editor: Dave Paul is the kind of representative every voter looks for. He knows and cares about the people in his northern Washington district. From young to old and in between, his constituents benefit from his passions that are also the cornerstones of our community: healthcare, public education, affordable higher education, jobs and the issues that span generations, such as social justice, prosperity and fair treatment under the law. Since Dave Paul’s election last November, he has collaborated with other legislators to introduce a...
The Fourth of July is still a week away, but there were early fireworks aplenty when the La Conner School Board met in a tense, sometimes heated session before a standing room only audience Monday evening in the district’s administrative building. The two-hour meeting dealt mostly with issues related to second-year Superintendent Dr. Whitney Meissner, the subject of recent no-confidence votes taken by members of the district’s two employee unions, who allege her management has been ine...
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community will contribute $750,000 toward the construction of a new library, the La Conner Regional Library District announced Monday. The facility, located at 520 Morris Street, will be named the La Conner-Swinomish Library. The grant supports the building’s construction over the next two years. Projected opening date is in the fourth quarter of 2021. The library is designed to be a multi-cultural resource center for information and learning. It will double the size of the current building, be wired to provide h...
Yet another chapter in the saga unfolded Saturday. More than $50,000 was added to the cause during the annual A Novel Affair luncheon and auction at Maple Hall keynoted by best-selling Seattle author Robert Dugoni. Support from the sold-out event, which filled the downtown venue to capacity, came on the heels of a recent $720,000 allocation by state lawmakers toward the $3.74 million project, designed to provide La Conner library users expanded floor space and services for all ages. For the...
As told to Anne Basye Farmer, rockhound, horseshoe club founder, birder, hunter, carver, husband, dad and granddad, Fred Mesman will be 95 in August. The patriarch of the Mesman Dairy at Chilberg and Dodge Valley Roads came to LaConner in 1942 when Dutch farmers on Whidbey Island were displaced by Ault Field. The Mesmans were the only family that came to LaConner. We moved from a Dutch community into a Swede community, with Oles and Svens and so forth. I had never heard those names before. But...
School’s out, but learning hasn’t stopped. Local students ages 8-14 spent their first week of summer vacation mastering content shared by the Swinomish Tribal Community Police Department and other area law enforcement agencies, members of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and local firefighters. Their classroom was the great outdoors. Swinomish Junior Police Camp youth spent a fast-paced four days scaling an obstacle course at Swinomish Yacht Club, boating to Hope Island and visiting Naval Air Sta...
A school board and a town council walked into a bar. They had the usual litany of concerns and hand wringing: underfunded, under resourced, underappreciated, not understood. “They come to our meetings and hammer us with their complaints,” the board started out. “Right,” agreed the council, looking into their beers. “They not only question but criticize our decisions. It’s as if they don’t know what we are doing. They just don’t get it,” they said, nodding to each other in knowing affirmation. “Questions and complaints. Complaints and ques...
I wanted to write something light, this being the first week of summer. Alas. Observers and participants agree that tempers are running high, some people are hurt, others are wounded and discord rifts the La Conner School District. If only the board of directors and administration’s biggest problem was 12 hours a day of way too loud drumming and horns from a marching band rental. To name the elephant in the room: the vast majority of school staff, teachers and support employees, want Superintendent Whitney Meissner gone. The La Conner Education...
The Town Council gained $100,000 for the Town in less than an hour at its June 11 meeting: After months of negotiating, Council passed having Mayor Ramon Hayes sign an agreement with Crown Castle Cell Tower, a Texas-based company. The 42 year lease, with extensions, includes camouflaging the extension portion of the tower, annual rent increases, a percentage share of the subleases and the signing bonus. An agreement for terms of reimbursements between the Washington State Patrol and the La Conner Fire Department also passed unanimously. Hayes...
October 8, 1930 to March 3, 2019 Memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 30, 2019, 2:00 pm at First Christian Church. 495 E. Bakerview Road, Bellingham, WA 98226...
