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Residents and businesses are released from all state imposed COVID-19 restrictions starting today, a decision Gov. Jay Inslee made in May for reopening statewide. This ends his Roadmap to Recovery restrictions. La Conner businesses and institutions will only have self-imposed restrictions on capacity, mask wearing, social distancing and other public health safety measures. Over a dozen were asked how they are planning for full reopening. Here are responses. Visit the library starting today without an appointment. Hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m....
The weather dealt La Conner another bad hand last weekend, three of a kind of daily highs over 90 degrees Saturday-Monday, recorded at the WSU Extension Research Center on Memorial Highway. These may be record high temperatures for Friday through Tuesday in the region. The National Weather Service issued a “Long-Duration, Record-Breaking Heat Event” from its Seattle office June 23 for Friday through Monday and then Monday night extended it until 11 p.m. Tuesday. Tuesday’s forecast at the Burlington airport was sunny, with a high near 89 degre...
La Conner’s longtime field of dreams will soon become a field of memories, visible merely in the mind’s eye as the property becomes new housing and a yet to be defined public park covering a half-acre or so. Hedlin’s Ballfield, a youth sports hub here for decades, has heard its final cheers. But there is still more than a smattering of boos from those who lament loss of much of the revered rare green space along busy Maple Avenue. The Town purchased the property earlier this year and immediately...
Our nation’s 245th anniversary is Sunday. But for many of us, this is not a happy birthday. The one issue of unanimous consent among us is that we are divided. There are two issues of agreement among the population. One is that we are divided. The second is that the other side is defiantly wrong. July 4th is to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, our founding document, our first statement of principles. It is our touchstone. It can help us today. The first paragraph unites us in purpose: “one people to dissolve the political bands whi...
In the summer of 1969, I was in the south of France, visiting my cousins, when Neil Armstrong took a stroll on the moon. The event blew my mind. I am not very technically savvy, so it was beyond my comprehension that something like that could be accomplished. And it made me think that our world and our country, were extremely advanced. More than 50 years have gone by and it is abundantly clear how wrong I was. Let’s just look at the start of the year 2021. Mass shootings in the United States i...
Gov. Jay Inslee invites nominations for outstanding work by local governments and their partners on community planning and development. The awards have been an annual event since 2006. Inslee is proud to sponsor the Smart Communities Awards to recognize these hard-won accomplishments. The values and priorities of each community shine through their individual plans for how they want to look and function twenty or fifty years from now. For one community it may be an emphasis on supporting agriculture, another prioritizing their downtown...
La Conner residents shared with Town officials a broad range of traffic and public safety concerns last Tuesday night. At the Town Council’s June 22 Zoom meeting, speeding motorists and discarded drug syringes were discussed at length. There is a growing anxiety, as the Council session bore out, over apparent increases in minor infractions and more serious crimes coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s time to get more serious about law enforcement,” said Town Planning Commission member Rick Dole, who spoke in favor of budgeting for a c...
LA CONNER — The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Friday afternoon that the 19-year-old Whidbey Island man found dead in a car in Pioneer Park in La Conner in the early afternoon June 23 committed suicide. Tobin Meyer, chief criminal deputy with the Sheriff’s Office, said in a phone call that it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Investigators believe the death to be consistent with a suicide. Officers responded at 1:29 p.m. to a 911 call from a passerby in the park. They found the victim slumped over from a pos...
John Allen Carr, of Carmel, CA and La Conner, WA passed peacefully from cancer of the liver in the comfort of his home on June 9, 2021. John was born in San Francisco and attended Menlo High School, where he met his beloved life partner and wife of 59 years, Judith “Jackie” (Jackson), who passed February 25 of this year. John graduated from Stanford University with a BA degree in Biology in 1963. John and Judy were married in the chapel on the Stanford campus on his 20th birthday, following Joh...
There was no state 2B Hardwood Classic in Spokane this year. But there was a state level tournament in Mount Vernon last week. And as was the case in Spokane in 2020, La Conner High’s entry advanced to the final round, earning top runner-up honors. La Conner (15-2) placed second in the girls’ Summer State 2B basketball tournament hosted Wednesday through Friday by Mount Vernon Christian. The Lady Braves routed Toledo and edged Wahkiakum before falling to top-seeded Warden 72-66 in overtime for the championship. The three-day, eight-team event p...
Jeff Scoma had a successful first season as a head football coach, guiding La Conner High to a 4-1 mark and the NW2B spring grid crown, its best showing in several years. Turns out, Scoma might have been too successful – at least as far as Braves fans are concerned. The former Bellevue High assistant was announced last week as the new head coach at 3A Stanwood, whose campus has a student enrollment approaching 1,300 students. Despite the move up in classification, it was not an easy decision for Scoma to leave La Conner. “I loved La Conne...
Mikki Gifford is looking forward to her new role with La Conner schools. Make that, roles. Gifford is the new combination middle school-high school assistant principal and athletic director, a dual post she says is ideal given her extensive background in secondary level academics and extra-curricular activities. She arrives at La Conner after 15 years with the Oak Harbor School District and more than two decades in public education. “I entered the field of education to make a difference,” Gif...
Some of the world’s best-known businesses started in depressions, recessions and other hard economic times. Three La Conner businesses followed their example last year, expanding their operations while many others were retrenching or folding. When Sempre Italiano relocated from the corner of First and Morris streets to the O’Leary building two blocks south, Robyn Bradley’s landlord asked whether she knew someone who could take over the space. “Without really thinking, I said ‘oh my gosh, me!...
The Town of La Conner moved swiftly Friday to open a cooling center for area residents to take shelter from last weekend’s record high temperatures. The suggestion made by Robin Carneen earlier in the day was a reality by 6 p.m. June 25. The La Conner school district made its elementary school commons available Saturday-Monday, from 12-8 p.m. Drinks and snacks were brought by Scott Thomas, La Conner town administrator. He provided transportation and oversaw and managed volunteers. Thomas made “accommodations for anyone, they just need to tel...
A Good family that has had a great impact on the history and agricultural development of Fir Island and whose members have since been actively engaged in an array of public service projects will be honored at the Skagit County Pioneer Association Picnic Aug. 5 in La Conner. Descendants of William and Rebecca Eady Good, who emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century will be saluted as the Skagit County Pioneer Family of the Year when the annual picnic resumes after a one-year...
A refreshing summertime salad. This makes enough for a quart for your family, plus a pint for a friend and one serving size bowl to eat after it has marinated one hour. I have brought this to potlucks. Hopefully we all shall be able to enjoy more meals together with friends and family. This is a flex recipe. If you like onions, add more. If you prefer green beans, add two cans and leave out one of the others. You could also add an extra splash of cider vinegar for more flavor. I used fresh...
Parking has always been a thorny issue in La Conner, most notably on First Street parallel to the town’s popular historic waterfront. Now it figures in yet another flap, this time over joint use easements the Town signed with Landed Gentry the day the developer bought the Hedlin Farms Maple Avenue property, April 16. Town Councilmembers last week heard objections raised by residents that the easement at the rear of the property would cut into the 24,000 square feet set aside for the park. Seventy per cent of the former ballfield will be d...
