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It’s been tough hearing about local businesses closing. The biggest gut punch for me was when Bob Jacobson and Rebecca Strong said they had closed The LUX and were moving to Lopez Island. I had gotten to know them over the last five years or so. Their departure is a big loss for the community. Perhaps this is only so long for now, and not goodbye forever, but I’m not alone in wishing you two all the best out on the Island. Sincerely, Matt May, La Conner...
By: Sandy Stokes If the dangerous, lawless takeover in Seattle has shown us anything, it is that generations of one-party rule have not been healthy for our state. Our little town is fielding a candidate who can help reverse the trend toward impotent state governance. Bill Bruch is the change candidate – a Republican running for a seat in the state House of Representatives. He has been a La Conner and Skagit County resident for many years and knows the issues we face as homeowners, farmers, small business owners and taxpayers. He has alli...
By: Barb Schultz Dear Editor: We support Helen Price Johnson for state Senate because she has experience and leadership. Helen has represented her community as a school board member and now through her extensive work as a three term Island County Commissioner. Throughout her career as a volunteer and a public servant, she has always listened to the folks she represents and then makes hard decisions based on the best interest for those folks. Gathering information, listening and taking strong action are the attributes that highlight Helen’s c...
Dear Mr. Wheeler: This letter concerns the budget for the 2020-2021 school year. Debt service is paid by taxes on non-Indians. This is not fair. Tribal members constitute an estimated 16.1% of enrollment, so the Swinomish Tribal Community should contribute a proportional amount. The reduced debt service, as a result of bond refunding, should be budgeted along with a contribution from the Tribe. Budget line item 2500 should reflect an amount for operation and maintenance as well as debt service. The Tribe contributes $660,000 to operation and...
By: Judy Menish Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author, uses her considerable research skills and storytelling capabilities to give us a profile of four American presidents who became great leaders of this country during very difficult times. From Abraham Lincoln, through the Roosevelts and, finally, Lyndon Johnson, we hear amazing stories and facts in her 2018 book, “Leadership in Turbulent Times.” Lincoln and Johnson came from humble beginnings; the Roosevelts from wealth. Each man suffered personal tragedy whi...
By: Meg Holgate Before coaxing each piece of waxed and resin-coated paper into place, Kandis Susol begins her day with a meditation. In the small studio space allocated to her practice on Orcas Island, Susol brings concentration, tranquility and mindfulness, central tenets of Zen Buddhism, to her work. The artist’s exhibition, “Embrace,” now at FORUM Arts, asks the viewer to engage in the quiet observations of the slow and deliberate flow of life. These contemplations are clearly imbued in her sculpted panels, formed from a gently chore...
Leave. Let’s let them leave, those who hold the Confederate battle flag high, who defend monuments to Rebel leaders who took up arms to defeat the Union in 1861. Theirs is not a heritage to be celebrated. The Confederates were an alliance of states, banded together in rebellion against the United States, their mother country. Their military leaders were former U.S. officers who renounced their citizenship and resigned their commissions. They were traitors who committed treason. The monuments raised to commemorate them are vile celebrations of t...
OLYMPIA — As summer gets into full swing and people spend more time outside, state and federal officials and local beekeepers hope the public will keep their eyes open and report any sightings of Asian giant hornet. “When it comes to preventing and stopping a new invasive species, we all have a role to play and this is a great example,” said Justin Bush, executive coordinator of the Washington Invasive Species Council. “The first detection of Asian giant hornet in the entire United States was made by an aware member of the public. Every...
COVID-19 cases in Skagit County are steadily climbing, with 21 cases found from Friday through Monday. Nine positive test cases were confirmed Friday and again Monday. The Skagit County Board of Health’s decision Friday to stay in Phase 2 was a necessity. The Board followed the recommendations they heard from County Public Health Director Jennifer Johnson and Public Health Officer Howard Leibrand. “We are not eligible to submit,” Johnson said. “We are not meeting the metrics” of the state’s risk...
Five local residents who came down with covid-19 agree: Keep wearing those masks! When Jo Wolfe started feeling bad in March, she attributed it to her allergies. Ten days later, the director of the Skagit County Historical Museum found herself at Providence Everett Hospital, on oxygen, participating in a clinical trial of the anti-viral drug remdesivir. “I never felt super sick,” she says. “I was just out of it brain-wise.” In the hospital she learned that an observer at the Northwest Regional History Day Contest at Anacortes Middle School had...
Closing First Street to traffic on busy shopping weekends has been discussed here for decades. Only now, it is an idea whose time is drawing near. Mayor Ramon Hayes and Town Council members are open to turning downtown into a walking plaza for a potential local Octoberfest celebration one weekend this fall. The prospects for an autumn sidewalk sale on First Street gained momentum at Council’s June 23 meeting. Town officials opted not to close downtown to traffic for the July Fourth holiday, based on survey responses from residents and local b...
Kathy Herrera has already worn several hats during her time at La Conner Schools, and will don another one – along with a mask – for the 2020-21 academic year. Herrera, who served as La Conner Middle and High School athletic director and assistant principal during her first two years here, has a new job title. She has been tabbed to succeed Todd Torgeson as the school district’s junior and senior high principal while retaining her duties as athletic director. Torgeson resigned t...
Merchants on Morris and First Streets are hopeful the July 4th weekend will be a shot in the arm for sales even without fireworks lighting the night sky. Asking about business possibilities this weekend brought these replies: On First Street, Two Moons Gallery’s Alan Darcy hopes business picks up. He expects good weather will bring people who want to get out to “come to our friendly little town … and enjoy themselves.” He encourages “partying hearty, but smarty” and wants everyone...
Ready, set, shop. Start Thursday at the Soroptimist Vintage Store on Morris Street, open for the first time since mid-March. Their high-quality goods have been dusted off, the volunteer staff has a safety plan, which includes customers: wear your mask, keep your distance and be patient with rationed entry and a set path to exit. Doors open at 11 a.m. daily through the 4th. A Vintage visit is practice for the La Conner event of the weekend: the blowout Independence Day weekend closing sale of the Friends of the Library Thrift Shop Friday and...
The library is happy to announce the expansion of curbside service hours and phone requests. Beginning today, the La Conner Library will provide curbside service pickups Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Schedule pick up during these hours of items you have requested through the online catalog (www.lclib.lib.wa.us). Additionally, we are happy to assist anyone who needs help selecting items from our collection by phone. Also, we can’t express enough thanks to the Friends of the Library for their support via the Library Thrift Shop. Please v...
This weekend marks the 244th anniversary of our declaring our independence, when, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” This is the perfect moment to consider binding up our nation’s wounds, as he also wrote, in his second inaugural address. Our nation. Our wounds. Our defense. It is us, plural. We are both citizens and patriots together. Patriots defend us, the people, our country. That is we, toget...
By: Patricia Bonacic (aka the DONALDoppelganger) Dear Mel and Ken, I am writing in response to your respective editorials printed about me in the La Conner Weekly News last week. The newspaper had evidentially been used to wrap up shrimp, and other such fish, and was mailed to a White House aide for his birthday. He brought it to the attention of Jared who then immediately directed it to me. It stinks to high heaven, let me tell you! I have never heard of La Conner but, judging from your advice and analysis of my presidency, I am seriously...
I have received the best third year anniversary gift ever from the people around the country embracing the Black Lives Matter movement: Hope. This surprise gift welled up inside of me recently, completely unexpected, as I reflected on finishing my third year as owner of the Weekly News. What are the important nuggets that I have mined since July 2017 when I started here? What have I experienced and learned? Turns out that the lesson is lifelong, not from La Conner at all. That happens sometimes. My version of the last 50-plus years of life in t...
By: Mike Morrell Mel Damski is pleading for President Trump to resign because he knows that is the only way Sleepy Joe could win. Can you imagine if he did resign and we were stuck with a President Biden, who can’t put a coherent sentence together, sniffs young women and girl’s hair and supports the Democrat mayors who are letting mobs ravage our cities and who has a son who reaps millions because of daddy’s political influence? And, yes, Joe avoided the draft by claiming he has asthma. Funny but I have not noticed him ever having troub...
By: Albert Ondo The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the injustices and inequalities that have plagued our society and our state for far too long. Too often, our state representatives in Olympia have not placed people first. Our health and safety should be a priority; working people should have livable wages; strong education must be the foundation of life and work; transportation ought to meet the demands of our 21st century economy; and sustainable farms, forests, and fisheries will create sustainable jobs. Now is the time to elect people like...
Comings and goings continue with the La Conner School Board. The school district’s governing panel lost its most senior member, Brad Smith. He submitted his resignation June 19. Smith represented District 3, the Shelter Bay area, for 14 years and was the board’s liaison with the state legislature. La Conner High seniors Avery Sloniker and MacQuaid Hiller were welcomed aboard as new student representatives for the 2020-21 academic year during the same June 22 video-conferenced meeting. Sloniker and Hiller will succeed recently graduated sen...
The La Conner School District seeks candidates to fill the District 3 board seat held by Brad Smith until his June resignation. Residents must live in District 3, which includes Shelter Bay. The term runs through 2021. Applications need a statement with reasons for seeking appointment, a statement of philosophy regarding public education, completion of a questionnaire and supporting documents. The position is open until filled. The first screening of applicants is July 14. People applying must be U.S. citizens, legal residents of Washington...
When Swinomish tribal members dig clams, it’s called clam jamming. They get a tribal permit and follow the regulations as to location and times. I, for one, have not participated in tribal clam digging. I am not a tribal member from these parts. So, I listen to stories, often the ones from my husband’s family: His brother, Greg Yakanak; his sister, Karen Joe; and his nephew, Jason Paul. They go clam jamming. Occasionally there is a photo, but often it is a story of their day. The long walk out...
