Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 1 - 10 of 10
Dear Mr. Dave Thomas, Skagit County Assessor: As a resident of La Conner (Eagles Nest) with property interests in Shelter Bay, I am personally affected – as are all of us in Skagit County, actually – by the adverse effects of property taxation imposed on us by the Swinomish Tribe following the Great Wolf Lodge decision by the 9th Circuit. We are taxed without representation as guaranteed by our Constitution, and the tribe fails repeatedly to pass through tax monies it collects to local taxing districts causing a tax shift that...
When I was a kid growing up in Pasadena, California, against the San Gabriel Mountains the smog would blanket the area for days in the hot summer. It would literally hurt to take a deep breath after playing outdoors which is what we did back then. But California has worked hard on the smog problem. It instituted stronger regulations to cut pollution, and it has made great progress. Air in California is much cleaner. But now that misguided individual in the White House has seen fit to tell California (and the 12 states that have adopted its...
A paradigm is a really big idea. A paradigm shift is when there is a complete change in thinking about a major part of our lives. Consider slavery. Even in 1859, slavery was the status quo and was going to continue forever. No sane establishment person was betting against its existence. Six years later the Civil War had ended and so had slavery. A huge paradigm shift was forced upon the nation. That’s history. Fast forward to today. Now take cars. Consider cars as slaves. Consider freeing cars. Lives are torn asunder. No more cars to depend o...
I am a candidate for the La Conner School Board, I believe the District can benefit from a fresh perspective within its leadership team. As a candidate, I thought it prudent to share my opinions regarding issues that have arisen involving the Board, Superintendent Meissner and both the teachers’ union and non-classified union. Since early May, I have been a close observer of the actions taken and statements made. I understand the frustrations of all involved – mistakes have probably been made by people on all sides. I certainly have n...
John Agen, Kate Szurek, Marlys Baker, Janie Beasley. Astute readers will recognize them as the candidates in the contested races for the La Conner School District directors positions for districts 1 and 2, on south and west Fidalgo Island outside of Shelter Bay, generally. The four are taking their races seriously, campaigning to represent their respective Fidalgo Island constituents at a time of great turmoil in the school district. Szurek and Beasley are incumbents. Beasley is this year’s board president. Szurek was president in 2018. Both h...
Elders carried signs reading “Wake Up, the House is on Fire.” One teen asked, “if your house was on fire, would you just sit there?” and another spoke of “the (melting) polar caps are our alarms; we need to stop the fire burning in our homes now” werer part of some 250 Skagetonians of all ages gathering at the Skagit County Courthouse Friday. Hope and despair for the future of the planet – and theirs and their children’s very uncertain futures – were voiced by teens, elders and a...
La Conner has more than its share of renowned artists, but there are some who choose not to sign their work. They displayed their latest creations inside the Morris Street men’s public restrooms last week. The images were in Christmas colors, but there was hardly good cheer linked to the finished products. At least not at Town Hall. Initial reviews there weren’t kind. That’s because the spray-painted walls and door of the men’s restroom bore symbols often associated with gang graffiti. One image...
At her job, Marlys Baker is a healer. She hopes to do the same as an elected official. “I want to be a unifying force rather than a dividing one,” says Baker, the first of four La Conner School Board candidates to respond to questions posed by the Weekly News. “I believe we can work together for positive change.” Baker, a registered nurse who serves as community health representative at the Swinomish Medical Clinic, is vying for the Board seat held by Janie Edwards Beasley, who chairs the fiv...
I am long overdue in expressing my thanks to our local community and the Swinomish Tribal Community for supporting the youth of La Conner. A little over three years ago my then junior high daughter came home from a Young Life summer camp and expressed it was one of the best weeks of her life. She was then able to experience this magic again as a high school student when she attended the high school camp. Each year I watched as a bus full of somewhat withdrawn middle and high school students departed La Conner and then watched amazed when that...
Few have as much to celebrate these days as Katherine Paul. The daughter of local residents Kevin and Pat Paul is an acclaimed vocalist whose music was featured in a recent National Public Radio (NPR) interview with correspondent Ailsa Chang. She’s also a newlywed. And hers were no ordinary nuptials. Katherine, 30, and Camas Logue, 31, both of Portland, were wed earlier this month on the banks of the Columbia River, each having arrived on tribal canoes, an 11-minute crossing in the p...
