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The La Conner Town Council covered a lot of ground verbally at its Oct. 12 meeting but no items on their agenda required a vote. Thirty-four of the 74 page council packet laid out the 2022 town budget, which Mayor Ramon Hayes had sent council the day before. Hayes told council, “You have a small pool of people, under 1,000, living in a boutique community.” He emphasized their needs must be managed with limited funding, Staff wage increases were one of a few line items emphasized, with Finance Director Maria DeGoede explaining it is pegged to th...
Background and experiences Ex-New Yorker; Located La Conner 2011; Two adult sons; served U.S. Navy medical corpsman; Career: aviation field, Japan Airlines, Alaska, including service manager, project mgr. (JFK Terminal), Sales: snowplows, seating and revenue consultant. Operate (permitted) Airbnb “Super-host,” animal lover. Hobbies: Classic cars, biking and military miniatures. Appointed town council 2012. I love the town and want to contribute. Council accomplishments: Initiated “Sister Citie...
Background and experiences Member of the Town Council since 2013, former chair of the Planning Commission, on which I served for seven years and a former code enforcement officer. Served with Skagit Bay Search & Rescue and the Skagit Watershed Council. I have also volunteered in many capacities in town and in the schools. I have experience in construction, auto mechanics and had a career as a certified holistic health practitioner and clinical hypnotherapist and massage instructor. Residents’ pe...
They say good friends are hard to find. But for those associated through the years with La Conner Regional Library, that hasn’t been the case at all. Quite the opposite, it turns out. Ground was broken last week for a long-sought new building. That moment has benefited greatly from a sizeable volunteer group considered friends in both deed and name. Since its inception in the late 1980s, the Friends of the Library has actively participated in a wide range of key fundraising activities while its members made significant donations in support o...
Thank yous were in abundance last Wednesday afternoon at the Sept. 29 groundbreaking ceremony for the new La Conner Swinomish Library that will be built on the southwest corner of Morris and Sixth streets. And while there was not an orange and black striped Tiger Construction shovel for everyone, Library Director Jared Fair offered everyone the opportunity to pick one up, so all could be a part of the historic moment. As emcee, and library director since spring 2020, Fair told the almost 100...
The future is being built for residents of greater La Conner with the start of construction of a “zero to 100” new La Conner-Swinomish Regional Library designed to meet the needs of newborns’ mothers and their great grandmothers, says its project manager. The demolition Sept. 22 of the Friends of the Library Thrift shop marked the start of significant changes coming to the southwest corner of Morris and Sixth streets in La Conner. After over a year’s delay due to the coronavirus pandemi...
It isn’t just a new library being built at the old Pederson Automotive site on Morris Street. An understanding that the local area is one community – a single, multi-cultural community – is being built there as well, La Conner Library Foundation Director Susan Macek said last week. The much-anticipated start of construction of the La Conner-Swinomish Regional Library underscores the value of working together on a project that will serve and benefit the many diverse groups within the library district here, Macek said. And s...
The groundbreaking ceremony celebrating the start of construction of the new La Conner Swinomish Library is 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept.29. The community is invited. The site will be blessed by the Swinomish Tribe and town, county and state representatives have been invited to take part....
For those who read books, you know that a good book can help immensely, to make you smile, laugh, wonder, learn, improve your mood, challenge you and, yes, make you cry. Books can be the elixir to lighten a load and soothe the soul. Books help us see how big and wonderful and complex our world and universe is and how people – you – are both the same and different from other individuals, how small and insignificant humans are and how significant each of us is. Books are the key to tomorrow, however well or ill our actions may be base...
Construction Update The La Conner Library is excited to announce Tiger Construction is mobilizing to the site of the new La Conner Swinomish Library and demolition of the Thrift Shop is expected this week. This is an exciting step forward in a series of highly visible progress on the new library. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept.29. The community is invited to this long anticipated event. The site will be blessed by the Swinomish Tribe and county and state representatives have been invited to take part. Summer R...
The La Conner Library is excited to announce Tiger Construction will be mobilizing to the site of the new La Conner Swinomish Library on Morris and Sixth streets beginning Sept. 20. Demolition of the Thrift Shop is expected sometime next week. A groundbreaking ceremony is being planned for the week of the 27th. A date and time for the groundbreaking ceremony will be announced next week. The public is invited to attend. Source: La Conner Regional Library...
Decisions, decisions. Perhaps none of late have been so scrutinized as whether to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In some cases, as for the state’s health care workers and emergency responders, it is less a choice than a mandate in the attempt to curb spread of the deadly virus, which has claimed nearly 630,000 American lives in a year and a half, 300 times more than the number of U.S. military members lost in two decades fighting in Afghanistan. This month has brought two major developments on the vaccine front. On Aug. 9, Gov. Jay Inslee p...
The last item on the Aug. 10 La Conner Town Council agenda was a resolution for the Town to approve deferring a payment of $48,000 from the new library to the town for seven years, a fee for the building lacking 10 parking spaces required by code. Councilmember Bill Stokes immediately called to table the item, saying he needed more budget information. Planner Michael Davolio stood and explained the library could not get its permit to build without resolving the payment. Library representatives had met with the staff and Davolio had written...
As a Fulbright Scholar, La Conner alum Ryan Booth visited, toured and studied on the Indian subcontinent. Now the Washington State University Ph.D. candidate is doing the same across the United States, his summer travels including a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, a July 4 fireworks show in St. Louis and presenting a July 14 program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I had three major purposes for the t...
Yes, there will be a La Conner parade and fireworks show July 4th. With Gov. Jay Inslee reopening Washington statewide June 30, Town Administrator Scott Thomas notified his staff Monday of those plans. La Conner Hook & Ladder is ready to “support and help anyway we can,” Chief Aaron Reinstra wrote in an email. That may be a commitment that their 1941 white firetruck will lead the parade. There will not be a concert or community picnic until next year, however. Maple Hall and the Civic Garden Club can be scheduled, as others already have. Sen...
Construction Update This past week was exciting for us at the library. After many delays due to the pandemic, we were able to finally secure our final permits and put our project out for the bidding process. This move forward comes after years of behind the scenes work from library staff, architects and project management team. We have been working hard to make this new library a reality as soon as possible. Bid responses are being collected through May 27. For interested contractors, there will be a mandatory pre-bid zoom meeting next...
The La Conner community – actually a subset of parents, staff and residents of the school district – spent most of Saturday listening to and questioning candidates for the district’s superintendent position. Some folks returned Monday and Tuesday to provide input to the La Conner School District Board of Directors before a new superintendent was chosen today. Last Wednesday evening another portion of the community, again parents and residents, met with Town elected officials and staff over Zoom to discuss the purpose and shape of th...
Town Councilmembers learned that February’s sales tax receipts of $48,036 were a near record high for the month when they reviewed their March meeting packets. This follows January’s $52,155, which was a record and 56% over the 2020 report. Finance Director Maria DeeDee’s assessment, “so far this year they are coming in pretty good,” is an understatement. The two month total is 31% of the year’s projected $328,202 sales tax receipts, as listed in the council packet. The $101,190 is at least 20% higher than the same two month period any of the...
The Swinomish Tax Authority reduced the levy rate for 2021 to $11.98 per thousand from $12.35 per thousand. The assessed value of homes in Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned remained roughly the same, so most taxpayers will see a 3% decrease in taxes. The Swinomish government plans to collect $2,142,674 in taxes from Shelter Bay, Pull & Be Damned, Thousand Trails and Dunlap Towing. It will contribute $1,077,702 to three taxing districts. These are: Fire District 13 at $200,000, La Conner Library at $27,702, plus $250,000 to a sinking fund for...
Library Thrift Shop Building on Sale for $1 We are excited to be moving forward in preparing the site for the new La Conner Swinomish Library. The pandemic has dramatically slowed the permit process for new construction. However, we are in the final stage of obtaining permits from the County, and expect to go out to bid in March. The building that formerly housed the La Conner Library Thrift Shop is being offered for sale for $1. The sale would require the buyer remove the 1,344 square foot building by April 1st from its current location at...
The Swinomish Tribal Senate is pleased to announce its approval of the Tribe’s 2021 voluntary contributions to the La Conner Regional Library, Fire District 13 and La Conner School District. The contributions will be paid from Trust Improvement Use and Occupancy taxes, which the Tribe collects from individual Tribal landowners and owners of homes built on leased Swinomish trust lands. Recognizing the economic challenges faced by some taxpayers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tribe is also pleased to announce reduction of the 2021 tax rate to $...
Interim superintendent Rich Stewart has been a virtual presence around greater La Conner in recent days. Stewart, who assumed the district helm last July, has given a series of Zoom presentations to the Town Council, Swinomish Tribal Senate and local service organizations and residents, outlining the upcoming La Conner Schools replacement levy proposal. The Feb. 9 ballot measure seeks to collect $1.45 per $1,000 assessed taxable property value, a five-cent decrease from the rate district voters approved in 2019, Stewart explained to Council...
Beginning in 2015 county taxes in the La Conner area increased by an average of $300.00 per tax parcel. This was caused by a tax shift generated by the Great Wolf decision. Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned, part of levy code 1580, were exempted from the tax rolls and their taxes were shifted to other levy codes in the La Conner School District. This was done by the County Assessor, without a vote of the people. The court gave taxing authority over Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned to the Swinomish Tribal Community. In 2020 the Tribe levied $2,12...
Skagit County voters are on their way to record breaking participation in the 2020 presidential election. With one week to go, the County’s election office had ballots for almost 53% of its registered voters, reported Laura Han, the County’s public information officer. On Oct. 27 elections staff had “signatured checked 29,700 ballots” and had collected approximately 15,000 additional ballots. The elections office staff estimate turnout may be as high as 90% of the 85,159 registered voters....
Monday, October 12 1:49 p.m.: Bad owner – Bicycle rider was chased and bit by a loose dog. Best Rd., Greater La Conner. 4:45 p.m.: Made noise and ran – Report of a male and female lighting fireworks in the park. Deputies checked the park, but were unable to locate them. S. 4th St., La Conner. Tuesday, October 13 6:36 a.m.: Pregnancy pressures – Deputies responded to a motor vehicle accident where the pregnant driver said she passed out and drove off the roadway. No injuries. Best Rd., Greater La Conner. 4:34 p.m.: Give me...
