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Hours before snow hit outside, the La Conner Planning Commissioners plowed through a busy agenda during their 80-minute Jan. 16 hybrid meeting at Maple Hall. The pile of issues addressed were housing and parking issues, the status of the Talmon Project at 306 Center Street, population projections for the town and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s plans to convert its Maple Avenue apartment complex to a staffed home recovery facility. The tribe has designed a program for persons and families who have completed treatment at the Didgwalic W...
Mayor Marna Hanneman called a special meeting of the La Conner Town Council for Friday, Jan. 26 at 1p.m. held through Microsoft Teams. The meeting purpose is: discussion of the 2021 and 2022 state audit conducted by the Office of the Washington state Auditor. Contact Town Hall by 9 a.m. Friday for the link or for phone access: 360-466-3125...
A new year, a new mayor. It's been a long while – going back to January 2008 – since that sentence has applied to the Town of La Conner. Now it does. Former planning commissioner Marna Hanneman, who has spent the past six months prepping to succeed retiring four-term mayor Ramon Hayes, transitioned into her new role at a Jan. 9 hybrid town council meeting at Maple Hall that ended with a half-hour executive session. Council members Annie Taylor and Mary Wohleb also took ceremonial oaths of office...
Town of La Conner residents have two weeks to offer their two cents – or perhaps exceedingly more valuable recommendations – as possible amendments to the town’s comprehensive plan – and the development code, too. Submittals made through Jan. 31 are free. More important is the schedule, for proposals through January are considered this year, in the 2024 cycle by the staff, planning commission and council. Stay awake. This is important for the future of anyone planning to stay or move into La Conner. The Washington state Legislature mandate...
For the past nine years I have complained in writing about the way the City of Anacortes reconciles the amount of money its wholesale (regional) customers owe for water. Last month, Anacortes billed the Town of La Conner $444 for 2021 and $5,540 for 2022. The truth is that the City of Anacortes owes the Town of La Conner a total of $49,631.52 for both years. Counting O&M alone and considering both years, the city made a profit of $8,173,301 on water. The accountant charged “Taxes and Assessments” to both Regional Expenses (RCC) and Admin Ove...
New Town of La Conner Mayor Marna Hanneman chaired her first town council meeting yesterday, Jan. 9. The council packet she received the week before included a memo from Town Administrator Scott Thomas. Its first point summarized for council the town’s need to plan for 124 housing units by 2045, required by the state’s Growth Management Act. Thomas writes “Of these units, 92 are expected to be occupied by low to moderate income families.” Looking at the data, 82 units, 66%, are to be priced for people making less than 80% of the area median...
How does one thank a person who has unstintingly given 16 years of his life to our community? Ramon Hayes has been La Conner’s mayor twenty four hours a day for every one of those years. Many of us have had the pleasure of chatting with him on his daily walks, often accompanied by his smiling, gregarious wife. A useful way of taking the pulse of the town person to person, he seemed to genuinely enjoy his walks. But the mayor’s day was often much more than glad-handing. He chaired 16 years of town council meetings, some being quite con...
December was frosty and frozen 4-Jan La Conner Community combats wave of saltwater flooding 4-Jan Flood damage cost estimate $1.8 million 11-Jan Council creates emergency management commission 1-Feb Center Street condos a go 15-Feb Marna Hanneman will be next La Conner Mayor 24-May Festival celebrates author Tom Robbins 6-Sep Earthquake rattles La Conner Sunday 11-Oct 29 newspaper contest awards for Weekly News 11-Oct Blessing the La Conner Swinomish Library 18-Oct Town's short-term rentals...
Cynthia Elliott isn't the retiring type. The proof is in her willingness – eagerness, actually – to become a La Conner Planning Commissioner, a role not for the faint of heart, just 13 months after wrapping up a 35-year career. Mayor Ramon Hayes announced his choice of Elliot during the Dec. 12 town council meeting to fill the seat vacated by Marna Hanneman, who becomes mayor Jan. 1. Hayes stressed that three "very qualified candidates" had applied and that he and Hanneman reviewed applications....
No building permit has yet been issued, but excavation began at the 306 Center Street condominium project site last week to find the water table on the property so that paperwork could be completed for removal of contaminated soil. Following that initial dig, a soil removal plan was drafted and submitted, according to Town of La Conner Assistant Planner Ajah Eills. Public Work Director Brian Lease approved the plan and soil removal commenced, Eills said. That work was completed and by early Friday afternoon all equipment had left the site. The...
Four-term La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes chaired his final town council meeting Dec. 12, but it was a business-as-usual session with no celebration or reception. Hayes wouldn’t have had it any other way. “It’s just not my personality,” he told the Weekly News afterward on his reluctance to see the meeting morph into a retirement party. “Once something is done, it’s over,” he explained. “And we had a very long, grueling agenda to work through.” There was, however, mention during the meeting – which included a 20-minute executive session o...
The atmosphere was electric at the Dec. 11 La Conner School board meeting. Campus solarization options lit up the room. La Conner Town Council member MaryLee Chamberlain and resident Bob Raymond, of the Skagit Valley Clean Energy Cooperative, provided an update on local solar grant projects, including a feasibility study and analysis of energy consumption at the school district. They made a pitch, eliciting a positive board reception, for the school district to convert to electric buses. The two presented data that showed cost savings and envir...
The 2023 Town of La Conner budget has met its $5.8 million revenue goal with December not yet counted. Even better, expenditures, now at $4.55 million, are likely to finish below 67% of projections. The budget surplus is $1.23 million and may still grow. Of the 12 program funds generating revenue, only the sewer fund, at 85% is below 100% of budget projections with one month still to come. The $3.58 million generated this year from the water, drainage, sewer and compost funds is the real engine of town income, bringing in 62% of total revenue....
Look around: We live on the edge of the continent, less than 35 miles due east of Victoria Harbor in one of the most idyllic communities on the west coast. Positioned as a safe passage for marine travel and tied to the to the salt waters of the Salish Sea, La Conner is the true gateway to the San Juan Islands. We are blessed with tremendous soil that produces some of the highest yielding crops per acre in the world. We are a regional, national and international tourist destination and have found success in this space, in part, because we offer...
Seeing might be believing, but it’s collecting data that’s confirming. That’s the approach longtime resident and former planning commissioner Linda Talman is recommending officials take regarding remedies to La Conner’s downtown parking. A week after Town officials heard a presentation on mobile paid parking systems, Talman suggested to the planning commissioners that more information should be gathered before committing to a new First Street parking scheme. “We don’t have the data that we need,” Talman said at the planning commission’s...
There was a time when La Conner’s parking problem was inverted to its present situation. When downtown Mount Vernon was lined with clunky parking meters, La Conner had little need for either a paid or timed parking system on First Street. Many storefronts here were boarded up – some year-round– before La Conner morphed into its present state as a popular destination. Change has been the defining feature over the course of 50 years. Now, with seemingly every parking space in the town’s business district contested during peak tourist season,...
La Conner's favorite tourist had a unique solution for the town's vexing parking problem during his visit here last Saturday. World renowned toymaker Santa Claus parked his large sleigh and reindeer atop Maple Hall, managing to avoid damage to the building's solar panels, while greeting local children downstairs and recording their carefully crafted Christmas wish lists. The jolly white-whiskered global goodwill ambassador was the featured guest at the La Conner Rotary Club's annual Pancake...
Another holiday season has come to greater La Conner. Santa jump started December, showing up at the La Conner Swinomish Library to read stories to children last Wednesday. He returned twice Saturday, first fortifying himself with pancakes at the annual La Conner Rotary Club breakfast before taking kids on his lap there and again that evening when he one-two-three POOF lit the town tree in Gilkey Square. Shops are decorated for Christmas. Staff and customers alike are wearing holiday colored and themed sweaters. Saturday will be the most...
First Street parking issues were discussed in detail at the Nov. 28 Town Council meeting. But perhaps lost amid a one-hour presentation on potential future paid parking options for the downtown business district was a brief plea by Councilmember MaryLee Chamberlain to revisit the concept of one-way traffic on increasingly congested First Street. Chamberlain suggested that dealing with downtown traffic flow should be addressed “before we venture into parking.” “We need to have this discussion. We can look at all the pros and cons,” Chamber...
Location, location, location. It’s not just the familiar real estate mantra. It’s also a key element as La Conner’s Emergency Management Commission crafts long-term disaster preparation strategies. The six-member advisory panel discussed best methods to publicize the locations and primary functions of La Conner’s network of emergency shelters at its Nov. 28 hybrid meeting. A map listing La Conner’s various shelter locations, suggested by Councilmember Rick Dole, drew the greatest support. Dole, council liaison to the commission, offered h...
The 2024 annual budget the La Conner Town Council will pass at its Dec. 12 meeting will be the largest in its history. It projects revenues of $7.4 million, expenditures of $8.6 million and the fund balance growing to $5.9 million. The graph, above, shows continued growth in revenues council's continuing to commit more resources each year. The bars represent approved funding, except for the fund balance, which is an end of the year total. A graph tracking actual year ending revenues will show...
Grace Hubbard's 100th birthday celebrated last week in the Weekly News reminded me of the sister cities project we worked on together in the early 1980s. Grace has an excellent memory, which helped to jog mine. So I'm adding to her story. I had returned from Peace Corps in the Fiji Islands a decade previously and birthed my first baby. Ronald Reagan was president, which worried some of us as to the saber rattling with the Soviets. I went to a Peace Corps reunion that was electric with creative...
The La Conner Town Council has paved the way for smoother rides around town. The panel during one of several public hearings at its Nov. 14 hybrid meeting at Maple Hall unanimously approved formation of a transportation benefit district to generate revenue for maintenance of streets, sidewalks and crosswalks. The council, by state law, serves as commissioners of the district, which operates as a separate entity. The next move, said Town Administrator Scott Thomas, is to decide how the revenue will be raised. A one-tenth of one per cent...
La Conner's new flood barriers are staged and in place up and down the waterfront. But the work of the Town's six-member Emergency Management Commission has only just begun. The Nov. 11 power outage here that impacted residents, businesses and those attending the annual Art's Alive celebration underscored in real time that the mission of the local advisory board is to focus on all forms of emergencies. "The commission met an immediate need by addressing flood mitigation," said Rick Dole, town...
The $7.4 million in revenues in the Town of La Conner’s 2024 preliminary budget will be the largest ever and is matched against projected expenditures of $8.6 million. The $1.2 million deficit will be covered by the $5.9 million fund balance. The year’s theme is “plan, prioritize and perform” Mayor Ramon Hayes states in his budget cover letter. Staff are prioritized with all receiving a 4.3% cost of living increase, except the unionized public works employees. Their contract is in negotiations. The code enforcement budget is $73,604. a 20.9% i...
