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The La Conner Weekly News recently profiled the two candidates competing for the La Conner School District’s Director District 2 position on the Nov. 5 election ballot. Marlys Baker and Janine Beasley are both members of the Swinomish Tribe and presumably reside on reservation trust land that by law is exempt from property taxes. Among the many responsibilities of a school board member is establishing and approving special levy taxes voted on by school district residents and paid by district property owners. Regardless of which candidate is ele...
Social media chatter about the look of the town’s roundabout led to a Saturday work shift at Tulip Town. Writes Debbie Galbraith: To clarify the back story, the discussion about the condition of the roundabout was actually started on social media. When Town Manager Scott Thomas replied to the comments, stating that it takes resources to maintain everything in town, Shelter Bay resident Annie Skinnell responded that she would be happy to organize a work party to make the round-about “a point of...
Elaborate costumes will conceal the identities of those celebrating Halloween here next Thursday. But there’s no hiding the fact there will be plenty of fun for those partaking of the local holiday festivities. Oct. 31 looks to be a boo-tiful time for kids and adults alike, both in La Conner and on Swinomish Reservation. Festivities kick off at 3:15 p.m. with the parade and always popular downtown trick-or-treating. First Street transforms from a tourist mecca into a gateway for Halloween e...
Last October Boater’s Discount in La Conner, the only marine products store in town, lost its lease with the Port of Skagit last fall. The Port has been mum as to why the lease was cancelled, but the result was that after a fire sale of marine products last winter, Boater’s Discount closed its doors at the end of February 2019. La Conner prides itself as a boating community. Between Port of Skagit moorage facilities in La Conner and the Shelter Bay Marina, hundreds of pleasure and commercial craft are home-ported in La Conner. Boaters need mar...
This corrects and updates the Sept. 25 editorial: “School board candidates.” All people living in the La Conner school district are invited to attend tonight’s candidates forum featuring District 1 candidates John Agen and Kate Szurek and District 2 candidates Marlys Baker and Janie Beasley. All school district residents will be voting for the four director positions on the ballot. District 4 Director Lynette Cram and District 5 Director Susan Deyo are unopposed. The Sept. 25 Weekly News editorial stating that tonight’s forum was for residen...
Today’s front page headline urging ALL La Conner School District residents to attend tonight’s District 1 and 2 director candidates forum uses all caps to get your attention. That is a poor fix for the error made here last week, when the editorial wrongly focused on urging Fidalgo Island voters in Districts 1 and 2 to attend the forum. Wrong: In Washington all voters in a school district vote for all directors. That is an at large voting system placed on top of geographical representation by distributing directors throughout the district. I m...
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...
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...
Last week offered abundant opportunities to muse about the weather. We had a thunderstorm Saturday night. A thunderstorm. A real rain. Lightening lit the sky. At 10 p.m. the thunder was distant from La Conner, but it came steadily close, out of the west. Fifteen minutes later the rumble had moved closer, centered over eastern Fidalgo island. It woke people up in Shelter Bay. The report from Seattle was of over 1,250 lightning strikes during the night. That probably included our local light show. Saturday offered a storm for the senses:...
This letter is in response to Nancy Burlison’s “A letter I should not need to write” that appeared in the August 28 issue. First of all, our democracy depends on a free press that adheres to honest, in-depth reporting, fact-checking and the goal of presenting both sides of an issue. There are many hard working journalists and news agencies doing just that. I recently read that Trump is disappointed in Fox News for interviewing a Democrat on one of its shows. With his war on the media, Trump appears to be promoting state run news agencies that...
Community support and awareness has allowed the Diaper Bank of Skagit County (DBSC) to distribute a quarter million diapers to low income families since 2017. The cost has been minimal; less than 10 cents per diaper. This compares to 28 cents at COSTCO and over 40 cents for financially strapped families that purchase small packages. The founder, my wife, Calista Scott is a retired maternity nurse who saw the desperation in mothers while volunteering at the Sunrise food Bank and wanted to help. In 2016 she attended the National Diaper Bank...
My country is under attack. I cannot remain silent any longer. The words and actions of some of my fellow Americans are viciously tearing at the fabric of this Republic. Every day I hear, see, and read about the hatred, unfounded accusations, venomous attitudes, unfounded blame and distortions from citizens, including even some from Congress. President Trump is NOT a racist. There has been nothing he has said or done that even mildly suggests he is. But the propaganda machines (once known as news outlets) know how to frenzy up the populace...
Whit was born in Seattle on November 6, 1930, to Willard Milton Hansen and Marjorie Whitney Hansen; he passed away at his home in La Conner on August 2, 2019, surrounded by his loving family. Whit grew up on Hunts Point in Bellevue, WA, where he learned to love everything about being on the water; boating, camping, swimming, water skiing, and fishing. He graduated from Bellevue High School in 1948, where he excelled academically and in sports. He accepted an appointment to the United States...
Betty J. Foster passed away on Friday, August 9, 2019 at Skagit Valley Hospital at the age of 74. Betty was born on March 5, 1945 to William and Bertha (Jolley) Gwynn in Tacoma. On May 24, 1969, Betty married James “Jim” Henry Foster in Bremerton, WA. After graduating from the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, she worked at Waldo Hospital in Seattle where she became head pharmacist. She then went to work at Bracken’s Pharmacy, also in Seattle. She and Jim purchased the pharmacy in 1982 and sold it in 1994. They moved to Shelt...
For Toby Walls, losing weight was a moving experience. A dozen years ago, at age 33, he re-connected with a former passion – distance running – and hasn’t looked back since. Or, more precisely, Walls hasn’t looked over his shoulder, having earned a slew of medals from various road races and running events on both coasts. Nor has he looked at his bathroom scale quite the same way. The trim, yet broad-shouldered 45-year-old weighs 60 pounds less than he did in 2006. Walls hasn’t done s...
I can’t buy in Channel Cove but WANT to. As a single senior of 77 years with limited income, and a home in Shelter Bay, I am selling because I can no longer maintain it physically or financially. I am one of many who falls through the cracks in society … Teaching art at Senior Centers and drawing Social Security puts me just above poverty line but not enough income for rentals or sales that are affordable. As a resident of La Conner for fourteen years, and a contributing citizen, teaching art, docent-ing and volunteering at MoNA, I would...
Danny Hagen stays in shape the old-fashioned way. The 6’-6”, 255-pound La Conner High assistant basketball coach is no stranger to the gym, but his workouts this time of year are done without benefit of the modern sports equipment found in health clubs and fitness centers. That’s by design. Hagen opts instead to break a sweat each spring and summer with heavy stones, large poles and hefty hay bales. In a way, he was born to exercise that way. Hagen reconnects with his Celtic heritage by compe...
La Conner bared its soul during Fourth of July festivities here on Thursday. Make that Souls. A string of Kia Souls, the hip boxy car designed for millennials, was among the highlights of a colorful, briskly-paced 15-minute downtown Independence Day Parade, which set in motion a full-day local celebration of America’s 243rd birthday. One of the Souls carried the company’s popular mascot – a hamster said to symbolize Kia’s goal of delivering motorists from the humdrum of life on an exerc...
Lillian Cushner Steinberg passed away peacefully on June 15, 2019, one week shy of her 92nd birthday. She was a well-known watercolor artist in La Conner, Washington, who exhibited her paintings at several local galleries, including Art in a Picklebarn at several annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festivals. She and her husband, Maynard Steinberg, lived in Shelter Bay, La Conner in their retirement. Some years after his death, Lillian moved to Portland Oregon to be near her youngest daughter, Emily Orth, her son-in-law Alan Orth, and grandson Benjamin...
The format remains the same, but La Conner’s honoring America’s birthday never gets old. The town will again be scene of a full slate of Fourth of July festivities, starting with a 12 p.m. patriotic parade down First Street followed by children’s and family events at Pioneer Park. Join in the traditional afternoon holiday fun including three-legged races, a hot dog feed and watermelon-eating contest. And at that point the party’s just getting started. A beer and wine garden and food vendors...
Forrest Eisen Jr. was born June 26, 1942 in Mount Vernon, Washington to Anita and Forrest Eisen Sr. He attended grade and high school in La Conner until his senior year. He joined the Army in 1961 and was medically discharged due to a shrapnel injury losing his left eye. He later moved to Oregon and worked in the logging industry. Later he moved to Bremerton. He attended an apprenticeship at the naval shipyard as an electrician. He worked 29+ years, then retired in 1989. Boating, fishing, camping, working in his yard kept him busy. He also...
Yet another chapter in the saga unfolded Saturday. More than $50,000 was added to the cause during the annual A Novel Affair luncheon and auction at Maple Hall keynoted by best-selling Seattle author Robert Dugoni. Support from the sold-out event, which filled the downtown venue to capacity, came on the heels of a recent $720,000 allocation by state lawmakers toward the $3.74 million project, designed to provide La Conner library users expanded floor space and services for all ages. For the...
On May 30, 2019, Barbara Vogland Stockwell of Shelter Bay completed all the chapters in her book of life. Born November 7, 1939 to Henry & Lillian Vogland in Portland, OR. Barbara married Jon Nelson in 1959 having two children, Julie (1963) & Robert (1965). Divorced in 1974 Barbara and her children traveled and moved several times before moving to La Conner in 1979. Through those years Barbara was a secretary, marketer for independent businesses, sold wood stoves, remodeled houses, realtor, took properties through the purchase, permit process...
An era ends at year’s end when Roy Horn retires as Skagit County Fire District 13’s fire chief. The District’s Commissioners accepted his resignation Thursday at the end of their monthly meeting. Horn has been chief for 17 years. He created the largest volunteer fire department in Skagit County, with a 2019 budget of $803,000. The District’s 2003 budget was $321,000. This is the third year in a row Horn has offered to retire. “It is time. It is time for new blood,” he told the Weekly News...
I would like to invite anyone with the energy and smarts to file for local offices in La Conner. I would do it, but I am too old. The County Auditor is taking applications until 4:30 p.m. Friday. There is a $36 filing fee. We have two council positions open, those of Jacques Brunisholz and Mary Wohleb. The mayor’s position is also open. Here are some issues that have been overlooked but need some attention. Maybe one of them interests you. Taxes. I believe that, when a county taxing district disappears, the taxes that it used to collect should...
