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Skagit County Community Emergency Response Team Training begins in January. How prepared are you for a major earthquake or a fire such as the one that ravaged Ventura, Sonoma and Napa Counties this year, with only minutes for many to escape their homes? Emergency response training classes will be held on six Tuesdays and one Saturday beginning Jan. 9 at Shelter Bay Clubhouse, 1000 Shoshone Drive, La Conner. Classes will cover disaster preparedness, fire suppression, disaster psychology, medical operations, terrorism and light search and...
Fires are raging in California, again. Sunday, National Public Radio staff reported from Houston, examining the massive work still to be done after Hurricane Harvey. Reports here are for potential future earthquakes. This is the new normal: an active, unsettled planet prone to disruption and destruction of human and natural environments, indiscriminately. But, of course, humans are a part of nature. There’s always the potential for thinking things through and planning and commitment to action, results. In La Conner the opportunity for a C...
In an hour-long meeting with the Weekly News Nov. 26, Ward Phillips shared his assessment of his new hometown and his vision for La Conner. Phillips, 77, “retired” to Shelter Bay 20 months ago. The life-long Washingtonian has property on San Juan Island and a 21-foot boat here. His Skagit Valley roots go back generations. Relatives include a County judge with a farm abutting the Skagit River and construction workers on the Diablo Dam powerhouse. Phillips was looking for a more relaxed experience than his Bainbridge Island home. He “remembered t...
Perhaps Morris Street is this town’s Rodney Dangerfield, not able to get respect. Is First Street the blond muscle boy, kicking sand in scrawny Morris’s face? Morris, the street with the long term empty storefronts, is getting attention from Shelter Bay resident and entrepreneur Ward Phillips. He has bought, and spruced up, the 503 building, long inhabited by Krista Sunday. Phillips wants sculptures and trees and corner park landscapes the length of the street. He wants an arch –think Ana...
Theodore Roosevelt had only recently yielded the White House to longtime friend William Howard Taft and was already in the midst of a celebrated African safari. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition opened in Seattle. Famed neurologist Sigmund Freud delivered his only United States lectures on psychoanalysis. A new Navy base was established at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. The year was 1909. It was also the year Shelter Bay resident Frances Kent was born. The timing couldn’t have been b...
I appreciated your article on Fire District 13’s 2018 budget. However, I was left wondering what happened to the rest of the article. You covered the cash inflows. What about the service outflows? What percentage of Fire District 13’s calls are sent to non-county-taxed tribal lands, such as Shelter Bay and the casino. I’ll give you a hint – it is the vast majority. Updated numbers would be helpful and relevant. Is a $250,000 ‘request’ a fair and responsible amount to cover the Swinomish Tribal Community’s majority use of the fire distri...
Support the La Conner United Methodist Church’s campaign to install an elevator-lift by attending their benefit concert and silent auction this Saturday, Nov. 4. Susan Pierson, the concert’s director and member of the Shelter Bay Chorus, emphasizes “the sixteen members of the Chorus are representing the full Chorus, and have volunteered their support to fund the elevator-lift in the church where the Shelter Bay Chorus often holds their practices. The same community spirit and generosity, as well as musical excellence, has been offered by the U...
If only the candidates vote in this year’s town council election, they will win. Running unopposed are incumbents John Leaver, Council Position 2, Bill Stokes, Council Position 3 and Mary Lee Chamberlain, Council Position 4. Once the La Conner School District directors vote, they, too, win. Running without opposition are Brad Smith, Director District 3, Lynette Cram, Director District 4 and John Thulen, Director District 5. The same is true for Fire District 12 and 13 commissioner positions. Doug Peterson is running unopposed for C...
Wow! What great coverage of the Swinomish Pow Wow last week. Nearly the entire front page. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t have had just a fraction of that coverage pre-event the week before. Perhaps a public invitation from the Tribe describing the event could have been made. More of us might have attended had we known what was going on. It’s particularly unfortunate that the Tribe did not extend a personal invitation to the Shelter Bay Community (Maybe via the monthly newsletter?). We are, after all, their reservation neighbors and Lea...
La Conner needs to replace its water mains in 2019, but town officials need a decision from Shelter Bay’s board of directors for whether the Association will use La Conner water service. And the Town needs to know soon, in August, commissioners at the July 11 council meeting said. Currently Shelter Bay residents are 40 percent of La Conner’s water customers. The pipes are aging. Breaks in the line occur, but how big the next water line the town constructs, and whether it needs to cross Rainbow Bridge, depends on a decision from Shelter Bay...
As with an Olympic marathon, the Skagit Valley Family YMCA fundraising drive is looking for a strong finishing kick as it nears the finish line. The latest strides in a campaign to build a modern YMCA facility near the Skagit Valley College campus were taken in La Conner last week. Campaign Director Renata Maybruck was here Wednesday, poised to start the final---and perhaps most crucial leg---of a race to line up donations toward construction of a new two-story multi-million dollar family...
Oh rats! Kevin Peterson, who has been a licensed pest control technician 30 years and is the general manager of Cascade Pest Control, says La Conner is especially prone to the critters. In the last 20 years, rat populations have spread themselves from the waterfront, out across the town and even across the channel into neighborhoods like Shelter Bay, Peterson said. Skagit County has also seen a recent case of Hantavirus, from which the resident has since recovered. Hantavirus is carried by rodent feces and urine, which can be accidently...
A federal judge has ruled that it is legal for public agencies to collect taxes from non-Indians who lease tribal land. For three years, this newspaper has been following a lawsuit in the U.S. Central District Court of California brought by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians against Riverside County. That case closed last week when U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee ruled in favor of the county and a local water agency that joined the suit as a defendant. “The county is pleased that the court carefully balanced the issues and determined t...
Cake for breakfast, and recognition for three people, made Fire District 13’s regularly scheduled morning meeting a special day. Firefighter Tony Curran was named one of four people to receive EMS Provider of the Year from Skagit County Emergency Services on Thursday. According to a press release from Fire District 13, during the last year Curran has responded to 411 emergency calls, assisted transporting 116 people to hospitals and assisted paramedics in four successful CPRs. “I try my hardest...
After 12 years working alongside teachers who educate La Conner’s youngest students, it’s time for dedicated school volunteer Don Monroe to hang up his hat and “retire” as he moves onto the next stage of his life. Four days a week, four or more hours each day, “Mr. Monroe” has been a dependable presence at La Conner Elementary school. Students know they can count on Monroe to calmly and gently guide them through any academic troubles they’re struggling with as he works with them one-on-one in th...
The La Conner Weekly News published two articles on the CAPR Elaine Willman Workshop in Sedro-Wolley Saturday, May 20. The first was fairly balanced. The other, on page 6…appeared to be a continuation but was an article on “activists” by another reporter. The activists in the article were those in disagreement with the “activists” inside. From what they say, it is clear that they don’t have an understanding of the position of those attending the workshop. The Weekly should give equal column space to a fuller explanation of why those fol...
Controversial author and orator Elaine Willman held a workshop at Tequila Azteca Restaurant in Sedro-Woolley on Saturday, drawing about 80 people, mostly senior citizens, and a throng of protesters Willman, whose mother was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, led a four-hour discussion on how she feels the political power and wealth of Native American tribes has grown to a point that is infringing on the rights of non-tribal members. The workshop was sponsored by the Skagit County...
In 1968, Allen Osberg, a Seattle construction company owner, negotiated a 75-year master lease with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to benefit the Swinomish tribe and tribal members. Osberg’s Shelter Bay Company marketed sub-leases for the developed lots, installed utilities and built community facilities and the marina. The master lease and individuals’ sub-leases will expire in 2044. At the end of the leases any improvements that are not removed will become the property of the BIA to manage on behalf of the tribe and tribal members. The She...
This year the Swinomish Tribe is contributing $150,000 to Fire District 13. That is $100,000 for fire and EMS/ambulance service to the Village, and $50,000 for providing the same service to Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned. Prior to the Great Wolf decision, the $100,000 for servicing the Village came from the Tribe’s general fund under a separate contract. For the past three years it has come from taxes collected from Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned. The Native Americans living in the Village do not pay taxes, so the taxpayers are funding fire...
Shelter Bay Community leaders gathered a panel of experts to give residents the lowdown on the “best and final” lease proposal from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. In short, the tribe’s proposal which would include substantial rent increases, could make homeownership in Shelter Bay unaffordable, the experts indicated. Shelter Bay consists of 870 residential lots developed on land that is held in trust by the United States for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and some individual tribal members. Back in 1968, the developer signe...
Did you look at your property tax statements, and notice your county road tax, etc. increased? They did – minimally, because 931 Shelter Bay parcels were removed from the county property tax rolls, as the non-payors “revenue” was “shifted” to the payors! Most people believe the removal of tax parcels from county tax rolls reduces the amount of taxes collected by the various governments involved: Not so, each taxing bodies submits annual budgets to the county, and the county collects that revenue from remaining payors to fund the service...
The Safety Committee has recommended a 20 mile per hour speed limit on all community streets except for Shelter Bay Drive. I feel this is an unnecessary change that will incur added community expenses for purchase and installation of new speed limit signs throughout Shelter Bay, as well as unreasonable decreased speed limits on many of our streets. Admittedly, there are occasional speed violators in our community, but they are rare, and, quite honestly, they will speed regardless of the signage. In my seven years living in Shelter Bay, I have...
The Shelter Bay Community has scheduled three meetings on Saturday for residents to hear information from consultants regarding the tribe’s “best and final” proposal for a new Master Lease. Nearly two years ago the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community presented its proposal to replace the present lease, which expires in 2044, with a new 75-year contract. Shelter Bay consists of about 800 homes built on land originally leased from the tribe and individual tribal families in 1968. With leases set to expire in about 27 years, it is impossible for h...
In the February 15th edition, I wrote a letter about Swinomish taxation of Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned in which I estimated the tax at $2,304,266. I apologize. The actual tax levied for 2017 by the Swinomish is $1,840,574. I confused the taxes levied for levy code 1580 with those levied by the Swinomish. The levy rate calculated by the Skagit County Assessor for schools is $5.0471 per thousand. That produces $749,619. The Swinomish contribution is $400,000 plus half the cost of a school bus, $70,271. That leaves a shortfall of $279,348. To...
The Summit Park Grange in Anacortes was the place to be last Wednesday night for people with a stake in the land disputes that have put the Swinomish tribe at odds with some property owners and leaders from the Samish tribe, City of Anacortes and Skagit County. A panel of seven representing the city, county and Samish sat onstage, facing a room so crowded that people without seats leaned against the walls and spilled out the back door. Organizers counted 220 attendees. Landowners are worried the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community could assert...
