Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 576 - 600 of 735
Counting exemptions, the Swinomish Tribe will collect $1,926,535 in taxes from the 950 homeowners in Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned during 2018. The levy rate is 13.0988 per thousand, up from 12.3923 in 2017. The school levy went from $2,521,789 in 2017 to $2,754,295 in 2018. The schools should receive a contribution of $789,577 to pay their fair share for educating the kids in Shelter Bay and Pull & Be Damned. But, the schools are receiving only $570,000. The remaining $219,577 must be funded by the 2,470 taxpayers of the La Conner school di...
Homeowners in La Conner School District could be in for sticker shock when property tax bills come in the mail this month. Increased state school tax coupled with a local tax disparity created by unelected state bureaucrats and tribal lawyers four years ago will hit some people hard again. The school district, which includes the Swinomish Reservation, draws about two thirds of its students from tribal land that the district and state do not tax. The majority of registered voters in the district pay no school tax, but last February they helped...
Over 50 Shelter Bay Community residents attended a town hall meeting January 31 for a presentation on the Shelter Bay Water System. The Community is facing decisions for its future supplier. Since its 1968 inception, Shelter Bay has received water from the Town of La Conner. The Community and Town have an ongoing contractual agreement that is in perpetuity according to John Koch. John Koch, chairman of the facilities committee, offered 47 slides summarizing history, status, needs and estimated costs to update the system. The key issues for the...
Anacortes will be shutting down the water main that serves La Conner on Jan. 31, 9 a.m. thru Feb. 2, 1 p.m. During this time La Conner will provide water service supplied by the 1.5 MG (million gallons) water reservoir; 3 days should not be a concern. I will monitor the tank hourly. I have requested Shelter Bay’s intertie with the Swinomish be on standby. That said, I ask all La Conner water customers be “Water Wise” with business as usual during this time. Please contact me with any questions, [email protected] or 360-8...
Work progressed this week on laying two water line sections to replace a failed 60-year-old main along a 1.5 mile stretch of north La Conner-Whitney Road. Crews were working on the final 100 feet of replacement line Monday afternoon, said Town Public Works Director Brian Lease. The two four-inch sections will tie into an existing 14-inch main to serve 10 homes in the affected area. An aging eight-inch La Conner-Whitney Road line dating to the 1950s ruptured last week, making necessary the emergency fix. Once the twin line sections pass...
Editor: With the second annual women’s march behind just us, sentiments from last year’s march are as relevant today as ever. Here are my baker’s dozen of still-salient slogans seen at last year’s march: “All Lives Matter” “Together We Rise” “Standing on the Side of Love” “Make America Kind Again” “Bridges, Not Walls” “Lady Liberty is Watching” “Will Not Go Quietly” “We are the Future” “Justice is Colorblind” “I’m With Her, and Her, and Her, and Her” “We are All Immigrants” “We Will Not be Marginalized” And perhaps my favorite sign of all: ...
A love affair has ended with the passing of Donald Moore. He leaves behind his beloved Jane in Sandy, UT. Theirs was a storybook beginning: He, a pilot and officer with the RCAF – she, working for a congressman in Washington, D.C. They met and sparks flew and they were wed, never to be apart .... and after the glam and the parties in D. C., they, at some point, settled on the Northwest for a landing spot and picked a small community called Shelter Bay. When they arrived, they determined to work as they could to enrich all activities,...
Robert A. “Bob” Westlake, 93, of La Conner, WA passed away peacefully in his sleep on Wednesday, Jan. 03, 2018, at Home Place Memory Care in Burlington, WA. Bob was born on June 12, 1924 in Kansas City, MO, the son of J.A. Westlake and Maude R. Westlake. After high school graduation Bob enlisted in the Army Air Corp, flying as a Navigator/ Bombardier in B-25’s through-out the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Returning home from the war Bob earned his degree in Mechanical Engineer-ing from the University of Washington. In 1948 he married Patri...
Add one more to this year’s Birds of Winter list. The pink flamingo. Or, in the case of Todd and Katie Wigal of Shelter Bay, make that pink flamingos. The local couple awoke Sunday morning to find a flock of 100 pink flamingos gracing their front yard. Gracing might not be the right word. But, as with snow geese and trumpeter swans, they were certainly eye-catching. The mass migration of colorful plastic birds to Shelter Bay isn’t linked to global warming, habitat loss or any other sci...
Local Emergency First Responders may not be able to respond to your area for up to 72 hours after a disaster, such as fire, earthquake, or tsunami. Register now for CERT – Skagit County’s Community Emergency Response Team. Join your friends and neighbors at the Shelter Bay Club House Jan. 9 for six weeks of training. Classes will cover Fire, Safety, Organization, Medical and Search and Rescue Operations. Register by Email: [email protected] or call Rick Wallace at 360-202-3106. More information is at www.skagitcou...
Some 1,500 Puget Sound Energy customers lost power for over an hour Dec. 19 when a tree fell on a power line and took a pole down with it at Eagles Nest Drive in Shelter Bay. The outage started at 12:45 p.m. By 1:48 p.m., the power was back on for all but 22 customers, according to Janet Kim, PSE spokesperson. Their power was restored by 9 p.m....
GIFTS FOR KIDS, LUNCH INCLUDED – Continuing their annual tradition, some 75 women from Shelter Bay brought gifts for children – note tree in way back corner – and joined together for lunch at the Farmhouse Dec. 22. Kiwanis volunteers later distributed the presents. – Photo by Don Coyote...
Be prepared. It’s not just the Boy Scout motto. It’s also a timely approach to life, one that helps define those who train to be Community Emergency Response Team or CERT, members. Local CERT training starts Jan. 9 at Shelter Bay Clubhouse. The mission is one that has helped shape lives here and elsewhere – and not just those victimized by hurricanes, floods, fires and earthquakes. The trainees themselves have found CERT to be, if not life-saving, certainly life-changing. Regardless of age. Consider its impact in Mart, Texas, a town of 2,...
BEST BOAT PARADE EVER – Well over twenty boats, a flotilla from the Fidalgo, La Conner, Shelter Bay and Swinomish Yacht Clubs, participated in the latter’s annual troll down the channel. Is it possible that over 1,000 people attended the cold, starry night event? The boardwalk was jammed from Hellam’s Vineyards to Calico Cupboard. The hour-long bumper to bumper car crawl leaving town was not nearly as entertaining. Annually, a sign of the times. -- photo by Don Coyote...
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...
