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La Conner School officials say the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community has signed the agreement to provide $400,000 in funding to the schools. But it wasn’t exactly the same as the one the school board signed last month. The tribe added a clause similar to one the school board had previously taken out; the tribe wants the school district to recognize its right to levy property taxes on homes built on leased land. Meanwhile, the school district is angling for more open communication between the board and Tribal Senate. On Monday the school distric...
La Conner property owners packed Maple Hall Thursday to hear their local representatives give them the dire news: There is no quick cure for the tax disparity that has hit La Conner harder than any other community in the state following the so-called Great Wolf Lodge decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Some 100 people missed the second half of the Seahawks game against the 49ers to hear what their school, county and town officials had to say during the meeting arranged by Mayor Ramon Hayes. For more than a year, the...
Our wonderful Dennis died on Sunday, October 18, at age 77 after his fourth courageous battle with cancer. He was described by his incredible Dr. Kotal as “larger than life.” Dennis never knew a stranger, loved to tell stories, was so very generous and always ready to help anyone. He truly loved life, his wife, family, friends, church and appreciated all that had been given him. Dennis was born in Yakima, on May 20, 1938 and attended Holy Rosary School. In 1956 Dennis moved to Seattle and went t...
The La Conner School Board on Monday signed a proposed agreement with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community outlining the details of the $400,000 funding contribution the tribe promised last December. For months, school and tribal officials have been negotiating the terms of the gift. School Board President Rick Thompson said he was hopeful this final deal, brokered between school and tribal attorneys, would be approved by the Swinomish Indian Senate, which is expected to consider it next month. Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby, in San Diego...
Shelter Bay resident Hilton “Hi” O. Kuenzi, died at age 85 on Friday, October 9, at Life Care Center in Mount Vernon. Hi was born January, 1, 1930 in Seattle, the son of Elsie and Oscar Kuenzi. He graduated from Ballard High School in 1947. He retired from US WEST after 42 years in the telecommunications industry. Hilton loved spending time outdoors and on the water, from taking his family boating in the San Juan and Canadian waters to his participation in forming the Shelter Bay Yacht Club. Hi was preceded in death by both his parents, Elsie a...
La Conner residents will soon receive notices from the Skagit County Assessor’s Office, outlining the change in assessed value of their property. “We’ve certified the roll and expect the notices will be mailed Friday,” Assessor Dave Thomas said Tuesday. The new values have already been posted on the county’s website. A quick check of the website shows that some properties in La Conner that were not re-assessed last year have new values about 14 percent higher, and some homes that had big increases in their assessed value last year will go u...
Taxpayers at Monday’s La Conner School Board meeting took the trustees to task over the local tax disparity. After the so-called Great Wolf decision, the land that generates about two-thirds of the school enrollment in La Conner was taken off the property tax rolls this year. That left the remaining taxpayers shouldering the entire school levy burden — which is the biggest chunk of the local tax bills. The issue came up during a question-and-answer session after La Conner Schools Superintendent Tim Bruce gave his report to the board, w...
With taxpayers on the east side of Swinomish Channel already circulating petitions seeking to break away from Fire District 13 to join Fire District 2, Skagit County officials had to hit the books to figure out what the process entails. Residents detaching from a tax supported district in Skagit County hasn’t been done in so long nobody can remember it happening before. And according to one state lawmaker, doing so could take an act of the Legislature to make it possible. Skagit County Elections Supervisor David Cunningham had to do special r...
Frustrated taxpayers on the east side of the Swinomish Channel threaten to break away from Fire District 13 to join Fire District 2 over costs imposed by higher property tax bills. “We were going to retire here, but now we won’t be able to afford it,” said Linda Ryan, who lives on Channel Drive. “Tell me how it’s fair to be taxed out of our houses!” The “Great Wolf” federal court ruling exempted all structures on the Swinomish Reservation — including homes owned by non-tribal members on leased land in Shelter Bay — from paying sta...
Shelter Bay resident Karl C. Hammer died at age 77 on Thursday, August 27 at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle with his family at his side. Karl was born to Carl Einer and Enora Ash Hammer on June 27, 1938 and grew up in Southern California. In 1958 he married Rosemary Holmes. They moved to Huntington Beach, where they raised their three children. Karl worked in the customer service department of Western Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport. In 1978, Karl married Barbara Boehm,...
A powerful windstorm wreaked havoc across the northwestern part of the state on Saturday, leaving downed trees, damaged homes and utility interruptions throughout the La Conner area. “I think it caught everyone by surprise,” said Fire District 13 Chief Roy Horn. Wind speed in La Conner averaged around 13 miles per hour on Saturday, with gusts reaching at least 50 miles per hour, unusual speeds for any storm in August. The wind gusts came from the southeast. Fidalgo Island and the Swinomish Res...
A federal court ruling that exempted more than a third of the parcels in Fire District 13 from property tax has some taxpayers on the east side of Swinomish Channel wanting to switch fire districts. The so-called “Great Wolf Lodge” ruling, which determined that homes on leased reservation land in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned road neighborhoods are immune from county and state property tax, did not impact the budget for Fire District 13. That’s because the agency simply shifted its entire tax burden to the remaining taxpayers. Based...
John Benjamin Tjersland, 84, a longtime resident of La Conner, died peacefully on Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at Skagit Valley Hospital. He was born on October 7, 1930, in Burlington, the son of Henry and Bernice Clark Tjersland. At a young age, he moved with his family to Southeast Nebraska. He attended the rural school and Nemaha High School. He furthered his education and attended Peru State College before returning to Washington in August, 1949. Ben grew up on his family farm in Nebraska, and he worked on farms around La Conner. He joined the...
Frank H. Collins of Shelter Bay died at age 94 on Sunday, July 26 at Harmony House in Sedro-Woolley. He and his wife Barbara Jean have lived in Shelter Bay since moving from Seattle in1987. Frank was born in Seattle on January 9, 1921 and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1939. He apprenticed at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and became a journeyman machinist. He served in the Navy for three years and returned to Seattle, where he married Jean in 1946. He entered the University of Washington,...
La Conner Schools adopted a new budget and logo during a two-hour session on Monday, but more time, with a pressing deadline looming ahead, will be needed to solve tax shortfalls created by the so-called Great Wolf Lodge decision by a federal court. First, the good news. Board members approved a 2015-16 budget, bolstered by increased state money and federal impact aid revenue, that anticipates a $1.3 million ending fund balance. “I feel very positive about this budget,” Business Manager Bonnie Haley said during the public hearing portion of...
Young members of the Swinomish canoe team, which is coached by Brian Porter, paddle past Shelter Bay on the Swinomish Channel. – Photo by Don CoyoteYoung members of the Swinomish canoe team, which is coached by Brian Porter, paddle past Shelter Bay on the Swinomish Channel. – Photo by Don Coyote...
More than two-thirds of the homeowners who cast ballots in Shelter Bay last Wednesday approved negotiating a new 75-year lease with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. The count was 436 in favor of crafting a new lease, with 197 against. Voter turnout was pegged at 83 percent, with 633 votes cast out of 767 eligible voters. In order to be eligible to vote, a homeowner had to be a member “in good standing” meaning that all homeowner association fees are up to date. Shelter Bay is a gated com-munity developed on Indian reservation land leased...
The Shelter Bay Community will proceed with drafting a new 75-year lease with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Ballots in an advisory vote were counted on Wednesday and the results were: 436 in favor vs. 197 against. A Shelter Bay Community press release states that 68 percent of the eligible voters approved the lease terms in an advisory vote that required only a simple majority. Voter turnout was pegged at 83 percent, with 633 votes cast out of 767 eligible voters....
A week from today, ballots of Shelter Bay homeowners will be tallied to determine whether the community should go ahead with a proposal to negotiate a new 75-year lease with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. If 50 percent plus one vote “yes” in the non-binding advisory vote – the work to craft a new lease under the terms the tribe has set will move ahead. If the majority vote is “no,” the process might be slowed down. The lobbying on both sides, “yes” and “no,” has been intense. Besides the higher land lease cost, which everyone...
I wasn’t going to weigh in on this issue, but several people have asked me to state my views on next week’s vote to decide whether the Shelter Bay Company should proceed with replacing its lease with the Swinomish Tribe. Although I understand the issues, the costs, the various mechanisms for figuring costs and have had several people at my desk explaining their very convincing reasons for voting either “Yes” or “No,” I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no good option. Fear – perhaps growing out of the Shelter Bay board’s descr...
The La Conner School District is scheduled to receive another $775,000 from the state Capital budget, Rep. Norma Smith, R-Clinton, said on Monday. Still, La Conner area taxpayers, some of whom saw their property tax bills jump by 25 percent this year, probably won’t see immediate relief from the higher school taxes shifted to them when homes in Shelter Bay and on Pull-&-Be-Damned Road were taken off the county tax rolls. Last year, the 931 now tax-exempt parcels, mostly homes built on leased Indian reservation land, generated about $1.8 m...
The question on whether to approve the terms for a new lease for the land under the Shelter Bay development has divided the community between “Yes” and “No.” Both sides share something in common: Fear. Residents who favor the lease say it is the “best and final” offer by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and fear that if it is not approved, they could lose their homes in 2044, when the present lease expires and fear their homes would lose value in the meantime. The people opposed to the new lease terms say they fear that if it is approved...
For those wanting to stay up-to-date on the Shelter Bay Lease situation, or look into the history of our Tribal Land Tax coverage, there are two new sections grouping the online articles to these stories. They can be found in the menu as a dropdown to News, and will be updated as more stories are released. Thank you, --La Conner Weekly News...
Raymond Robert Powers, a longtime resident of Shelter Bay, died peacefully on Friday, June 5, in Mount Vernon. Ray was born on March 20, 1924 on the family farm near Mauston, Wisconsin, the son of Edmund and Winifred Powers, the fourth of 11 children. When World War II was declared, he joined the Marine Corps at 17, where he rose to the rank of Technical Sergeant. He saw action in the South Pacific, where he survived two kamikaze attacks and participated in the invasion of Okinawa and the battle...
The Shelter Bay Community held the first of three meetings for homeowners last night to a standing room only crowd. People arriving at the meeting were met by a group of homeowners wearing T-shirts and carrying signs urging their neighbors to “just say no” to the new lease proposal. Two more meetings are scheduled on Thursday and on June 6. Residents were also given the option of listening to the meetings over the Internet. The Swinomish Senate has provided Shelter Bay Community with the tri...
