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The $995,000 La Conner Schools levy was headed for a big win on Tuesday, with the initial ballot count showing nearly 61 percent “yes” votes. This was the second try this year for La Conner School District to receive voter approval for an operating levy. In February voters rejected a pair of school levies that would have imposed nearly $1.5 million in property taxes homeowners. On Tuesday only ballots on hand before the election boxes closed at 8 p.m. were counted and there were already hundreds more ballots cast than in the February election....
After investigating for more than a year, the Northwest Clean Air Agency has issued a notice of violation to the Shell Puget Sound Refinery at March’s Point. This stems from Feb. 20, 2015, when a foul stench settled on La Conner and the Swinomish Reservation because noxious, stinking chemicals were accidently spewed into the atmosphere by the refinery. “This incident sickened many people in the community, and people felt unsafe in their homes and at work,” said Mark Asmundson, executive director of the Northwest Clean Air Agency. Accor...
More than 90 voters on the northeast end of Fire District 13 on Friday submitted a petition to the county auditor seeking to withdraw from that district and join neighboring Fire District 2. David Cunningham, county elections supervisor with the auditor’s office, said the county has 10 days — until March 14 — to determine whether the petition meets legal requirements set out by state law and validate the signatures. Voters in the Channel Drive neighborhood, as well as voters on Downey Road and along McLean Road to the border of Fire...
La Conner Schools officials plan to schedule public workshops on the upcoming school budget before voters decide the fate of a pared-down, second-try levy request. School Finance Director Bonnie Haley said voters will be asked to approve a one-year levy of $995,000. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters on April 8 and counted on April 26. The new levy vote comes before the budget is set in July for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year, but the district wants community participation in the budget process before the election. Public budget...
La Conner resident and Swinomish Indian Tribal Com-munity member Clayton Charles Day “Gul gs ka dub II,” died at age 27 on Wednesday, February 24. Clayton was born and raised on the Swinomish Reservation. He was born on March 28, 1988 to Marlene Stone and Jackson Day. He attended La Conner Schools, and he loved to play basketball, canoe racing and hanging with his family and friends. Clayton was a member of the Catholic Church, the Smokehouse and a commercial fisherman. Clayton begin fis...
With two levies totaling close to $1.5 million rejected by voters this month, La Conner School District has shaved a half million and half the time off its request and will put it up for election again, the school board decided on Monday. In a special election set for April 26, voters in the La Conner School District will decide on a proposed one-year levy of $995,000, which is estimated to account for $2.08 per $1,000 of assessed valuation on property tax bills. Should this proposed levy pass, taxpayers in the La Conner district would be...
What appeared to be a derelict boat sank at a tribal dock on the Swinomish Channel last week. According to Swinomish Environmental Compliance Manager Scott Andrews, although there was fuel aboard the vessel, there was not a significant amount released into the water. “There was only a slight sheen on the water,” he said. “Not enough to bring the oil booms out.” When the boat was recovered, 130 gallons of diesel fuel was pumped from fuel tanks aboard the 34-foot tribal fisher. The sinking was reported at 10 a.m. last Wednesday when somebod...
Something that’s apparently never happened before has prompted the La Conner School Board to call an emergency meeting tomorrow, Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Middle School gym. According to the unofficial results of last week’s special school election, La Conner voters soundly rejected two proposed levies totaling nearly $1.5 million. The levies failed, even though more than 52 percent of the registered voters live on land immune from school district taxes. The majority of the “yes” votes came from precincts on the Swinomish Indian Reserva...
A pair of replacement school levies in La Conner appeared headed for failure on Tuesday when preliminary election results were released. La Conner School district proposed a maintenance and operations levy and a technology levy to replace two levies that expire this year. Had they passed, they would have provided a total of nearly $1.5 million per year in school funding for 2017 and 2018. According to early vote counts released by the Skagit County Auditor’s office, the maintenance and operations levy was failing 58.5 “No” to 41.5 perce...
A house fire on the Swinomish Reservation claimed the life of a small dog early Friday morning. The call came in at 6:07 a.m. on Friday, and firefighters from Fire District 13, with backup from La Conner Fire Department, responded to the home on Swinomish Avenue near the intersection of Snee Oosh Road. “We were on scene in 4 minutes,” said District 13 Chief Roy Horn. “We were able to keep the fire contained, since we got there before it was too big.” The fire was contained to the home’s carport area, and the attic was partially damaged....
Darrell Lee Bassford’s final voyage departed on Saturday, January 30 when he died at age 82. Darrell was born on April 2, 1933 to Earl and Edith Bassford and was a lifelong resident of the Swinomish Tribal Community of La Conner. He was a graduate of La Conner High School in 1951 and retired from Dunlap Towing after 46½ years as the operator of the tug boat “Swinomish.” Darrell was dedicated to his sobriety and sponsored many people during their times of need. He attended AA meeti...
With the assessed value of properties going up, the tax rates per $1,000 of assessed valuation are dipping slightly for La Conner area home owners still paying property tax to the Skagit County Treasurer. At Monday night’s La Conner School Board meeting, district finance director Bonnie Haley distributed the latest assessment figures from the county Assessor’s Office. It shows that for school taxes, the rate will drop about 15 cents, from about $6.61 per $1,000 to $6.46. Skagit County Assessor Dave Thomas said the new rates were certified on...
La Conner School District is in a historic situation — school officials are campaigning furi-ously to convince people to vote in two levies totaling nearly $1.5 million. For decades, La Conner residents have passed school bonds and levies in a landslide, with little more than a ballot question. Things are different this time, as ballots are mailed this week to some 3,500 voters. This time most of the voters are being asked to tax their neighbors, not themselves. After the locally infamous Great Wolf Lodge federal court decision, more...
La Conner School District officials have scheduled meetings with voters to answer questions about two proposed school levies that will appear on ballots to be mailed soon. The first meeting is today, Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Maple Hall in La Conner. Another meeting is scheduled at the Shelter Bay Clubhouse at 7 p.m. next Wednesday, Jan. 13. The school district is hoping that voters will approve the levies totaling nearly $1.5 million to replace voter-approved funding that expires at the end of this year. A proposed maintenance and operations...
In a special election on Feb. 9, La Conner Schools will ask voters to approve more than $1 million per year in taxes to be collected in 2017 and 2018. Two new levies will replace a maintenance and operations and a technology levy that were approved by voters in 2012 and expire at the end of 2016. The maintenance and opera-tions levy helps pay for school programs like foreign language instruction, music, drama, athletic coach salaries and other benefits for children that state funding does not cover. The tech levy, first approved by voters in...
The La Conner School Board met Monday and is expected to call for a special election in February to ask voters to approve more than $1 million in taxes to take effect in 2017. Although the board appeared to reach a consensus to ask voters to approve a maintenance and operations levy of $1,195,000 and a technology levy of $295,000, the board adjourned and continued its meeting to Thursday evening to vote. The main question left on the table on Monday was whether to seek one-year levies for 2017 or two-year levies that would expire at the end of...
The La Conner School Board on Monday signed the latest version of a school funding agreement with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. The tribe has promised to contribute $400,000 to the schools to help ease a $789,000 shortfall created when 931 parcels were removed from the property tax rolls that feed schools and other public entities this year. For about a year, the terms of the tribal funding have been under negotiation. Last month the school board signed a version of the agreement and forwarded it to the tribe. What came back was a vers...
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...
Thomas J. Schlicker, who was Swinomish Police Chief from 1997 until he was fired last September, was sentenced to federal prison on Tuesday. According to court documents, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughner in Seattle sentenced Schlicker to 16 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release for stealing money from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. In August Schlicker took a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to one of the 10 felony counts the U.S. Attorney’s office had filed against him. The rest of the charges were d...
Most of us pay our phone, electricity, gas, trash and cable bills without really looking at each of many taxes, fees and other governmental fund-raising charges included. This week a local resident, who lives just outside the La Conner town limits on property that is unincorporated Skagit County happened to examine her Frontier landline phone bill. Nestled in among the 10 federal, state, county and local taxes was one for the “Swinomish Indian Res Utility Use Tax,” even though her home is not within the reservation boundaries. She said Fro...
Two deer families gathered for a feast of fallen pears near a fruit tree on the Swinomish Reservation recently. – Photo by Robin Carneen...
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...
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...
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...
