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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...
The Swinomish Senate has provided Shelter Bay Community with what the community calls the tribe’s “best and final proposal” for its terms to extend the land lease. Shelter Bay is a gated neighborhood of about 900 homes developed mostly on reservation land leased from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. The original lease signed in 1968 is set to expire in 2044, which according to a tribal attorney would cause the land that people built their homes on to revert back to the original owners. For the past two years Swinomish and Shelter Bay repr...
At sunrise on Monday, April 27, Mickey Kazhe Smith Sr., 51, member of the Swinomish Tribe died peacefully at home. He was born in Mt. Vernon on May 10, 1963 to Alfreda Sampson and Carl Kazhe. He was raised by his dad Ernest Bob Bailey. Mickey graduated from La Conner High School in 1981. Most of his life he was a Commercial Fisherman and cherished his time on the water. He was the deck boss on fishing vessel Anna J; he also fished on the Point Elliot and the Amber Dawn. Mickey was baptized at the Pentecostal Church when he was very young and...
La Conner School District and town officials are scheduled to meet today with a representative from the office of U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, to lay the tax disparity caused by a 2013 federal court decision at the federal government’s feet. The offices of U.S. senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray have also been contacted, and their staff members have promised to schedule meetings with local officials soon. Mayor Ramon Hayes, with other partners including the school district, launched the lobbying campaign last month. This came a...
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court against BNSF Railway, alleging violations of terms in an easement agreement that allows the trains to cross reservation land. According to the complaint filed in the United States District Court in Seattle, the tribe and Burlington Northern were parties to a 1991 agreement granting the railway an easement, allowing one 25-car train per day in each direction to serve the refineries on March’s Point to cross the northern tip of the reservation. Train tracks run o...
A delegation of school and town officials traveled to Olympia on Tuesday to let state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn know La Conner needs help right now. The meeting was set up by State Rep. Norma Smith, R-Clinton, who said “kids are at risk” because La Conner School District suffered a huge funding cut this year. What amounts to about 50 percent of the district’s property tax revenue was eliminated when 931 parcels were removed from the county’s tax rolls in January. As a re...
La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes has launched a town lobbying effort to address a situation that has left a fraction of the taxpayers shouldering the lion’s share of the local taxes. In January 931 parcels were removed from the La Conner area property tax rolls following a federal court ruling that structures on Indian reservation land are tax exempt regardless of who owns the structures. That means homeowners in Shelter Bay and in the Pull and Be Damned Road area who built their homes on land l...
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community expects to send out tax bills to homeowners on the 931 parcels removed from the county’s property tax rolls by the end of this month. As with the county taxes homeowners are accustomed to paying, the Swinomish tribal tax can be paid in two halves on April 30 and October 31. For the 2015 taxes, the tribe intends to use the same assessment values Skagit County has set and will use the same tax rate – $14.28 per $1,000 of assessed value – as parcels on privately owned, or fee simple, land within t...
This week government investigators were still trying to figure out what happened on Friday when an invisible cloud of noxious fumes descended on La Conner and Swinomish, causing some people to suffer respiratory problems. Apparently a maintenance operation went stinky at the Shell Puget Sound Refinery at March’s Point northwest of La Conner. On Monday the refinery had a recording on its phone line stating that it had “experienced a problem while doing maintenance work on the east flare which resulted in an odor issue.” The recording also has a...
The La Conner School Board and Swinomish Indian Senate will hold a joint meeting this Thursday to discuss tribal sovereignty curriculum. By law, since a quorum of school board members will be present, the meeting will be open to the public. It will be held at 5 p.m. in the Swinomish Senate Chambers, on Moorage Way across the street from the Village Chevron station on the reservation. Tribal sovereignty curriculum is a state recommended program, approved by Washington state tribes, to provide instruction in Native American history and culture...
Each year Skagit County Treasurer Katie Jungquist’s office mails out property tax bills to land right around Valentine’s Day. The goal is not so much to put a damper on the day, it’s just that the schedule calls for the bills to be delivered in mid-February. But this year, the county’s “Valentines” were still at the printer on Tuesday, and Jungquist said she expects they’ll be in the mail early next week. Even so, anyone anxious to know what they’ll be paying in property taxes this year can look it up on the county’s website, www.skagitcounty.n...
Staff at the Skagit County Assessor’s Office worked through the holiday weekend to come up with the new levy rates for property taxes in the La Conner area. Under the state’s property tax calendar schedule, the levies were to be finished and provided to the County Treasurer by last Thursday, Jan. 15. But they weren’t. Removing 931 parcels from the tax rolls in the La Conner School District threw a big wrench into the system, and the Assessor’s Office had to stretch the deadline. On Tuesday, “I think we’re real close,” said County Assessor Dave...
Under its new Trust Improvement Use and Occupancy Tax Code, the Swinomish Senate has decided to adopt a policy granting tax exemptions to low-income seniors and disabled people. Most of the homes in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned Road neighborhood were removed from the county property tax rolls on Jan. 1, as a result of a federal court ruling that determined homes build on leased tribal trust land are immune from property taxes. However, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, the sovereign government of the Swinomish Reservation, will...
A recent ruling by the U.S. Department of Justice opening the door for marijuana production on native tribal reservations in states where it’s legal is something the Swinomish Indian Senate will talk about next year. The memo from the Justice Department released December 11 allows native tribes to pursue the process of growing and selling marijuana but reserves the right for federal enforcement if regulations are broken. “At the beginning of the year, there will be a discussion,” said Swinomish Tribal Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “It is on the...
Here’s a lump of coal for the old Christmas stocking: The owners of at least 2,500 parcels in the La Conner area will see their property taxes take a leap in the new year. With 931 parcels worth around $138 million coming off the 2015 property tax rolls and state laws that allow the bills to automatically shift to the remaining taxpayers when property is made tax exempt, the average La Conner area homeowner will pay around $400 more for civilization next year. On Monday, the La Conner School D...
With the 931 parcels coming off the La Conner area county tax rolls, taxpayers for the remaining 2,500 parcels in the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 could be left holding the bill for about $480,000 more in property taxes. On Tuesday the Swinomish Indian Senate announced the amounts it will contribute to the La Conner School District, Fire District 13, Medic 1 ambulance service and La Conner Regional Library District. Last month the Senate, which is the governing body of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, decided that the...
Todd Allyn Wilbur, 55, a longtime resident of Skagit County died on the Swinomish Reservation at age 55 on Monday, November 17. He was born in Pasco, Washington on November 12, 1959. He is survived by his parents, Gwynn (Jones) Amaro and Dave Wilbur, Sr. Todd graduated from Eisen-hower High School with the class of 1978 and earned his AA degree from Bellingham Technical School. In 1982 he was hired by the Swinomish Tribal Community as a wildlife game manager and worked there for 31 years....
To ease the minds of homeowners who live on tribal trust land in the La Conner area, the Swinomish Indian Senate on Tuesday announced that the property tax for 2015 will be equal to what Skagit County would assess if the property were to stay on the county tax rolls. “Taxpayers can rest assured and budget for their taxes in 2015 just as they have in the past,” Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby said in a prepared statement. Meanwhile the Tribal Senate, which is the governing body for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, continues to work on a...
Gaye Wilbur, of La Conner, died peacefully at home with her loving husband and family by her side on Tuesday, October 28. She was 74 years old. Gaye was born on October 25, 1940 to Clifford and Inez Gilbertson of Sedro-Woolley, where she was raised. She graduated from Sedro-Woolley High School in 1958 and attended Skagit Valley College for two years. Gaye married her childhood sweetheart in 1958; they were together as a couple for 61 years. They met at the skating rink in Burlington and were a premier dance skating couple. Gaye was a master...
The Swinomish Tribal Senate has pretty much put the kibosh on the possibility of tax refunds for the 931 La Conner area homeowners whose property is coming off the county tax rolls next year. What hasn’t been finalized is the level of funding the public entities who rely on those tax revenues will receive in the future and how much of the tax burden could be shifted to the remaining property owners. Under state law, people can request tax refunds for up to three years. There were five people whose buildings are on leased tribal land in S...
The Swinomish Indian Senate has adopted a formal tax code aimed at eliminating the possibility of refunds for the 931 parcels coming off the county’s tax rolls. A federal court decision exempting all structures on tribal land from property taxes opened the possibility that homeowners on leased tribal land in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & be Damned Road neighborhood could seek up to three years of property tax refunds. While the owners have never been taxed on the leased tribal land their homes sit on, the county has been assessing taxes on the...
Although a federal court ruling made 931 La Conner area properties on tribal land exempt from county property tax, on Tuesday the Swinomish Indian Senate decided to take action preventing tax refunds to homeowners on leased tribal land. The Senate, which is the governing body for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, voted to establish an interim tax on improvements on reservation trust land that is equal to the amount assessed by the county going back to 2011. Taxpayers on those lands will receive credit for all taxes paid to the county and...
With 931 La Conner area parcels coming off the property tax rolls, people are wondering what their tax bills will look like in 2015. Homeowners in Shelter Bay and on Pull & Be Damned Road won’t be paying property tax to the county next year. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be paying for tax-supported public services. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Senate has formed a committee to work out a tribal tax code. Meanwhile, the smaller pool of people who will continue to pay their county tax bills could face big increases, unless the tribe takes actio...
The Swinomish Tribal Senate has announced that it will adopt a property tax law that applies to leased tribal trust land. HERE IS THE TEXT OF A PRESS RELEASE ISSUED FRIDAY MORNING BY THE SWINOMISH INDIAN TRIBAL COMMUNITY The Swinomish Indian Senate, the governing body of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, has established a working group of Tribal Senators and staff to develop a property tax law that would apply to leased trust land within the Swinomish Reservation. The property tax would be considered for adoption as Tribal law by the...
With 931 parcels coming off the county’s property tax rolls next year, the financial state of the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 and hundreds of taxpayers rest in the hands of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Senate. On Tuesday, the Skagit County Board of Commissioners essentially directed County Assessor Don Munks “not to break the law,” in the words of Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt. To that end, Munks said his office has removed from the county’s 2015 tax rolls all homes and other structures that were built on leased...
