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The candidate filing period for the Nov. 3 general election closed on Friday and left La Conner area voters with a few contested races to decide. Town of La Conner For the Town of La Conner, Mayor Ramon Hayes is running for his third four-year term unopposed. La Conner Councilman Jacques Brunisholz, who retired after teaching generations of La Conner High School students and who has served on the council since 2008, is being challenged by Charity Starkenburg for his position 1 seat. Starkenburg is the popular owner of Bamboo Coffee, formerly...
Candidates trying to file for November’s General Election hit a major snag on Tuesday morning. The state Secretary of State’s election website experienced a major outage, possibly due to “utilization spikes.” Gabrielle Clay with the elections division of the Skagit County Auditors Office said her department couldn’t even access local information on the administrative end. The problem was resolved early in the afternoon, and candidate filing week resumed. In La Conner, Mayor Ramon Hayes announced last week that he will seek another term, and...
The old Potlatch Resort is turning into the new La Conner Marina RV Resort. “We’re hoping we’ll have it open Memorial Day,” said Harbormaster Kody Skvaril. Crews have been sprucing up the property, trimming trees and improving the RV spots. Last week the building demolition began, and on Monday, the old Potlatch structure had been reduced to a pile of rubble and what remains of the yet-to-be uprooted indoor swimming pool. Skvaril said there are plans to turn the old Potlatch building site into a...
A man drove his black Audi into the water at La Conner Marina, and his car was spotted under water, five days later — on Thursday — when the tide went out. Skagit County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Wade said a 32-year-old Bellingham resident’s car apparently hit a guardrail at high speed and was launched into the drink. The accident occurred just before midnight on Saturday, Feb. 21, at the north end of Third Street, where it makes a sharp right turn and becomes Pearle Jensen Way. Despite...
Lifelong Skagit Valley Resident Don L. McKee died on Tuesday, February 10 at age 92 at Fidalgo Care Center in Anacortes after a battle with pneumonia. Don was born on December 19, 1922 to Sidney T. and Fannie M. McKee in their home at 1710 12th Street in Anacortes. Shortly after, the family moved to 903 23rd Street, where he lived most of his school days in Anacortes attending Nelson Grade School, Junior High in the Old Columbian High School building and graduating as Anacortes High School...
After years of being in the dark, the Rainbow Bridge may soon light the way over the Swinomish Channel once again. La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes announced the idea to the town council last week, during a roundtable discussion. The idea to rekindle the lights was originally brought to Hayes by Shelter Bay residents Ken Olsen and Chuck Norris. “I’ve talked informally with county commissioners,” said Hayes. “I’ve talked with local communities and the Port of Skagit: there was no negativity whatsoeve...
Agencies and taxpayers are nervous over the financial impacts of a federal court ruling that makes most of the properties in Shelter Bay and on Pull & Be Damned Road exempt from property taxes. If the 931 homeowners on leased tribal land decide not to pay the second half of this year’s taxes due on October 31, as some owners have suggested, the La Conner School District and Fire District 13 are going to be scrambling to fill huge budget holes. Worse, if the homeowners sue to have up to three years of property taxes refunded, the agencies and sm...
The Port of Skagit has been notified that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is funding $820,750 to dredge the south end of Swinomish Channel. The Corps has contracted with American Construction Co., Inc, which was the same contractor for the dredging done last year. This year’s project is expected to start in late September and wind up around Christmas. The work will be confined to the south end of the channel, where silt accumulates the quickest. When the navigable channel fills in with silt, larger vessels cannot use the waterway. The f...
Now that the Skagit County Assessor’s Office has crunched the actual numbers, it is apparent that the federal court’s tribal land tax ruling would hit La Conner worse than originally thought. Dave Thomas with the Assessor’s Office said that if the ruling stands, there will be a total of 931 properties taken off the tax rolls with a combined value of about $138 million. That is the number and value of homes on leased tribal land in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned neighborhood — the only area in Skagit County that the federal rulin...
The La Conner boardwalk project keeps moving right along, and should, if all goes well, be complete by the end of the year, according to Town Administrator John Doyle. Construction on the final section of the boardwalk, which will extend from the old Palmer’s restaurant to the south side of Calico Cupboard, is scheduled to begin at the end of August or beginning of September. The previous section, which was done in two phases and finished last year, stretches from Gilkey Square to the L...
Skagit County government officials are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a huge cut in tax revenue resulting from a federal court ruling that eliminates property tax for every building on tribal land. That means most of the approximately 900 homes in Shelter Bay, a gated community built on leased land that the federal government holds in trust for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, are now exempt from property taxes. Skagit County Commissioner Ron Wesen said buildings on tribal land will be removed from the 2015 tax rolls. In the...
The recent “La Conner Weekly News” article on the history of the Swinomish Channel has prompted a more complex story of the channel’s alterations over time. The Swinomish Slough, first called the Canim (canoe) Passage by newcomers to the area in the 1850s, was a narrow, winding waterway, so shallow that during the summertime, farmers waded their horses through it to obtain fresh drinking water from springs on the Swinomish Reservation. In 1893, the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the sloug...
Close to 100 people turned out for the ribbon-cutting celebrating the completion of the first phase of La Conner’s boardwalk, the dedication of a little park and pergola named for Fred Martin, and the start of the next phase that will take the waterfront feature the rest of the way through town. Elected officials and local dignitaries gathered on May 28 and patted each other on the back for their roles in a project aimed at boosting the local economy. “All of Skagit County is going to ben...
With no public input, Mayor Ramon Hayes said he was unable to get any “weedback from the community” regarding marijuana gardens for medical use. Nevertheless the Town Council voted to direct Town Administrator John Doyle to craft an ordinance allowing collective gardens within the town limits according to state guidelines. The vote was unanimous. Since La Conner didn’t make the state’s list of municipalities where recreational pot outlets can be located, Town officials say it is unlikely the town will have a retail pot store. Because state l...
La Conner’s Mayor, PortofSkagit Officials and others who have been lobbying diligently received good news this week from the US Army Corps of Engineers. Funds have been approved to dredge critical areas of the Swinomish Channel this year and work will likely begin in the fall. Chief John Hicks with the Corps of Engineers sent a happy email to spread the news on Wednesday. For La Conner and the local maritime industry, keeping the channel navigable is vital to the region’s economy. Along with the town and Port, officials from Swinomish Indian Tr...
Despite snow and cold, the Rotary Club of La Conner sold 96 fishing tickets to old and young fishermen and fisherwomen on Saturday during the 49th annual Smelt Derby. Participants braved nasty roads and came from as far away as Port Angeles and Vancouver, Washington to take part in La Conner’s favorite rite of winter. Each year the La Conner Rotary raises money for its literacy projects with the annual “Smelt Derby Festival,” a fun-filled family day of fishing, games, and food that ended this...
You might think this is a load of cabbage, but the big vats of sauerkraut at La Conner Marina account for only about a quarter of the harvest from Farms Northwest. Curtis Johnson, one of the owners of Farms Northwest, said the company was able to salvage only a fraction of its cabbage crop this year after the firm that had originally contracted to buy it to make sauerkraut closed in July. When Pleasant Valley Farms shut down, the cabbage crop growing on 47 acres was in jeopardy because there...
What follows is from a memoir, “Tug Boat Life,” soon to be published by Gerald Bell about his 50 years working on tug boats. My first few months of work for Dunlap Towing were spent towing logs. One night we were departing Port Ludlow on the tug Vulcan with a tow that had several extra boom sticks tied along side. The sticks were fanned out from the tow, and we decided they needed to be tied in tight. The captain let me off on the tow with a pike pole and a flashlight and some tie line and con...
