Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 9 - 33 of 1886
No news is bad news if we lose the La Conner Weekly News. If Publisher Ken Stern has to sell to the Adams chain of papers, we can pretty much say goodbye to local reporting. Unfortunately, the La Conner Community News group has not been able to approach the $200,000 sale price. We need to connect with one or more of those deep-pocketed philanthropists who are out there who would donate to make this a better, more informed world. If any of you have a lead, make a call, send an email. Now. We are running out of time. Jai Boreen La...
The Town of La Conner had a survey for the residents and business\people about the south end (aka transition zone, aka the subarea plan, aka the property in the vicinity of “big blue” and the old Moore Clark building, aka the freezer building. The survey asked for ratings on ideas about various categories. One of the survey categories is “access improvements” (roads, parking and paths). The highest rating possible is 5. “Extend waterfront path to Pioneer Park” received a seriously spectacular rating of 4.36 out of 5. Nothing else even reache...
The recent AP article entitled, “Biden’s broken promise on pardoning his son …” ends with the comment, “Neither Biden nor his White House staff explained the shift in the president’s thinking.” Yet seemingly overlooked was the fact that the pardon was issued directly following president-elect Trump’s choice of Kash Patel as his appointee to direct the FBI. Patel, long a loyalist to Mr. Trump, has promised that, “if Trump won the White House … he would go after Hunter and Joe Biden with a new criminal investigation.” (CNN) Patel has dismissed t...
Ken, we really enjoyed your La Conner paper that you managed for years with sincerity, openmindedness, equality and last but not least with intelligence and a commitment for truth. You spoke your mind about political, environmental and local situations after evaluating the true facts and we completely agreed with your opinion. We will miss your continuous effort to bring information and education our way. Best wishes for your next chapter in your life! Rosi and Wes Jansen Fine Feathered Friends La Conner...
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The clock is running out on “Saving the La Conner News” . . . 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week, GONE . . . say it isn’t so! . . . say it isn’t happening!! How shall we learn about town government meetings? School sport events and scores? Maple Hall events? New businesses and our wonderful current ones? Activities of fraternal organizations? Arts events? Emergency management efforts? La Conner redevelopment initiatives? The latest miracles from the Clean Energy Alliance? The vox populi in the Letters to the Editor . . . What’s on at the library a...
A good number of people have asked about the status of our recently formed La Conner Community News non-profit organization’s efforts to “Save the Newspaper.” We have been encouraged by the community interest and support demonstrated by financial pledges and donations, but have raised only a fraction of the funds needed to purchase the La Conner Weekly News and transition to a new managing editor. Even though our 11th-hour efforts have not raised sufficient funds for a purchase, we plan to continue our efforts to ensure the presence of a sourc...
I saw the announcement of a “Public forum” on Dec. 11 that is called to address “the town’s south end plan.” I see that title as an obfuscation, by the town, to hide the important process of dealing with the blight and danger present in the Moore Clark property. Reality is that the Skagit County Assessor’s Office current fair market value appraisal of the property, parcel P74496, is actually $442,300, not the $2,300,000 that the town administrator keeps quoting. So far there has been no attempt for the current owner to purchase insurance a...
The result of the presidential election surprised me and put me into a funk. I considered moving back to Canada, where I worked as a TV and movie director for 16 years, but that was a difficult decision because I have so much family in the U.S. and I love writing this column. Then I heard that the governors of California and Washington state were not at all happy with Trump and they both declared that they would continue to support women’s rights to have abortions and continue to agree with m...
The La Conner public parking lot, east of Maple Hall, occupies about an acre. It’s big enough to host a 400 kilowatt solar generation system, built in the form of a canopy covering most of the lot. Such a canopy would also provide protection from snow, rain and sun. Building a solar canopy over most of the lot would require installation of support structures and some analysis on how the power would be delivered to the grid, or whether it would be better to install batteries and keep the s...
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. How can we be thankful together, as families, as communities, as a nation? Thanksgiving, along with July 4th, are the foundational American holidays. Thanksgiving is more than bedrock: the holiday honors English-speaking Europeans surviving and starting to take root on the Massachusetts shore of what would become the United States. Thanksgiving. By definition giving thanks is plural, communal. It recognizes the others in the community, those we are showing appreciation for the help they have given to us. We are...
The La Conner Weekly News will continue in 2025 only if its readers become its funders. To assist those who will have to provide the major dollars needed, here is this incentive: For every $100,000 donated to the La Conner Community News organization, I will add $10,000. There are 10 households in our Valley that can invest $20,000 each and 20 households that can offer $10,000 to ensure the future of the community’s weekly newspaper. Now is the time to decide and to do that. These will be the heroes among us for maintaining a major thread t...
Most people agree that actual facts matter – in such activities as debate, discussion and reporting. Once facts are gathered, verified and distributed, informed decision-making can proceed in such important exercises as voting. But what happens when important, verified facts are published and broadcast widely, yet the resulting impact proves underwhelming – or even meaningless? If vital facts fail to affect the news audiences they intend to inform? This is the conundrum facing American journalism after Nov. 5, 2024. As a former journalist and...
If I remember correctly, in one month you will be officially retired from the La Conner Weekly News. If that is so, I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your editorials and will miss them once the newspaper is in someone else’s hands. Although I’ve only been a subscriber for a short time, I found the entire newspaper informative and well worth the read. I have my fellow League of Women Voters members, Wende Sanderson and Barbara Carson, to thank for encouraging me to subscribe. I know they, too, will miss you. Wishing you a wel...
Re Mr. John Cline’s very uncivil letter to the editor in the Nov. 20 edition (“The incredible shrinking newspaper editor”). It sounded like a school boy’s triumphant “neener, neener, neener.” Of course, what else can we expect from Trump supporters? They can’t just win, they have to rub it in with sarcasm and name-calling. It is to be hoped that one day, in the near future, Mr. Cline and his ilk are as adversely affected by Trump’s insane lies and truly heinous cabinet nominees as the rest of us will be. Maybe they will then realize the error o...
John Cline’s letter to the editor calling Ken Stern’s editorial (“The incredible shrinking newspaper editor,” Nov. 20) “shrill ideologue” and cheering his retirement was appalling. The La Conner Weekly news is our only local source and Ken had done an admirable job. He has kept us informed and gives a voice to all who are lucky enough to live here. Ken’s editorials are insightful, informative and as editor, he has a right to express his own opinions, whether you agree with them or not. We will become another of the thousands of local newspapers...
From our wonderful La Conner Swinomish Library I checked out “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Not a happy read, but edifying. Chapter four, “Bloody Footprints,” begins with a quote from historian John Grenier’s “The First Way of War.” “For the first 200 years of our military heritage, then, Americans depended on arts of war that contemporary professional soldiers supposedly abhorred: razing and destroying enemy villages and fields; killing enemy women and children; raiding settlements for captives;...
It is budget time again. Across Washington state and throughout the country, governments of towns, cities and countries with fiscal years starting January 1 are going through similar steps of developing their annual operating budgets. Big yawn, right? This is the time of year when newspaper subscribers really learn of – if not realize – the value of their subscriptions. For about $1.15 a week Weekly News readers get the advantage of reading stories by professional journalists summarizing and analyzing their local government’s budget proce...
Ken, regarding your last two editorials commenting on the presidential election results, your apparent inability to comprehend that for some people there are just as many logical, valid, righteous and positive reasons to vote for Donald Trump as you have for voting for Kamala Harris reflects an immense shallowness in your journalistic curiosity (see CNN’s Scott Jennings’ article latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-01/election-donald-trump-kamala-harris for a different perspective). Your further reflexive impulse to ascribe only the most hat...
The Moore Clark building and property is a blight and a danger with breaches to the chain link fence that does not secure it but prevents public access to right of way along the waterfront (photo sent to Weekly News). The derelict owner should pay a daily fine for this mess and be required to carry appropriate insurance for the hazard of collapse and injury to victims. I am a near neighbor to the property. Sincerely, Breta Malcolm La Conner...
Republican readers may be sitting back and ordering Christmas sweaters featuring newborns sitting on oil rigs ("Drill, baby, drill"), but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't remind everyone: If you're hoping that drilling for oil is sufficient to create low, stable energy prices and U.S. energy independence, your information about energy costs and alternatives is out of date. Even the reddest of red hat wearers has reasons to be in favor of more renewable energy development in the U.S. After...
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. — Henry Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” 1848 We – the American people – had an election on Nov. 5 and our democracy worked. That is, our system of voting – which started in most states weeks earlier and which in some states the final counts will not be finished for another week or two – brought out over 155 million people to express their opinion. This year, this election, Donald Trump collected the most votes as well as a smashing victory in the Electoral College. Trump met the needs of 77-plus...
Last week’s editorial was wrong in stating that “Kamala Harris will win the national popular count.” The editor assumed more than 156 million people – the 2020 presidential turnout – would vote. Instead, when another 4 million California ballots are counted, the 2024 turnout will be just over 152 million – almost 5 million fewer voters than in 2020. The editor’s analysis is that Harris’s popular vote victory evaporated because 5 million people stayed home. The editor regrets not knowing that fact when he finished his editorial on Nov. 4....
My fellow mammal mates, the Earth has been struck with the equivalent of the comet that took out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Yet life did not give up. The Earth has suffered many extinctions (five major ones). We are now living in the sixth extinction referred to as the Anthropocene. In geological history, 99 percent of everything that has lived has been wiped out. The tree of life is not a towering, lofty oak tree or redwood. The tree of life is a crust that has been beaten and burned and stumped on. Yet life goes on. Some think...
Most of what I write in this space is about innovations in electric generation and storage, because that’s where the biggest market changes are happening. Innovations that will increase the use of renewable energy are also happening for liquid and gas fuels. Renewable liquid and gas fuels are derived from “biomass,” which is exactly what it sounds like: biologically derived matter. Plant materials (agricultural wastes, waste paper, purpose-grown crops) and animal-related waste materials can a...
