Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 683 - 707 of 881
At this time of year, we remember and honor our war dead, especially those who have died in vain on various far flung shores. Our military personnel have been in too many battles in too many places over too many decades of our country’s history. The dead need to be remembered. All who have been in service to this country need to be remembered. Some of our bravest and most patriotic citizens have dedicated their lives to this country by insisting on saying no and incessantly asking why. They, too, are patriots serving the nation. The early 2...
Maybe the hardest thing for elected officials to hear is that they are wrong. That is especially difficult to take when strong, passionate criticisms are made at council meetings by long time neighbors and friends. Who would enjoy that? Our council members and mayor go into office to improve their community. They spend long hours in that effort. They make decisions for the long term benefit of the town. They don’t get thanked enough. Sometimes the best, most correct, decision is reached the wrong way. And great decisions might not be known f...
I would like to invite anyone with the energy and smarts to file for local offices in La Conner. I would do it, but I am too old. The County Auditor is taking applications until 4:30 p.m. Friday. There is a $36 filing fee. We have two council positions open, those of Jacques Brunisholz and Mary Wohleb. The mayor’s position is also open. Here are some issues that have been overlooked but need some attention. Maybe one of them interests you. Taxes. I believe that, when a county taxing district disappears, the taxes that it used to collect should...
To Our Respected Shelter Bay Customers: The Town of La Conner is pleased to announce that the installation of the Town’s Phase 1 water main replacement project, which extends from Young Road to Mclean Road, has been successfully completed. The size of the line was determined by our engineer and will supply sufficient quantities of water to meet the needs of the Town and Shelter Bay. Phase 2 of the water main replacement, extending from Mclean Road to the La Conner roundabout, is not anticipated to be necessary for approximately 10 years. P...
Skagit County did not yet exist when the first issue of The Bellingham Bay Mail rolled of the presses in June 1873. The paper became the Puget Sound Mail after its 1878 move to La Conner. La Conner rightly claims the crown as the place where a newspaper has been published weekly for the longest continuous time in Washington. You might say the Weekly News is genuine. Newspapers are a Skagit County original – five years older than the county’s formation. This one proudly continues the Mail’s heritage. Now the La Conner Weekly News car...
The first tulips in Skagit Valley were grown commercially on a forty-acre farm on Samish Island about 1905. Bulbs were imported from Holland to improve this crop and the valley’s bulb industry flourished. Early farmers were critical of the bulb growers for putting the rich valley land to such trivial use when it was excellent for cabbage seed, oats, hay, hops and barley. The bulb industry soon proved its value as more bulb farmers settled in Skagit County. They were an industrious and quiet b...
One day an earthquake off the coast will trigger a huge tsunami that will reach into La Conner. Sometime in the next thousand years Mt. Baker will blow its top, sending a flow of lava perhaps 70 feet thick into the Skagit River, where it will makes its way to the sea. Someday, absolutely, those disasters will devastate us. Just as certainly, the effects of climate change on our environment dramatically change our lives. Do you feel adequately prepared? Are our community and state preparing? Equally close to home, in this, the best of all...
Are all windows and mirrors Rorschach tests? Is every stimulus each of us receives a look into our own soul? How is it that each of us see and hear the same thing, yet half of us conclude red while the other half insist on blue? For a long time I have thought of the Bible as a Rorschach test. Take my own sect, historically the Universalists. Back in the 1750s and forward they found in the Bible a God of Love that welcomed everyone, universally, into heaven. They insisted on that during a time when almost all of Christianity believed in...
Happy Earth Day week. Monday marked the 49th anniversary of Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was a primary force behind the April 22, 1970 celebration. And a celebration it was, back in the day of tie-dyed shirts, bell bottoms, crowns of daisies, torn jeans and pot smoking. Some things don’t change. While optimism was the order of that day, festivities took place under the shadow of an unpopular president (Nixon) and a divisive war (Vietnam). A long and unbroken harmony has not been my generation’s or my elders’ lot. Forty...
I am concerned with the future of our community, especially in regard to sea level rise. Given the science regarding climate change it seems likely that in as few as 100 years sea levels will have risen around 3 ft at a minimum and it is my understanding that those estimates are now considered to be conservative. This will result in a considerable challenge to keep not only La Conner from flooding, but the entirety of Skagit Valley. I remember a day in the mid 80’s when the barometric pressure was very low and tides were very high when I was t...
A primary theme at last week’s joint Town Council-Planning Commission meeting was housing – densifying, increasing the housing stock and getting more units on lots. The subtext in the discussion was affordable housing: how to get folks on grocery and school employee wages into some of those additional La Conner homes. Town master plans allow 1,200 housing units. That’s a three-fold increase from today’s 385 units. Left to the “market” the unbridled hand of capitalism, very few homes will be built for the wage workers among us. Mostly we w...
Your donations – our collective contributions – open the new library. Two years ago a new La Conner Regional Library was a gleam in the eyes of a few people. A year ago the state legislature provided $500,000, a bet that the total $3.74 million needed for construction would be raised by June 2019. It wasn’t, but now the state is about to double down, adding another $720,000 and extending the deadline for using the first appropriation. That’s a long way from gleam and dream. Local fundraising contributions have been critical, inc...
This letter is a response to the question many people are asking me: “Pastor, what’s going to happen to your Methodist Church?” Let me just say first: God is always ready for us to work for change, to invite diversity and look forward to new seasons in the life of the church. But I would like to offer a longer response about the future of the United Methodist Church during this Christian season of Lent and Easter. First of all, Lent allows Christians to take time to see what may be hidden and be ready for change. It’s a time in which the aim...
A park visitor Your Pioneer Park in La Conner on the hill overlooking the canal is beautiful. I live in Bellingham and I like to drive down and sit and read on the bluff above the water and enjoy the park and its trees. But then the call of nature disputes my reading and I walk to the bathrooms. I find them LOCKED. Over and over. Winter and spring. Sumer and fall. Morning and afternoon. Sometimes they are open but to no discernible pattern. The sign on the tree says Park open dawn to dusk. Really? I don’t think so! What’s so frustrating is tha...
Small town newspapers in rural America serve as a portal into the life and times of individuals who live in these communities. These newspapers are precious documents that celebrate the lives, activities, tragedies and relationships that these communities value. These papers also bring domestic and global news to residents and link these events to their own lives. The Puget Sound Mail was a key part in La Conner’s history and my great-grandfather was the owner, publisher and editor. Before cell phones, computers and satellite news, n...
Significant news headlined on the front page in three area newspapers March 13: “Navy will spend $887K on jet noise ‘mitigation’” – Anacortes American “Navy to fund historic preservation near NAS Whidbey” – Skagit Valley Herald “Navy declines following most preservation recommendations” – La Conner Weekly News The issue: The Navy’s response to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency. The Navy decided not to study, consult with other parties, measure noise levels or delay bringing 36 EA-18G Growler jets...
La Conner students attended their classes last Friday. That’s not news. Better had they made news by taking to the streets and demanding their elders make news by seriously acting on the dire condition our planet is in. Maybe next time La Conner students will be a part of pushing adults past talking to taking significant action on climate change. Students in 125 countries and 1,000 locations, including Bellingham, Friday Harbor and, of course, Seattle, did march last Friday. They are following the lead of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who has bee...
Far from the hustle and bustle of the big city, our La Conner seniors are finalizing their post-graduation plans. While acceptance letters and emails have been delivered, families still await confirmation of financial aid before they will be able to make final decisions. Ninety percent of our 39 graduates will continue into programs at tech schools, community colleges and universities. Jobs, apprenticeships and the military are choices for their classmates. Recent stories highlighting the extraordinary measures some parents go to in order to se...
During the summer of 2018 the world watched as a mother orca swam 1,000 miles with her dead calf draped across her back. For 17 long days we waited – helpless to stop her pain and worried about how long she could sustain her journey. People worldwide began to wonder if it was possible to die from a broken heart. It is eight months later, and I still cannot erase the images of Tahlequah’s “tour of grief” from my memory. This is not the reason our state should garner the international spotlight. In 1989, I lived through the Alaskan Exxon Va...
Finally, early Saturday afternoon the weather cracked: not a dramatic break to spring warmth but a glimmer that winter is releasing its unusually strong and prolonged grip on the Skagit Valley. This year snow was no brief treat but for a month a near weekly reality, making for great photos and stories, including perhaps the tragedy of the loss of this year’s daffodil crop. This was a record breaker that will be remembered by kids decades hence for the many Washington Street hill sledding days. Will non-farming adults have fond memories, too? I...
On Monday La Conner’s Rotary Club hosted their annual Farmers and Merchants night, providing dinner to these business owners and managers and a platform for area leaders to share accomplishments, hopes and plans for 2019. Last Wednesday mostly different speakers: Mayor Ramon Hayes, Town Administrator Scott Thomas, School Superintendent Whitney Meissner and Chamber Executive Director Heather Carter, spoke to 20 faithful citizens, most of them the usual suspects of community volunteers and activists, providing a similar summary. The Saturday b...
The story on the American Council on Historic Preservation’s letter to the Secretary of the Navy last week, reported as “urged to put on hold” plans to add 36 Growler Jets at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, brought a Council response for a correction, that the letter urged accepting and carrying out the Council’s recommendations but not a hold on the expansion. There is a clarification on this page today, but not a correction. Here is why: The editor’s responsibility, as it is citizens’ or any institution’s, is to think and not merely re...
One can be realistic and not realize his or her dream. Brett Smith, head of Propeller Airports, was praised to the skies for his leadership in bringing commercial air traffic to Everett’s Paine Field to fruition. What an accomplishment: major airlines flying 24 times daily to places people want to go. Jay Inslee is running for president. No other candidate is making climate change their primary issue. He has made it his campaign’s centerpiece. For years he has put cap and trade of carbon pollutants and green jobs before Washington’s citiz...
Our current public discussion on a variety of issues reveals a flaw in our nature. It’s not a new revelation. The flaw is that we are willing to benefit ourselves individually at the expense of others. While this is not new, it does have a new urgency. It is compounded by its reflection in our democracy. Philosophers, scientists, writers and politicians have been debating this for centuries. Unfortunately, the results of not attending to the “flaw” have come home to roost. All too often public discourse is a one-sided tirade. Public debat...
This is my response to Chairman Cladoosby’s and Superintendent Meissner’s “levy facts” statement in the Feb. 13 Weekly News. McCleary Fix: The Legislature increased the state property tax to “fully fund basic education”. It also capped the permissible levy tax rate and restricted levy monies to non-salary expenditures. Last August teachers in many school districts around the state, including La Conner, threatened to strike at the behest of their union, demanding substantial salary increases drawn on McCleary funding. Analysts and news editor...
