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It’s international Co-op month. Here in the United States and around the world people are recognizing cooperatives as humane economic engines in their communities. Co-ops mean, fundamentally, “I belong.” To their members, co-ops mean “I matter” and “I count.” Co-ops are owned by their members, whether it is the fairly small Anacortes Food Co-op or the gargantuan Boeing Employees Credit Union, BECU. Everyone in a co-op belongs because each person made the choice to join. Everyone matters because co-op members own equal shares of the business....
We are halfway through Banned Books Week. If you haven’t seen the display or spoken with Joy Neal at the library and have not been to Seaport Books and have been hesitant to bring the topic up with the kids at the dinner table, here is an opening: at dinner tonight say the Weekly News once again raised the flag for freedom of speech. If Constitution Day, September 17th, wasn’t discussed either, do that, too. Our First Amendment – ours, as in the Constitution is the national religion that does bind us all together – is our fea...
Diaper Need is defined as the lack of a sufficient supply of diapers to keep a baby clean, dry and healthy. Diaper Need, a consequence of poverty, is not well known or understood. However, the National Diaper Bank Network, the foremost national authority on Diaper Need, is continuously seeking to paint a clearer picture, including the difficult barriers and tradeoffs families in need face daily. Unless someone has a child or grandchildren, they may not know diapers are expensive: Diapers cost 80-100 dollars a month per child. And, babies use a...
A friend gave me this magazine article: “The death of local news: The watchdogs of America’s local and state governments are disappearing. Can they be saved?” This Weekly News has stories on the latest town council and school board meetings in it. Under Sandy Stokes’ editorship, it won a statewide open government award for its lawsuit forcing Fire District 13 to turn over budget documents as public records. At least a couple of people every Wednesday strike up a conversation over articles and editorials they have read. It is good to know th...
OK old-timers. Here is the most inside of insider baseball. What’s the question to this answer: Curt Flood. Give up? Here’s the question: What pioneering, heroic, personally sacrificing-his-career sports star does Colin Kaepernick take after? I was crazy about sports as a kid and came of age as the 1970s emerged from the tumultuous decade of the 1960s. When I first followed sports, players wore narrow ties and said “Sir’ and “Ma’am” There was no irony and almost no nodding and winking when players, professional and college, were termed All Amer...
You can both imagine and make real this possibility: your influence deciding the shape of a new governing constitution for Skagit County. First you must pass the referendum calling to develop a charter. The 21 delegates, termed freeholders by the state’s19th century constitution, will then draft a charter framing a 21st century governance structure. We are much closer to the action than our 18th century ancestors were when our federal Constitution was created. Almost all of us would not have been eligible to vote. Today all of us have a v...
This is your last chance to see “Double Exposure: Edward S. Curtis, Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, Will Wilson.” The museum summary: “iconic early 20th-century photographs by photographer Edward S. Curtis alongside contemporary works – including photography, video, and installations – by Indigenous artists Marianne Nicolson, Tracy Rector, and Will Wilson. Their powerful portrayals of Native identity offer a compelling counter narrative to stereotypes present in Curtis’s images. Curtis is one of the most well-known photogr...
It’s another week requiring citizens reading this paper to do the heavy lifting of noting their neighbors’ activities while keeping their cool if they don’t agree with the direction or intent. Civic responsibility means staying in the community through reading about a position or policy being championed that you don’t agree with and might vehemently oppose. As events occur that go against some people’s hopes and beliefs, it is important to not turn away from those with whom we disagree. Those disagreeing with what is in the news, of whatever...
Is it just me, or is summer over without it ever getting hot? It certainly never got really hot or stayed hot for any long period. It never reached the degree of “I have no choice but to wear every Hawaiian shirt I have, day after day without end and that will provide some relief.” The overcast, with or without smoke, damped down temperatures. There was no rain to speak of, but the clouds seemed all too omnipresent. It was June gloom for sure, and the gloom never really left. There were fires in 2017 and a record summer drought. But I have neve...
Our neighbors in Canada have been good partners in the fight against climate change and efforts to keep our seas healthy. However, in May Canada took a major step backward. Our lands and waters share incredible bounty and beauty. Trekking across forests and mountains, exploring beaches in search of shellfish and fishing from clear waters are all part of our regional way of life and economy. This shared heritage is supported by Washington state’s efforts to act on climate, reduce toxics, protect our orcas, improve oil-transport safety and f...
Heading into this Labor Day weekend our entire community has been given a great gift by the teachers of the La Conner Education Association and, inadvertently, by the La Conner school district board of directors and administration. These teachers have shown through their actions the meanings of the phrases “solidarity forever” and the refrain “for the union makes us strong.” The 100 percent unity of teachers, the support of their spouses and children and the involvement of their neighbors and friends is heart warming and stirring. Sunday...
La Conner is 320 miles north of Harpswell, Maine. That is why the mixed hardwood-conifer forests there were so familiar to me. The 10 years I lived in Minnesota and when in Michigan during the 1980s, I walked in woods where the evergreens were Eastern white pine, northern white cedar and red juniper. While white pines could be towering, hardwoods dominated the forest: sugar maples, red and white oaks and beech. On the train going north from Boston, I thought: The hardwoods of the northeast. How much farther north is La Conner than Boston or...
In November, Skagit voters can shape county government for the future. As members of Home Rule Skagit, a non-partisan, local citizens group working to update county government, we strongly support the charter resolution. We also urge those who care about Skagit County to run as freeholders to draft our new county charter. Freeholders will be key to this process. Acting as delegates, elected freeholders will work together to design a county government serving the values, priorities and needs of county citizens. Our county government handles a...
We can be thankful for new school years and kids of every age who are beginning anew, whatever grade they are going into, and for the faculty and staff who welcome them with open arms. In the La Conner Schools insert in last week’s Weekly News, Superintendent Whitney Meissner wrote “The start of a school year is a great time to bring curiosity, kindness, hope and optimism forward. ... It’s a time to believe in ourselves and others and imagine the endless possibilities of what can be, what might be.” That is sentiment our leaders in every j...
My name is Christi Malcomson and I am a third-grade teacher here in La Conner. Many of you may not be aware that our La Conner teaching staff is entering a negotiation period for salary compensation for the next school year, 2018-2019. The Washington Supreme Court has ordered legislators to amply fund basic education including competitive salaries to keep and support our teachers. This legislation was further reinforced in April by allocating an additional $1 billion for teacher compensation. When our teaching staff learned there was an...
A teacher who works down from the hall from me in the La Conner school district recently said, “Honestly, I am invested, and I love what I do, but I am run down and exhausted. There aren’t enough hours in the day. I don’t know if I can continue teaching at La Conner, when I can go 15 miles to another school district and make at least five figures more than I am making now. (My colleague would make $12,000 more a year teaching in Stanwood.) I buy so many supplies for my students out of my own pocket. It simply isn’t fair to my own family....
Last week was the Pioneer Picnic honoring the Valley’s first European settlers. This weekend is Swinomish Days, a tribal celebration that gathers natives from states regionally. Three Swinomish canoe families are back from this year’s canoe journey, the “Pull to Puyalluip.” Some 110 canoe families, from as far away as Alaska and the Columbia River, participated. And, in late July, in the space of one day, an orca was born and died in the south Salish Sea. The orcas were here first. In our complex ecosystem, the three southern orca pods are the...
This was to be an editorial on the perils of plastic straws. A safe, small topic. Instead, there is a struggle to remember that there was a meeting of world leaders in Canada, then a NATO Summit, a visit to Great Britain and the critical meeting with Vladimir Putin. This is pushed aside by capital letter tweets meant to intimidate Iran – or divert attention from Justice Department probes into the 2016 presidential campaign. Now the new news is the president threatens to shut down the government if funding for a wall is not in the budget...
We are bombarded with news on television, on our phones, our laptops and tablets, our car radios and in newspapers. But with all the messaging coming at us, there is only one place for information that is most relevant to you, your family and your community. The most vital news source is right here at home in your local newspaper. La Conner has been the headquarters for a weekly newspaper for almost 150 years. In today’s 24-hour news cycle, it’s tough for traditional newspapers to stay in publication – La Conner Weekly News is one of the...
Suppose this newspaper stopped . . . Suppose this newspaper stopped . . ....
It’s that time of year: ballots are about to be in the mail, with voting this primary season starting July 20. Offices are contested from the U.S. Senate through county positions, though not all candidates face primary challenges. Contested primary election races for the greater La Conner area are: U.S. Senate, Second Congressional District, Legislative District 40: State Representative Position 1 and County Treasurer. These are the offices in which more than two candidates are running. The top two finishers will seek your vote again this f...
There is no better time than this Fourth of July week to reflect on where we stand as a country. Happy birthday to us. It is 242 years since 56 men meeting in Philadelphia debated, considered and agreed to a “Declaration of Independence.” The last clause of the last sentence above their signatures reads: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” That is how the Declaration ends, with a pledge to each ot...
Isn’t it great to have a longtime best friend who is sure of your worth? Some of us are doubly, triply blessed with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins who believe in us, who are glad we have their backs. I have one such friend: Dick Wittenberg. He will be thrilled to find his name here this week and I am lucky he gets to read the paper in La Conner. We have been friends for over 40 years, since 1974. I was 19 when we met. He was 27 and running for re-election for the Ohio House of Representatives We bonded and now it is 2018 and he i...
The La Conner community is positioning itself to shape its long-term future in two tremendous ways. Two weeks ago, over 250 people came together downtown under a white tent for the Museum of Northwest Art’s annual auction. Saturday, 145 even happier people, if possible, joined in Maple Hall, fundraising for the new library. MoNA needs a new roof and a heating and air conditioning system. The library will build a new building. These projects will shape La Conner’s physical and social infrastructure for decades to come. From toddler to eld...
Town Council’s action passing a plastic bag ban ordinance June 12 was forward thinking, leading all Skagit County communities. Representing the citizens of La Conner, council members took the initiative, a small but significant step to reduce plastic waste and lessen harm to marine life. It was a good night for community involvement. Two town residents spoke vigorously against the ban, concerned about burdens to the owner of Pioneer Market. Eight others, mostly from out of town, supported the ban. Mayor Ramon Hayes and all five members d...
