Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 881
I’m addicted to my hot tub, especially on wintry days. I’m thrilled that I live on the left edge of the continent with a great view of the islands and even a glimpse of the Olympic Peninsula. Being an overactive person, these are particularly trying times for me. Often, as soon as I sit down, it occurs to me that there is something I forgot to do and I jump right up. To keep this from happening in the hot tub, I invented a little game in which I locate a small particle floating in the water. I l...
Santa Claus. What adult is not complicit at some time in holding on to the magic and, in a sense, the central falsehood of our secular celebrating of Santa Claus? The most repeatedly published editorial in history is the 1897 New York Sun’s “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” The Sun’s editorial writer speaks for parents and romantics everywhere, across all time zones and ages, exclaiming “No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will c...
I am writing because I think there may have been an error in the telling of the Rainbow Park clear-cut. In the story “Shelter Bay must pay $92,513; loses Rainbow Park clearcut appeal” (Dec. 8 Weekly News), you wrote: “Everyone in Shelter Bay had been kept informed over the last year by the board of this clear-cut case.” I do not think this is correct. There are a few who heard about what happened and attended some meetings this past year in regards to this fiasco, but I know that most of my neighbors know absolutely nothing about it, what ha...
In the first paragraph of the article titled “Tracking Rainbow Park clearcut event history” (Weekly News, Dec. 15) this statement is incorrect: “The Shelter Bay Town Hall group is considering lawsuits and recalling board members.” While some may be considering such actions, it is not the Facebook Shelter Bay Town Hall group that is doing so. I began the Town Hall group so I know the intent of the group. I assure everyone concerned that the intent is not to pursue lawsuits or to recall board members or to do anything that is biased or preferenti...
As a long time neighbor of Rainbow Park, I would like to take a moment to thank Steve Swigert for his ability to get things done. It has been years since proper maintenance was administered to the little channel-side facility and its time was due. My parents purchased neighboring lots in 1969 (the same year I was born) and had completed their vision of a home five years later. As a child of theirs I frequented the park regularly and over the years I saw the little scrubby pines grow to be big scrubby dead and dying pines. They were a nice...
There was a grand convergence in last week’s edition: Reporting on the Swinomish Planning Commission upholding the Tribal planning department's $92,513 fine against the Shelter Bay board of directors and resident Steve Swigert meshed with the Weekly News annual subscription drive delivering the paper to every address in the La Conner school district. That includes some 900 homes in Shelter Bay. Credit the Shelter Bay Community's staff for sending its members an email with the planning commission's decision and order. Everyone could read the 1...
Dear Folks of La Conner, So, the rains came … and then they came some more, it even came through the door! Floodwaters submerged the not-too-distant town of Sumas, and it could have easily happened here, and it might yet! Just because the Mount Vernon floodwall worked to protect a one-mile section of town, doesn’t mean the levee is secure. This warmish wet weather has delivered more rain in November, than any November ever. The river has been at or above flood stage for at least half the days of the month. Water has been slowly s...
Every time I drive down Maple Street these days past what used to be the little league ball field, see all that heavy equipment tearing up the soil and try to envision a bunch of tacky little houses jammed in there, it turns my stomach. Yes, I know this is beating a dead horse, that the train has left the station and won't be returning, but it doesn't alter my feelings. I have no history there other than years of observation; no children of my own or that I knew ever played ball there; but the property was always an asset to the community as...
In the face of challenges like the pandemic, climate change and racism, large numbers of Americans are reporting symptoms of anxiety, depression and exhaustion. Things certainly feel bad, but focusing on doom-and-gloom stories often crowds out the more positive ones. For instance, poverty has been drastically reduced thanks to the generous provisions of the American Rescue Plan. The passage of the Infrastructure and Jobs Act has paved the way for the country to begin repairing its crumbling roadways, bridges and transit systems. And the...
Just a couple more details to add to the well written article (Dec. 8, Weekly News) regarding the Swinomish Planning Commission’s Decision ordering that Shelter Bay be fined over the 2020 clearcutting at the community’s Rainbow Park below 95 Samish Place. In July 2020 Mr. Swigert applied to the Shelter Bay Greenbelt Committee for a permit for “view restoration” on his property and a separate permit for “Greenbelt maintenance” of common land adjacent. In a letter dated Aug. 18, 2020, the Greenbelt Committee denied Mr. Swigert’s application f...
As a recent Shelter Bay lessee I was not present for the physical portion of the Rainbow Park debacle including Labor Day 2020 and into the following week. Watching and participating in dialogue along with review of the available documents over these past months allowed me to form and voice a firm stance on the position the board of Shelter Bay (SB) embarked on. SB has internal bylaws, covenants, rules and the standing committees to enforce them. Many of these controls and procedures were not exercised, and remedies are further muddied by the b...
How different La Conner and the western Skagit Valley is because a community newspaper is delivered to about 1,000 readers weekly. Stop, really, and consider how rare that is, how special and important at the end of 2021. You have your local weekly newspaper in your hands. Do you know how many people in Skagit County or the 39 counties in the state of Washington can say that? A lot fewer than could in 2020 or 2015 or 2010 or the year 2000. The La Conner Weekly News is a rare bird because hundreds of newspapers have gone out of business the...
I want to pay homage to your entire working community (of journalists), to tell you that the Pope cares about you, follows you, esteems you and considers you precious. Journalism does not come about by choosing a profession, but by embarking on a mission, a little like a doctor, who studies and works so that the evil in the world may be healed. Your mission is to explain the world, to make it less obscure, to make those who live in it less afraid of it and look at others with greater awareness, and also with more confidence. It is not an easy...
A wonderful thing happened to our neighbor and the Weekly News proofreader, Eileen Engelstad, last week, though she did not realize it until after the fact. She had to skip her Nov. 30 work shift, called to superior court in Mount Vernon for jury duty. Oh my god. How much fun is that? How stuck was she? Read her column on the right side of the page and find out how much she learned about citizenship and democracy and how we are all in this together. Yes, the people you are in the grocery store with might be your fellow jurors or judging you if...
Like many others, last month I received a summons for jury duty. Since it was the beginning of the holiday season, with upcoming events and obligations that are important to me, I did not want to have an uninvited intrusion in my life. My immediate reaction was to plead for a release from jury duty. In fact, when I returned the initial papers I “mentioned” my advanced age, 77, in hopes they would deem me unfit. Much to my chagrin, I received another letter from Skagit County Superior Court, this time welcoming me into service, thanking me for b...
The rest of the story Recently the town posted a green announcement on the property on Center Street in the back of Sliders – raising alarms in town – because of the scope of the oversized proposal and the shoddiness of the application. Since then many letters have been written – ten of them posted on the town website through Dec. x. The deadline for the letters was Dec. 1 but that doesn’t matter. After the deadline, the mayor called four of the citizens who wrote letters. He told one that she didn’t need to send her let...
The La Conner Weekly News is being delivered to every home in the La Conner school district for its annual subscription drive. Dear subscribers, the newspaper you need and trust is being shared this month with your neighbors and friends. The Weekly News will be improved as more people read it, serving its function of informing and knitting the community together. That has been the functions of newspapers in La Conner since the Puget Sound Mail started publishing here in 1879. The Weekly News is not a direct descendant of that paper but it...
The talk of the town is the proposed development in back of the old gas station (in back of Sliders) on Center Street. To set the record straight, we in the neighborhood welcome the addition to the rental housing inventory. But we don’t welcome a gigantic building that will kill the neighborhood. The proposal is three stories, the bottom level of which is short term lodging. There is tons wrong with the proposal, but this letter will not address those failings. This is letter is about vision – or the lack thereof. When the town was lookin...
It is a strange business with an odd purpose, newspaper publishing. It is a business and earns its profits by selling the interest and purchasing power of its readers to advertisers. It attracts its readers with the news of the day, but that is more than just the facts that pop up in town. Reporting does start with, for example, news of water line breaks, whether on Channel Drive or Reservation Road. But that is the start of the story, both for staff and what appears on the page. Journalism occurs when the editor and staff analyze underlying...
Regarding the proposed building construction at 306 or 310 Center Street, La Conner. Reasonable development is not only unavoidable, it is desirable. Housing is necessary and should be affordable and available in safe communities with good schools, infrastructure and other amenities. The location in question is a very appropriate location for housing for many reasons but the scale and scope of this project, as proposed, is ill-conceived. To place 20 housing units into a space appropriate in a residential area for four houses seems speculative a...
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. How can we be thankful together, as families, as communities, as a nation? Thanksgiving, along with July 4th, is the foundational American holiday. It 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 for the help they have given to us. We are thankful,...
I finally had the courage to go to my synagogue in Bellingham last week and there were only nine of us actually there in person plus Rabbi Josh Samuels and Cantor Andrea Shupak. Others were attending via Zoom but it didn’t seem like a big turnout. We know that COVID-19 will have a big place in our history books because it has affected people’s lives in so many ways, short and long term, from losing loved ones to starting to new careers. I reached out to the contributors to the monthly Our Faith...
My thoughts about law enforcement in La Conner: • The sheriff is a town “vendor.” If any vendor has complaints regarding provision of contracted services, it makes little sense granting the vendor a longer, five-year contract which, except for commitment to walk First Street twice weekly, is essentially the same. Logic dictates finding an alternative vendor or re-thinking the contract entirely. • Current/ proposed contract provides 80 hours weekly patrolling Zone 1 and “guaranteeing” a ten minute response. • During 2020-20...
Before Tom Hanks rode through post-Civil War Texas on his rescue mission bringing the 10-years old Johanna to her grandparents south of San Antonio in the film “News of the World,” there was Paulette Jiles’ 2016 novel. Her protagonist, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, was older than the century, having been born in 1798. He had first seen war in 1812 and lived through it again in 1846 in Mexico. Kidd was old, 72, and thoughtful and wise, not merely because he had experienced war three times, but because he was a printer in an era when every lette...
The Weekly News’ Nov. 10 editorial assessed the Town as having “Truly a new council.” That was true even before we knew who would take over the vacant seat. First, I’d like to thank John Leaver and Bill Stokes for all the time they spent doing our business. Moving on, I anticipate good things that will come from the deliberations, decisions and foresight of Mary Lee Chamberlain, Mary Wohleb, Annie Taylor, Ivan Carlson and Rick Dole. Each, I believe, has the inclination to be in close contact with the community. And the community has the respons...
