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August 19, 2019 La Conner teachers and support staff have the best interest of our students at heart, which is why we continue to firmly believe that our school district needs a new superintendent. Last week the La Conner School Board issued an open letter regarding the vote of no confidence against Superintendent Meissner. The leadership of the La Conner Education Association and Public School Employees unions were pleased to see the board accept responsibility for responding too slowly to this critical situation. However, we were...
Both sides in the La Conner School district turmoil agree that the administration has, at the least, not done a good job in their job of managing the staff or communicating clearly to them or to the community. Superintendent Whitney Meissner has acknowledged that she has not brought unity to the district and community. The school board realizes it took too long to respond to staff at summer’s start. The administration side hopes to repair the damage by commitments to empathy and relationship building. The unions, teachers and support staff, f...
It is 11 days since the massacre in El Paso and 10 days since the Dayton carnage, two preventable tragedies that have been on the minds of many. Some clarifying thoughts: First, this is not about guns. Guns are for hunting, self-protection and robbing banks. Weapons are for overthrowing governments and indiscriminate slaughter. Assault weapons are weapons of mass destruction. They are not guns. Second, this is about us, the 80 percent of the population comfortably under bell curves, the people who fit the 150 year old sentiment that “The only t...
August 8, 2019 Dear Members of the La Conner School District and Community: Finding the right words to communicate what is on my heart and mind is not easy, yet I feel the time is right to reach out and share a bit of my voice and my thoughts with you. It is truly my hope that this is the beginning of the conversation. As superintendent, one of my most important responsibilities is to bring unity to our district and community. It is clear this is an ongoing area needing focus and attention. The pain, frustration and confusion being felt by...
A school district that ended the 2018-2019 school year in dispute has not resolved its differences as the summer turns toward the next school year. The La Conner School District Board of Directors had their summer retreat last week. They invited the staff unions, the La Conner Education Association and the Public School Employees, to participate for a 90 minute session. That is good to hear. But the distance between staff and board over Superintendent Whitney Meissner’s tenure has not shrunk. The unions’ overwhelming June no confidence vot...
We all love to complain about petty bureaucrats and regulations. They are quite annoying sometimes. I have been on both sides of the counter on this issue. I can tell you that it is sometimes not easy or pleasant to enforce standards, code and regulations; or tell someone that they can’t do something that they had their heart set on. As Americans, we like to tout our freedoms and independence. However, many times what makes communities unique and desirable (or undesirable) are the standards by which a community lives. Sometimes these s...
I can’t buy in Channel Cove but WANT to. As a single senior of 77 years with limited income, and a home in Shelter Bay, I am selling because I can no longer maintain it physically or financially. I am one of many who falls through the cracks in society … Teaching art at Senior Centers and drawing Social Security puts me just above poverty line but not enough income for rentals or sales that are affordable. As a resident of La Conner for fourteen years, and a contributing citizen, teaching art, docent-ing and volunteering at MoNA, I would...
Two truths about agriculture: One: Farmers have always promoted their products and seek to expand their markets and Two: Farmers are always getting older, and also younger. Even in our “more is better” culture, the best thing is to add value by improving the worth of a crop. Sometimes worth can be increased by asserting the intrinsic value inherent in the harvest. The creators of Genuine Skagit Valley, the marketing program for agricultural products and related services originating in Skagit County, believe that to be the case. From asp...
La Conner teachers and support staff are focused on what’s best for our students, which is why we firmly believe that our school district needs a new superintendent. The La Conner School District staff have lost trust in its leader. We cannot achieve our highest result of excellence as an organization if we do not have a foundation of trust in our leadership. Superintendent Dr. Whitney Meissner is ineffective and cannot successfully lead our district when 80% of our community’s teachers and 79% of support staff have voted no confidence in her....
Rick Larsen loves the U.S. Constitution and he loves his country. He loves the Constitution so much and knows it so well that last Thursday he concluded the President, Donald Trump, has committed high crimes and misdemeanors deserving of impeachment. Our Second District congressional representative has a career-long reputation for being moderate and measured. Our congressional district is as much formed by military bases and farm country as it is by anti-Growler islanders, the university-influenced community in Bellingham or remnants of Magic...
If you were alive then, reflect back on July 20, 1969. Were you watching NASA’s, and our, moon landing? I was 14. My siblings and I were on the porch, our house’s TV room. My very smart older sister wanted to be an astronaut – while still in high school. She majored in physics and then earned a Ph.D. What a different world we lived in in 1969. Most adults could not have imagined – made up – that anyone would claim the moon landing was staged. Almost everyone, maybe even the libertarians and the communists, was in unison that l...
Who are the patriots and the heroes: the guys with guns and blue uniforms, more so in Washington, D.C. than Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, or Washington state’s skinny attorney general and the Citizens of Ebey Reserve who got Bob Ferguson’s attention and gained him as their ally? The right political cartoonist will draw Ferguson as David with his slingshot taking on the U.S. Navy, Goliath. Ferguson and COER filed lawsuits July 9 in federal court, halting at least temporarily the Navy’s plans to add 36 EA-18G Growler aircraft at the base....
I am concerned. To use the metaphor of a F/V (fishing vessel), our La Conner School District is currently running like a boat whose crew and Captain are misaligned, this of course quite dangerous on many levels. A no confidence vote with the goal to have the Captain leave the boat is extreme. A Captain that does not develop courage and leadership in its crew suffers from a dysfunctional environment. They all experience a loss in morale, and by virtue, income. Worse, they risk the potential sinking of the ship. I have listened to various entitie...
The Navy is again moving full steam ahead to expand operations in Puget Sound, and indeed, along the Pacific coast from Alaska to California. Its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement shows a disregard for the Sound’s Southern Resident Killer Whale populations, other marine wildlife and humans committed to the health of these animal populations. That disregard extends to the human population that interacts with the military. That disregard includes a lack of concern for current challenges to the Navy’s assessment of its operation on ani...
Numbers tell stories. Here are some that tell mine. Two favorites are 104 and 105. Two more are two and three. And then there are these combinations: 6/26, 6/30 and 7/1, 7/5, not fractions but dates. This issue of the Weekly News you hold in your hands is the 105th published since I bought the paper two years ago. Just like that, 104 issues are behind me – us – and I am starting my third year in La Conner. I drove into town with all I possess on June 26, 2017. At week’s end, June 30th, Sandy Stokes, Cindy Vest and I signed papers a...
The Kirsch property has come back on the agenda for the Mayor and Council. This property has been on and off the agenda for several years now. There are several issues that surround this property that lead to significant misunderstandings. Its role in public access has changed over the years. It is important for everyone (who cares about it) to be honest about the importance of that property in context to its ownership. Some background on its purchase: Town acquired the property in July of 2001 for $350,000. Originally, the Kirsch property was...
Wow, it is done: The $3.74 million dollars to build a new library in La Conner has been raised. By the end of 2021 a new library will gleam from 520 Morris Street, anchoring the east end of town for decades to come. This is a very good thing. It is also a momentous accomplishment for a library district with a population of some 4,800 people. We are the little community that could, and we did. We did it, but it got done by the persistent, quiet leadership of the Library Foundation director, Susan Macek. She created a plan and she followed it to...
A school board and a town council walked into a bar. They had the usual litany of concerns and hand wringing: underfunded, under resourced, underappreciated, not understood. “They come to our meetings and hammer us with their complaints,” the board started out. “Right,” agreed the council, looking into their beers. “They not only question but criticize our decisions. It’s as if they don’t know what we are doing. They just don’t get it,” they said, nodding to each other in knowing affirmation. “Questions and complaints. Complaints and ques...
I wanted to write something light, this being the first week of summer. Alas. Observers and participants agree that tempers are running high, some people are hurt, others are wounded and discord rifts the La Conner School District. If only the board of directors and administration’s biggest problem was 12 hours a day of way too loud drumming and horns from a marching band rental. To name the elephant in the room: the vast majority of school staff, teachers and support employees, want Superintendent Whitney Meissner gone. The La Conner Education...
It has rained all of three times this month, for almost an inch as measured at the WSU weather station on Memorial Highway. The days have been generally blue sky sunny. Two thirds of the way through June, total rainfall measures 55 percent of the 20-year monthly average. June gloom? The school district discord is worrisome, a difficultly. That has been the primary thing making June gloomy around here. On the weather front, the general attitude seems to be “great, summer started early.” What are frogs’ high five equivalents, when they are croaki...
Governing is hard. In the middle of governance are policy making and administration of that policy and direct responsibility for the executive staff of the organization, here the La Conner School District’s. For a school district’s board of directors, governing starts with a personal vision as well as endorsement of the district’s vision. Each director starts with an election – or an appointment until an election. School board directors represent the district’s residents, overseeing the school system for them. It is not a paying job, bu...
Just imagine yourself sitting on a bench in front of an old fire station with a bunch of older men and women reminiscing about the “old days” in the “department.” That’s about what it feels like to read Roy Horn’s new book, “The Story of the Men and Women of the Hope Island Fire Department 1958-2002.” This “stream of consciousness” telling of the history of the Hope Island Fire Department is particularly enjoyable for many of us who have served in the Department. I would specifically recommend it for those who live on the “west shore” as a h...
The Earth has made another full revolution around the sun. The first Thursday in June is again before us. La Conner’s high school seniors, school faculty and staff, parents, family and friends will come to campus for the 7 p.m. graduation ceremony. Excitement will be universal. The graduates will have a lot on their minds. Immediately that evening and this weekend there are parties, family gatherings, eating out. Graduates will certainly have peer-to-peer check ins and adventures, planned and unplanned. The gift of youth might be the g...
I was 12 in 1967 and 15 in 1970. I grew up watching the six o’clock news on a black and white TV. My family’s good TV then was a portable black and white, on a wheeled stand. It was in the room over the garage we called the porch: an exterior door led to it and the windows were opened by metal turn knobs. I barely knew what or where Africa was, but I watched people in Biafra fighting for their own country, a revolutionary war. I came into my teen years watching the Vietnam War unfold nightly on the news. I can’t remember if I saw the girl in fl...
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...
