Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 733 - 757 of 881
Who remembers this picture? October 1983. The cold war was churning with Ronald Reagan at the helm, but Mikhail Gorbachev was not yet on the scene. I had returned from the Peace Corps a decade before, but the international spirit was still alive in me. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States were high, threatening mutual nuclear annihilation. I was a new mother with a two-year-old and pregnant with a second child. I didn’t want to see my babies grow up in a world saturated w...
In the old days I would have gotten telephone calls, but in our modern age I received texts that Dixie Otis had passed. The news is everything that happens, isn’t it? Beginnings, endings, life, death, the pulse of the community, the good, the bad, the sad. Technology changes but the need to share and connect is a constant in humanity. The tools we use to stitch ourselves to each other are different from our parents’, but the need to be woven together is the same. The evening before, Saturday, the line to Santa was still long at 6 p.m., though t...
Dear valued longtime readers and new subscribers: Thank you for wanting to have the La Conner Weekly News come to your home. Thank you for supporting this newspaper, your community newspaper. Subscribers, new and old, thank you. The last two weeks have been quite a surprise and even a bit amazing at the newspaper office. The Saturday after the paper provided envelopes, 20 subscriptions were in the paper’s mailbox. The next Tuesday the combined total was 50. New subscriptions, and renewals, keep arriving in response to the paper’s three-week out...
Last weekend was more than full in La Conner: Friday the girls basketball teams were home against Anacortes, the Library was shaking the branches of its tiny trees raising money for the new building and a roomful of locals landed in the social hall of the Methodist Church to discuss the “plane truths” of the coming 36 Growler jets expansion at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Saturday was even fuller, starting with La Conner Rotary’s Santa Breakfast of pancakes and photos and ending with Santa getting help from the town’s kids to light t...
Many La Conner School District voters and most of its students live in homes on land that the district does not tax. We were told the so-called Great Wolf Lodge decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2013 is why more than 930 homes, mostly in Shelter Bay, were removed from the county tax rolls in 2015. That decision applied to Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Reservation vs. Thurston County. In that case, the tribe is the majority owner of the Great Wolf Lodge buildings that sit on its land. In 2008 Chehalis sued Thurston...
Naval Air Station Whidbey came into existence during World War II, and in the seventy years since, local communities have partnered with the U.S. Navy to protect our national security. Naval personnel, active and retired, have always been welcomed here for their contributions to the region’s civic and economic life. The Navy’s role as a good neighbor has come to an end, however, as more and more people become, in military terms, “collateral damage.” Since the Navy’s introduction of the F-18 Growler, these jets roar overhead day and night, ma...
Being a high functioning, participating citizen is so much work. Damn democracy. And yet, we are too far along in history to put up with kings; anyone hankering for the authoritarianism of fascism is certainly in the wrong century. So, it is participate or perish. Most local: 2019 Town budget Town Council is weeks away, as in two, from passing the 2019 Town budget. No one appeared for the Nov. 13 public hearing at that Town Council meeting. Dan O’Donnell was the lone voice at the accompanying hearing on budget sources and property tax r...
Someone called the office Friday asking if anyone was reporting on a Mastiff dog running loose. No, we weren’t aware. Did the caller want to place a classified? That’s typical at your local newspaper. Covering big dogs running loose, offering classifieds for lost and found and being considered a resource in the community. In all kinds of ways the newspaper is a community resource. Does the La Conner Yacht Club or the La Conner Firefighters Association make a donation or give a scholarship? They call ahead and there’s a photo in the Weekl...
It is my belief the intention behind Thanksgiving Day goes well beyond the mere “thank you” or “thanks for the grub” that can be said in a passing moment. The meaning of the day becomes the memories we share and the gratitude we express for each other, whether we are with immediate family, friends or family found in community. Here is a story to share what I mean. It is Thanksgiving Day. We are sitting down to dinner. There is much chatter and shuffling of plates as we pass around the dishes of our feast. Before I hand the bread basket to my d...
The theme this week: “Paradise Lost.” The waves consuming parts of California have the character of fire. They are still out of control and totally destructive. Did Joni Mitchell’s song come to mind: “Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got / Till it’s gone / They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot”? Paradise, California has been leveled. People of every belief and value have been equally affected. Dozens are dead. After such a fire, one can see for miles and miles. There is certainly clarity. There is also utter...
Plastic straws are hollow and rigid and objects move through them. They are also a lot safer topic to write about than guns. This editorial on plastic straws is way overdue. It was conceived following the Town Council banning plastic bags in July. Then other seemingly more urgent topics took precedent. The elections are over, but gun murders continue. In the month since three people were murdered in Las Vegas on Oct. 14, there have been four mass shooting where at least three people were killed. The 11 deaths at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synago...
Last week the rains returned. Rain, blessed rain. When was the last time there was standing water in farm fields and the sloughs were full? April. It’s been five months of dry. More rain fell in the Skagit Valley last week, as October ended and November began, than the rest of October: Three inches in eight days. There has never before been three inches in three consecutive months between April’s start and September’s end. And to hear the rain, as much wind as water, passing through the trees, nature making herself known, no subtlety, roari...
Last Saturday folks gathered in Maple Hall in 1960s attire to celebrate the Skagit County Historical Museum’s 50th anniversary. Equally important, they were making donations to ensure that children not yet born appreciate its centennial. Likewise, the Kiwanis’ Chowder on the Channel was raising funds in support of La Conner children’s school needs, gathering people of all ages in the middle school earlier on Saturday. Still below the radar screen is the school district levy campaign. The district will soon be explaining why it is impor...
The good news: your voting this month, or next, helps power Washington to near a top 10 rank of electoral participation in the country. We are 12th, below Virginia and Florida. Good but not great. Turn your neighbors out to help us do better La Conner is consistently a top Skagit County precinct in Skagit County. Yea for our corner of the world. The difficult news: We all face hard choices. If your slate is all the best candidates and all the initiatives turn out the way you want them to, consider that you will wake up Wednesday with your...
Every year, we have a public Halloween festival – where kids parade through town in their outfits and go from shopfront to shopfront to get their candy loot. Sure, some families keep sweets at home in case anyone shows up in the evening, but trick-or-treating isn’t really a custom here. Newcomers are baffled by this. A lot of old-time residents just accept it as one of La Conner’s many quirks. Why do we have a public party instead of trick-or-treating? Only a few know the true origin story. Here it is: My grandfather and his friends got...
Forty La Conner area residents came out Thursday night to Maple Hall to hear 13 people explain why they want to be Freeholders, or delegates, to shape a charter for Skagit County, creating a modern governance structure. Seven will go to work, part of the 21-person team created if the electorate passes Proposition 1. Everyone who attended needs to be congratulated. These readers of the Weekly News take seriously the responsibility of participating in our democratic society. Forty people! Thirteen candidates! Discussing the direction of the...
What if they gave a candidates forum and nobody came? Or if too few came and Maple Hall echoed with the sounds of silence? The election of Freeholders is up to you. Voting is the easy part, a mere checking of names, filling in of boxes. The hard part is determining why one candidate and not another gets your vote. The challenge is to consider – indeed develop – a vision for Skagit County and articulate it, or struggle with its shape, and discuss your hopes and dreams for a future that is guaranteed to look very different from the pr...
The election has passed. More than excited, partisan or a color, I am troubled. This is a critically important election and certainly a referendum on President Trump and the Republican Party. But whether the results are decisive for one party, giving legislative mandates, or whether we wake up November 7th with more of the same divided government, post voting, where will the nation stand as “We the People?” The only color I can see in the new year is the color of “knot,” of rancor, of dissatisfaction, unhappiness and mistrust. The only certain...
I would ask our esteemed editor a couple of questions on I-1639 that he apparently wants everyone to support passage of. Have you read and fully understand the initiative? It is about 30 pages of often incoherent legalese baloney. I am guessing you are not a gun owner judging by previous comments on Second Amendment issues. Before one can opine with any credibility on such matters one should have some idea of what he speaks, am guessing you don’t. Do you know what an assault weapon is? A true assault weapon is one that has fully automatic c...
The La Conner Weekly News has organized a forum of District 1 Freeholder candidates for Oct. 18 in Maple Hall. The county ballot measure, Proposition 1, asks you to approve the election of freeholders, or delegates, for the purpose of developing a Skagit County Charter. Voters might pass this. Separately, voters are picking 21 freeholders in the three county commissioner districts. Seven will be from District 1, Commissioner Ron Wesen’s district. Confused? Asleep? Not to be bothered? Be careful: If you and your fellow voters approve the f...
Sometimes you have to face the truth. Sometimes reality is really real. Sometimes the evidence is indisputable. As Thoreau wrote, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.” Sometimes rants and screeds are necessary. The Supreme Court has never been nonpartisan and seldom on the side of the common person. There’s why it is called supreme. It is the court of final appeal to save the hides of the ruling class. The Court did that in 1857 when it ruled that Dred Scott would be returned to slavery. In 1881...
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...
