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Make housing a Jensen priority The population of La Conner is aged and aging. In-migration or family formation by families of low and moderate incomes hasn’t been the case for a decade or more. There is little to no housing available for young families who would like to live here and send their children to La Conner schools. This has led to frequent calls for “affordable” housing. The prior mayor and town council had a promising opportunity to turn those calls into action when it purchased (and immediately sold) two-thirds of the Maple Avenue b...
About that cute little 0.53-acre plot known as the “Jensen Parcel?” As a resident of Channel Cove for a couple of years, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, from my permaculturalist perspective. How many wants and wishes could be achieved if the parcel could be creatively developed. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the Jensen family makes an enticing offering of the challenged property for the town. It’s not big enough for a ball field, it’s very low and wet, just ask Maggie, for she lives next to it and wrote last week of her thoughts...
We live at the bottom of Snapdragon hill, one of those beautiful, quiet islands of wildlife in town, that made La Conner’s charm. It was covered in summer with wildflowers, people would come pick blackberries, deer liked to climb up the hill, there were rabbits and once I saw a family of raccoons feasting on berries. You could hike to the top. I once had a picnic there. When I saw the contractors break and deface part of the hill or when they sprayed the hill across the street from us to kill the vegetation, I was horrified. They did, after h...
On Dec. 27, 2022, a predicted 11-foot tide in La Conner Channel was met with low atmospheric pressure, high river flow and a western wind. As a result the channel rose to over 14 feet and spilled over along lower places on the eastern bank, flooding parts of town and causing more than $1 million damage before receding. The mayor and town council created an Emergency Management Commission to deal with any future floods or other natural disasters. The sandbags that have recently been removed were placed by our incredible town public works...
To the editor: Thank you so much for the effort to get the newspaper out earlier to those of us in the 98273 ZIP code area of the school district. Much appreciated! Gale Fiege Pleasant Ridge...
To the editor: Thanks for running the article about zero-emission school buses (Weekly News, March 13, 2024). The bill would not have been possible except for the work of a broad coalition of Seattle climate and education activists, including Climate Action Families. The CAF website gives the history: “It started in 2013 to host the Washington chapter for Plant for the Planet. Our community trained over 600 youth in climate justice and participated in countless actions. Lessons learned brought us to developing this movement, knowing we must m...
To the editor: In all the parking discussions I have read and heard, enforcement seems to be ignored. I walk my dog daily through the South Third Street lot, which is theoretically pay parking, and have yet to see anyone checking for compliance. For most, it is free parking. So what is the loss if it is officially made free? And now on to First Street. In Friday Harbor there are time limits on parking and an enforcement person marks tires and writes tickets. Do tourists, non-locals, pay the fines? I doubt most do. Do those fines cover the cost...
To the editor: I would like to thank the Skagit Board of County Commissioners for placing an EMS levy renewal on the April 23, 2024, special election ballot to continue critical funding for emergency medical services in our community. Every second counts in an emergency, and the EMS levy renewal will ensure we have enough personnel, supplies, equipment, and ambulances to respond to calls, which have increased by 25% in the last four years. In 2023, Skagit County EMS provider agencies, like mine in the upper east county, responded to over...
To the editor: I have lived in Shelter Bay for 24 years this month. We have had good times and troubled times as spring mends from the winter. Our community is also on the mend. First, I want to thank all the volunteers and staff for their rugged, thankless work over the years. Today, I am watching the cleaning of blackberries from the greenbelt. I picture a few picnic tables under the trees. From my window, I can see the new playground equipment waiting to be installed. The tennis courts are alive with players, and more people are out and...
Dear Neighbors: First of all, it is not too late for you or for me to keep the ideas about parking flowing in. That is what they say at their meetings every week but it doesn’t always get out to the public. So opine on. I want the town to start with incremental changes rather than going whole hog into all the possible changes at once. I personally would want to start with the writing of an ordinance to limit parking to three or four hours at a time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Write it, do it. Watch and see the effect. Let the people who have a h...
Hooray for volunteers who made the La Conner Pet Parade a rousing success. What fun to see parade dogs meeting spectator dogs after the parade at Gilkey Square. B.J. Carol La Conner...
On Feb. 7, 16 year-old sophomore Nex Benedict went into the girls’ bathroom at the high school in Owasso, Oklahoma. An altercation occurred in the bathroom which ended in Nex receiving a serious head injury. Three students were involved in the altercation. The school did not call an ambulance nor did they report the incident to police. Nex had been consistently bullied since school started last fall because they identified as non-binary. This means that Nex considered themselves neither a boy nor a girl. Nex was just Nex. Family members took Ne...
Much concern has been raised regarding the former president’s attorneys’ attempts to delay, delay, delay his pending criminal trials. Some fear that unless the former president is convicted in a court of law prior to election day, the conduct alleged against him may not be considered by voters. As a retired prosecutor, I believe the law applies equally to all. Also, the due process clause of the Constitution accords every criminal defendant the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. As a conscientious cit...
Recognizing Zach Battle’s life I was shocked and saddened to read of the death of Zachery Battle in the Feb. 21 issue. I got to know Zach when I was fundraising for the new library several years back. We became friends. And he became a supporter of the library. Here’s what he said for one of our presentations: “This inviting and spacious facility, with up-to-date materials and technology, programs relevant to the needs of its users, and a trained and helpful staff will be a hub for innovation and will spur personal and business growth in our c...
The Oxford English dictionary defines progressivism as “advocacy of progress, reform, change or innovation.” I think all of us can agree that these efforts are vital to our society if it is to succeed as time and circumstance proceed and change. Sen. Muzall’s (“The problem with Progressivism,” Feb. 7, Weekly New) characterization of progressivism is in most part purposely crafted to obscure and demonize those citizens that are attempting to identify and correct the social problems facing our country today. Progressives don’t seek to cast off...
On Feb 13, 2024, the Skagit Valley Herald printed a story titled “Effects of the Boldt Decision Felt 50 Years Later,” showing the same bias Judge Boldt had to begin with in 1974. Article 5 of the 1855 Point Elliott Treaty had one sentence dealing with fishing rights for Indians. There are twenty-six words in that sentence. The Herald chose to print the first 13 words which states “Tribes reserved the right to fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations ... .” The last eight words the Herald wouldn’t print say, “... in common with all citi...
When we bought our home in La Conner in January of 2019, we were told that our block, the only block on Washington Street where there is no storm sewer, was in “Phase 2” of the project to provide storm drainage throughout the town. Shortly after we moved in, members of the town council told us that there was no money at present for such improvements. We were asked to be patient. Our lot periodically floods and such phenomena as atmospheric rivers leave behind a pond of 6-8 inches in depth, which can remain flooded for several weeks and whi...
Muzzall is wrong on progressivism As he stated last week in his legislative column, Sen Ron Muzzall (R-Oak Harbor) has a problem with progressivism. It appears he does not understand what progressivism is about and attempts to use it as a whipping boy for our state’s (and the nation’s) horrific problem with “behavioral health and substance abuse.” That reasoning is as flawed as the Republican Party’s suggestion that the Jan. 6 insurrectionist riot was instigated by the left with the cooperation of “the Feds.” Progressivism is the attempt to lev...
It occurred to me: If the Democratic Party is warning their membership not to vote for a specific candidate and the MAGA Republicans are pressuring other Republicans not to support that same individual, you likely have one of the most viable presidential candidates this country has seen in a very long time. Nikki Haley is the right person at the right time to unite this country around what really matters: We’re all Americans. And make no mistake, we will either rise or fall together. As a South Carolina lawmaker, highly popular governor and wit...
There is only one area of the North Fork of the Skagit River used by the tribes for gill netting. It is from Blake’s Resort downstream of the mouth. The tribes have found the river above Blake’s Resort to the forks is not conducive to netting because of the snags and underwater pilings driven in the 1920s and 1930s on both sides of the river for produce loading docks. When the Hatchery King season is open for king salmon above the Mount Vernon bridge for hook and line fishermen it should also be open for the North Fork from Blake’s Resor...
Looking to give your community a Valentine gift? Giving blood takes under ten minutes and truly saves lives. There is no substitute. Please donate on Feb. 23 at the La Conner High School gym. Please call me, 360-421-9233, or Lori Buher, 360-630-0809. Either of us would love to talk with you about the process and benefits and provide you details. Thanks, Dorothy Downes, RN MSW La Conner For more information: https://www.townoflaconner.org...
Thank you for your coverage of the closing of La Conner Drugs. Your writer exposed the real reason medications cost so much in the U.S. I would like to add one additional perspective. Having served on a hospital board and chaired a local clinical board, I value the pharmacist, a local pharmacist familiar with the maladies being faced by her community and her customer/patients. The risks of unanticipated drug interactions can be critical and sometimes lethal. Having a local pharmacist manage all your prescriptions is the best guardian against...
There will be a community presentation about a feasibility study for a grant to allow solar and the storage of energy at the Town’s Fire Hall and at the La Conner School District campus Saturday, Feb. 3 at 10 a.m. at the La Conner Swinomish Library. The presentation aims to explore solar and storage opportunities and how they can help build resilience and support community needs. The Town of La Conner Emergency Management Commission will share details on their work with emergency preparedness. I encourage you to attend. And if you haven’t alr...
Last week I visited Coupeville for lunch. While there, I decided to ask a bunch of business owners and workers what they thought of the angled parking on their First Street because there is talk about doing that here. I started on the parking side of the street. “I hate it,” they’d say. And they’d go on to list the problems that they perceived slanted parking caused. “The vehicle bumpers hang over the sidewalk”, they said – and there wasn’t enough room for strollers and wheelchairs; it’s ugly and parking backs up really fast” I crossed t...
Bravo for last week’s articles and letters regarding the pharmacy benefit managers and the unfortunate closure of La Conner Drug Store, which is such a tangible example of rural America being at the mercy of big money and corporate capitalism. I too had a small business in La Conner. Luckily it still prospers, but I remember fighting to get medical insurance companies to recognize a small independent physical therapy clinic. They kept telling me that they had enough service in Mt. Vernon and Anacortes. What happened to small individual capitali...
