Covert operation illuminates bridge

It was pretty dangerous, probably even a little illegal, but the result of a clandestine effort was brilliant: La Conner’s Rainbow Bridge has lights again for the first time in a decade.

Mayor Ramon Hayes and the Town Council have been trying to figure out a way to get the bridge lit up for more than a year. At the last meeting, Town Councilman Bill Bruch gave an update: A contractor could bring a boom truck and string lights on the bridge with special clamps for under $50,000.

But two local men side-stepped all the bureaucrats and beat that price by about $49,850. They used tennis shoes and bungee cords.

La Conner Weekly News is not going to point fingers, but when this newspaper wanted sources to explain how to string Christmas lights on a big bridge without a boom truck or any official sanctions, Don Scott and Peter Hubl were on the short list of experts.

And while Mayor Hayes had nothing to do with the guerilla lighting maneuver, “I’m just pleased as punch to see the bridge lit,” he said.

Did he have any prior knowledge that this would occur?

Well, kinda. But not officially.

Don Scott, who used to climb up on the bridge and string lights until his doctor told him to knock it off about 10 years ago, turned up at a Town Council meeting a few months ago to tell the town policy makers that they were over-thinking the whole operation.

Hayes said that for the last six months or so, Scott kept threatening to get up there again and just get it done.

“Don you’re 78 years old. There’s no way we can let you do that,” Hayes always proclaimed in his most official and stern mayoral voice.

And now, even though the Mayor likes what he sees, “I can’t condone and couldn’t authorize the manner in which they were lit,” he said.

Peter Hubl, who would plead the Fifth, says that in his expert opinion, walking on top of the bridge would be about as scary as walking on the bridge’s narrow sidewalk with cars whizzing by.

Someone who looks a lot like Hubl was actually seen on top of the bridge apparently testing that theory a couple of times last week. And someone who looks like he could be Don Scott’s movie stunt double was seen in that general vicinity, too.

Anyhow, the lovely twinkle of lights across the arch of La Conner’s iconic bridge at night has returned.

And according to the experts contacted for this story, the engineering design is the same one used in the mid-1990s — Christmas lights strung along the top secured by bungee cords.