Town officials, merchants address key business issues

It was a Chamber of Commerce kind of day both outside and inside Maple Hall on March 15.

A special 90-minute evening business forum there, coordinated by Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Heather Carter, capped a sunny near-spring day in La Conner.

The event served multiple purposes. It introduced new Town Administrator Scott Thomas to local merchants and business owners, allowed Mayor Ramon Hayes to outline future municipal budget goals and offered those attending to take part in a free-flowing question-and-answer session.

“I think it was very productive,” Carter said. “Because Scott is new, I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to get a chance to meet him in an after-hours type of event.”

Thomas spoke briefly, but listened at length.

“Our focus tonight,” said Thomas, who has been at Town Hall three months, “is on issues relevant to you or your businesses.”

Input was wide-ranging.

Much discussion addressed the desire to better promote and enhance Morris Street, with its mix of service and retail outlets – to see it evolve, as one forum attendee put it, into being “more than a driveway to First Street.”

In that regard, much praise was heaped on entrepreneur Ward Phillips for having taken the initiative to literally cast more light on Morris Street. He led a successful campaign to provide holiday season access lighting on more than a dozen Morris Street buildings.

There was much support voiced for morphing Morris Street, especially at the entrance to town, from driveway to gateway, another Phillips mission.

“There needs to be a continuity as we come into town,” said artist Janet Laurel, who spoke in favor of integrating art and floral landscaping reflective of La Conner and the Skagit Valley.

“We need to develop a welcoming feeling,” Laurel added, “as we enter the town.”

There were as many ideas proposed as people in attendance – which was three full rows of chairs in front of the Maple Hall stage by the time the meeting ended, some 40 people.

There were calls for more theme-based festivals, a M*A*S*H-type directional pole at North First and Morris, increased night-time lighting, application of bio-degradable oil on the gravel section of First Street south of Calico Cupboard, and more progressive remedies to La Conner’s proverbial downtown parking problems.

Thomas assumed an upbeat approach throughout, even on parking. He acknowledged

parking congestion prob-lems and the challenge of luring motorists to lots north and south of First Street, then quipped that the most troubling parking problem is when no one is here to park.

That isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

“We have a lot of resources in place,” said Thomas.

One of those is the popu-lar waterfront boardwalk, a project years in the making that required bi-partisan support from Olympia, and an example of what Hayes said is development of infrastructure that creates “an environment for us to be successful.”

The new Conner Water-front Park, with its unique salmon slide, was similarly cited.

Hayes, himself a business owner, pledged to be an advocate in the next state budget cycle for additional creative strategies – includ-ing items newly voiced– such as the Morris Street gateway concept and a Town-owned shuttle service from parking lots to downtown.

Hayes said he would prefer a shuttle to installation of pay meters as a parking issue solution.

“There has been some support over the years for parking meters because they bring in revenue,” Hayes acknowledged. “But I think they’re economy killers.”

Prior to exiting, Hayes offered praise for the various off-season festivals, the winter birding showcase becoming the most recent addition to the La Conner schedule.

“I felt it was very positive,” Carter said of the forum. “Anytime you can get people together like that you get valuable feedback.”