Susan Macek: 2019's unsung hero

While the top, if not currently hot, story of 2019 is the still real turmoil in La Conner Schools, the quiet story this past year, indeed the past two years, and more, is the steady march from quest to accomplishment of funding the building of a new La Conner Regional Library.

Our library, like all libraries, is as much a foundation of the community as our school district. Libraries are as much a fundamental building block of our local democracy as is the weekly newspaper. The world might be at your fingertips with your phone in your other hand, but your library is there for all of us, educating and informing our kids and our elders.

Think about it: 2018 opened with our library requesting $500,000 from the state legislature. That successful campaign still left a gap of over $2 million for a project totaling $3.7 million. And the legislature put a date cap of June 30, 2019 to start spending their appropriation.

Susan Macek, the director of the La Conner Library Foundation, was undaunted and undeterred. By this past July she, with the able assistance of her board, especially new Chair Jim Airy, and Town of La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes, got the remaining monies committed.

It was a Herculean task. And while Hayes fulfilled his elected task of leading our community into the future, it was Macek who made the improbable an accomplishment in our small corner of the world. Consider: there are some 4,000 people in the school, and library, district. Our local economy is similarly puny. There are not many corporate pockets to shake a lot of money from.

Macek engaged our district legislators, town staff, the county and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. They all bought in to the tune of almost two million dollars.

For her quiet, determined, diligent and successful efforts, Susan Macek is the Weekly News unsung hero of 2019.

While keeping her eye on the large dollar funders, Macek maintained relationships and kept small, local dollar donations flowing. From the Festivals of Tiny Trees, through the Novel Affairs, the Library Giving Days, and more, she kept the community informed and involved. Small donations kept coming, and the library Foundation properly proclaims that local contributions made over $1.2 million of the building project’s total budget.

For that the Friends of the Library and the La Conner Kiwanis Club deserve praise and credit. They are making mortgage payments, and much more, on the Morris Street property the new library will occupy.

For her quiet, steady and hugely successful stewarding the library to getting built in a mere 18 months from the 2018 request to the legislature, Susan Macek deserves every citizen’s thanks and praise.

She deserves much more than the high five you will give her when you next see her. – Ken Stern