Musings – on the editor’s mind

This is a once upon a time story set in our place, right here. There is not a palace but a property, and a historic La Conner couple, Donna and Gerald Blades, are at the heart of it.

The Blades owned an Exxon gas station on Morris and Fourth streets, where the Slider Cafe is now, and the property behind it when those lots were zoned residential. In 1986 they must have worked arduously, lobbying the town council to rezone the three lots facing Center Street, then spelled Centre – a staff sign painting misspelling, I heard – for commercial use.

The evidence of the Blades’ efforts were unearthed after resident Linda Talman’s March public records request for 1980s documents. Staff found an unrecorded contract rezone agreement between the Town and the Blades that was reported on last week. Also in the files were 27 letters, primarily from residents in the neighborhood, and seven pages of petitions bearing over 100 signatures.

That support for the Blades is very impressive, making me think that the Blades must have gone door to door and stood, petitions in hand, on street corners, taking their case throughout the neighborhood and community to flood the council with an overwhelming show of support and gain the zoning change.

Fast forward – or maybe watch the gradual passage of time – 35 years later, over a generation, and the winds – and neighbors and their sentiments – have undergone a sea change shift. When Brandon and Kate Atkinson requested a conditional use permit for a three story, 21 unit apartment building after buying the property last year, town residents, again primarily adjacent to the property, flooded Town Hall with some 15 letters. At the March 31 public hearing six people, as parties of record, spoke against granting the permit.

However organized this year’s uprising against the building permit might have been, it pales in comparison to the effort that brought the 1986 zoning change.

The community has changed significantly in the long generation since the Blades ownership. So have their attitudes and views of the town.

Families have grown old in their homes or new families have moved in. Automotive services have left town. For years, if not decades, the Morris Street storefronts were underutilized. Behind that building, the multi-bay wooden garage deteriorated. A garage, it was one-story high, of scale for that property and the homes on the blocks across from it. Rows of trees grew to chiefly block it from view.

And, along with all the facts and history, is this recognition from the Blades themselves. The agreement they created to gain the zoning change contained this:

“The parties agree that owners’ property which is the subject of this Contract Rezone, is not presently located within the Historical Preservation District, but Owner agrees to be bound by the same application and review process which applies to property located within the Historical Preservation District as if the above described property were located within the Historical Preservation District.

Owner understands that any breach, violation or failure to comply with this condition shall cause the property in question to revert back to the underlying zone in effect prior to this rezone, namely residential.

Owner agrees and understands that the City Attorney of the Town shall be authorized to take any action deemed necessary to enforce this agreement.”

The last section:

“Owner agrees and hereby authorizes Town to record the original or a copy of this agreement with the Skagit county Auditor so that this agreement will become a matter of public notice to subsequent purchasers and shall become an encumbrance upon the land.”

So here we are, from once upon a time to the present time.