Community invitations

La Conner area residents are invited to engage this week and next with the two local institutions that define and make a difference in our lives. This is where citizens can have the most impact, making self-governing a reality.

Your participation is needed first Saturday in a Town community conversation for the development of a communication plan. La Conner’s Council seeks conversation with citizens to clearly define the priorities, strategies and tools the town will use to communicate with the community. Open communication facilitates progress on every issue, from flood prevention to increasing our housing stock.

Similarly, the school district will serve dinner to all who show up at 5 p.m. Jan. 25. You don’t have to have school age kids to meet teachers and staff and learn about the state of the district.

Three years ago some 600 students attended La Conner schools. Now enrollment is down to about 530. No one can magically make large – or even medium – numbers of school age kids appear. School districts across Washington face declining enrollments. One dynamic is three years of the coronavirus pandemic. Another is the dearth of starter home housing stock, both rentals and for purchase. Part of the reason the median age in the 98257 zip code is 54 years is the high cost of housing.

To move into the La Conner School District, parents with children need houses they can afford to rent or buy. That is a long term dilemma from every angle: school, town, parent, community, county, state and nation.

The path to the future – for individuals, business and institutions: all of us – goes through uncharted territory.

Governor Jay Inslee and the state legislature know that skilled workers are needed for good wage jobs. A drastic increase in the housing supply is needed in communities across the state for the vast majority of the population, working or retired.

There are houses, and then there are the planets on which they sit. That quirkiest of homebuilders, Henry Thoreau, asked “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

The environment is not totally out of our control, but mitigating the effects of climate change requires a global as well as statewide effort, will take decades to turn around and is more expensive than we can imagine or want to face

End of the year weather locally and weather in the new year in California are yet another one-two punch getting our attention. It is not that climate change is real, or here. It is the magnitude of our responses needed to prepare for all the present moments in front of us for the rest of our lives.

Residents might bring up flooding at Saturday’s session.

But whether it is weather, houses or keeping our corner of the planet tolerable and folks able to call this community home, your participation Saturday and next Wednesday will help both you and the institutions hosting you gather information, communicate better and, critically, advance the process of relationship building.

Go. Listen. Ask questions. Participate. Enjoy living the life of a citizen in the place you call home. The people who attend a dance are the ones who get to dance. You are invited. Show up. Dance. Enjoy being wanted. Your being there matters. Make a difference.

We are all in “this” – this community anchored by its school district and the Town of La Conner – together. Together we can make it more tolerable and more livable for more people.

Town Talk Time: Saturday, Jan. 21, 9-11 a.m., Retirement Inn.

La Conner School District Community Dinner: Jan. 25, 5 p.m., Elementary School gym.