2024 Tulip Festival poster unveiled to council

It was only fitting that town officials would meet at the La Conner Civic Garden Club building for a report on the 2024 Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

The local floral extravaganza, which enjoys global popularity, was previewed by Nicole Roozen, the festival’s new executive director, as part of the town council’s March 26 public session.

The council met at the historic garden club venue instead of its regular meeting site at Maple Hall because of updates to its heating and air conditioning system.

Roozen, who bears an iconic name in the world of bulb growers, presented town leaders with the colorful 2024 Tulip Festival poster created by photographer Gary Brown, along with promotional brochures and maps. She noted that in her seven months on the job the festival’s website has been updated to include a Bloom Status feature.

“I’m pretty proud to represent an organization that’s been around for 41 years,” Roozen said of the festival. It follows the footsteps of the earlier La Conner Tulip Show that the La Conner Civic Garden Club sponsored.

“A big part of our mission is to spearhead a celebration of our spring blooms and advocate for agriculture,” Roozen said.

She said a key component of the festival is to highlight for the public the extensive planting process undertaken by bulb growers.

“There’s so much work that goes into building these gardens and cultivating the bulbs,” she said.

Roozen acknowledged the traffic snarls that accompany the tulip festival, which draws thousands of visitors to the La Conner flats and Skagit Valley each April.

“I completely get it on the traffic congestion,” she said. “I’ve felt it.”

But she hastened to balance that with the millions of dollars in revenue the festival brings to the area.

“Just realize the impact it has on our economy,” she said. “We have such a beautiful thing to share.”

Roozen said rural La Conner and the Skagit Valley, due to their vivid tulip fields, are now often referred to as “The Netherlands of the Northwest.”

Also like the Netherlands, La Conner is situated on the water. Two waterfront areas – the Jordan Street-end Park and S. First Street – received council approval last week for preliminary survey work by David Evans and Associates.

Town Administrator Scott Thomas described the Jordan Street survey as “a timely project” that will enable submission of its details to the state Department of Natural Resources, which oversees leased tidelands.

“I suggest that the Town of La Conner does not lease (the tideland) in front of the Jordan Street Park to a private citizen,” implored La Conner resident Chip Hall, who owns nearby property on N. First Street and addressed the council during the meeting’s public comments segment.

The council also agreed to a 3% cost hike in 2024 for law enforcement services provided by the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office.

“The 3 percent increase is quite frankly low,” Thomas said. “I was pretty pleased to see (just) a 3 percent increase.”

Mayor Marna Hanneman, alluding to a key piece of unfinished business, asked the council and audience members to help recruit a town resident to La Conner’s emergency management commission, which has been shorthanded with the recent retirement of former chair Bill Stokes and death of charter member Duane Carpenter.

“We’re trying to get the word out to get a fifth member on the commission,” Hanneman said. “This is a real important commission.”