Articles written by sandy stokes
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Town moves to take over fire hall
The La Conner Town Council voted unanimously to cancel the town’s agreement with Fire District 13 and buy out its interest in the fire station on Chilberg Road near the roundabout. This move comes after Fire 13 in December announced plans to staff t...
Ballots in mail this week for school levy vote
The 3,691 voters in the La Conner School District are being asked again to approve a school levy — this time to raise $2.5 million over two years starting in 2018. At the same time, the state Legislature, which is under court-order to fully...
The cost of education in La Conner
As the La Conner School District prepares to again ask voters to approve a new two-year $2.5 million property tax levy, it commissioned a study to answer a question that keeps popping up: Why does La Conner spend more per student than many other dist...
La Conner ditches flood insurance fandango
For most La Conner property owners, flood insurance is a big deal – and it’s about to become an even bigger one. On Tuesday, after spending thousands of town dollars in staff time to comply with Federal Management Agency’s Community Rating Ser...
Big response to schools chief job opening
The headhunting firm hired by La Conner School District to find a permanent superintendent had sent out 52 applications to people interested in the job as of Monday. Mark Venn and Wayne Robertson of Northwest Lead-ership Associates told the school...
The proverbial "interesting times" of 2016
With 2016 in the past, new calendars pinned to kitchen walls, and a few business days into 2017, we’re looking back at a few of La Conner’s big stories of 2016, some of which will be impacting the new year as well. School funding woes In Feb...
Fire Hall occupation punted to Town Council
La Conner town representatives met Tuesday morning with representatives of Fire District 13, which has plans to staff the La Conner Fire Station with its own crew. The upshot of the conversation is that Fire 13 will spend about 30 minutes making a...
"Green" mandate for government vehicles
At the recent Fire District 13 Commissioners meeting, Fire Chief Roy Horn quipped to his board that he needs $5 million to replace all the districts fire trucks. While that was a joke, there really is an issue that all local agencies need to come up...
Town, Fire District 13 in tense talks over fire hall
The three-man Fire District 13 board of commissioners wants to staff the La Conner Fire Station near the roundabout on Chilberg Road. Meanwhile, the La Conner Volunteer Fire Department already has plans to man the station 24-hours a day with two...
School district to seek a new levy
The La Conner School Board on Monday approved a resolution to ask voters to levy $2.5 million in new taxes on the district’s property owners. If approved in a special election in February, the money would be collected over two years, in increments o...
Galleria plan moves forward
Hearing examiner Bill Nielsen delivered his findings to La Conner Town Hall at about 4 p.m. yesterday – he recommended approval of the state shoreline permits and approved the historic design review for Michael Girdner’s “Galleria” proje...
Swinomish reservation expansion plan draws county ire
Skagit County has objected to a request by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community to turn an Anacortes gas station into reservation land. Swinomish purchased the Shell gas station on Christianson Road in Anacortes for $1 million in May, according to c...
Swinomish angles for more jurisdiction
Skagit County Commissioners stepped into what appears to be a land dispute between two local Native American tribes and warned property owners that they could end up being annexed to the Swinomish Reservation. At the same time, the commissioners...
Fate of "Galleria" rests with hearing examiner
Bill Nielsen, La Conner’s Hearing Examiner, has a mountain of documents and hours of lawyer-speak and testimony to sift through. He has 10 working days – until the middle of December, to decide whether Michael Girdner’s plan to renovate and...
School construction lawsuit settled
After more than a year of contention and a lawsuit over the contractor’s workmanship in building the new La Conner Middle School, the issue has been settled. The school opened in September 2015, but the district did not accept the project as c...
Proposed development talk of the town
The La Conner Planning Commission met on Tuesday to review the historic design components of Michael Girdner’s plans to renovate and expand the old Lighthouse Inn building on First Street. Several of the project’s detractors were there ... and so...
Utility bills headed for high water mark
La Conner’s Town Council will be faced with an agonizing task in the near future: they must ask their constituents to pay more for utilities. Residents should brace themselves and perhaps start budgeting for a sticker shock that could hit with the A...
Fire district blocks withdrawal plan
The three Fire District 13 commissioners threw water on the hopes of residents who want to withdraw from the district. About 15 of the more than 100 residents of the north east corner of District 13 who want to join Fire District 2 instead attended...
Covert operation illuminates bridge
It was pretty dangerous, probably even a little illegal, but the result of a clandestine effort was brilliant: La Conner’s Rainbow Bridge has lights again for the first time in a decade. Mayor R...
Coyote cleans up in Wenatchee
La Conner Weekly News photographer and retired truck driver Don Coyote was named a contest winner six times at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association’s awards dinner in Wenatchee. After t...
Fire District 2 would take Channel Drive
The Fire District 2 board of commissioners agreed on Monday to draft a resolution to accept for annexation an area residents hope to detach from Fire District 13. Dave Buchan, Dennis Milliken and some of their neighbors on Channel Drive, which is nor...
Fire district withdrawal clears first hurdle
The Skagit County Auditor’s Office has certified the petition signed by more than 100 voters who want to withdraw from Fire District 13. That means the ball is in Fire District 13’s court — its...
Lawyers hold up Lighthouse project
Opponents of a developer’s proposed renovation and expansion of the old Lighthouse building on First Street scored a project delay with a lawyer’s challenge. La Conner Town Administrator John Doyle said the Planning Commission meeting that was to...
Tribe seeks to eliminate federal oversight
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s leadership wants to amend the tribe’s constitution so that its actions will no longer be subject to approval by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe has not responded to this newspaper’s reque...
Journalist Jim Smith on assignment in heaven
The scribe of La Conner has left the planet. Jim Smith, once the unofficial Wonder of Woonsocket, South Dakota, and more recently the witty author of “Notes from Pull & Be Damned” is gone. He would li...
