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Articles from the April 24, 2019 edition


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  • Increased housing density Town's focus

    Ken Stern|Apr 24, 2019

    The La Conner planning commission met with the Town Council as the last segment of Council’s April 9 meeting to discuss 2019 priorities, as they do annually. Initial topics were updates of the transportation element of the Town’s comprehensive plan, the critical areas ordinance and placing the park’s plan update as a comprehensive plan element. Councilmember Jacques Brunisholz asked about the dike. Planning Director Marianne Manville-Ailes responded that “concrete steps would go to the planning department” and not involve the planning...

  • Swinomish host egg-cellent Easter celebration

    Bill Reynolds|Apr 24, 2019

    Breakfast was served to one and all at the Swinomish Gym early Saturday morning. There was a wide-ranging menu other than one traditional morning favorite. No eggs. Those weren’t in the gym, but instead were to be found later at the play area in front of the Susan Edwards Wilbur Early Education Center. Local kids from toddlers to grade school students rushed from breakfast tables to the hunting grounds in search of prized eggs, said to have been left by the Easter Bunny well before daybreak. The...

  • Locals make world of difference on Earth Day

    Bill Reynolds|Apr 24, 2019

    Thinking globally and acting locally. That’s been the annual Earth Day game plan for a committed corps of La Conner area volunteers. Monday was no exception, despite it being a regular work day beset with gray skies and chilly wind gusts. Coordinated by Kelly Harper, the group met at Snee-Oosh around 5:30 p.m. to collect debris and trash littering the beach and surrounding neighborhood. The focus this year was on plastic and styrofoam, both of which are harmful to the marine life of Skagit Bay a...

  • Mold scrubbed from Town Hall

    Ken Stern|Apr 24, 2019

    It’s safe to go into Town Hall. The mold that had crept out of the vault of the former bank building and into the reception area was removed last Wednesday. Air and surface sample readings taken after the cleanup were normal, below ambient air tested outside the building, said Brian Lease, director of public works. The spreading mold closed Town Hall April 16-18. SERVPRO, an emergency restoration services company in Burlington providing mold remediation, did the cleanup. Scott Thomas, Town Administrator, said “they came in on Tuesday mor...

  • Artist Dee Doyle practices what she teaches

    Claire Swedberg|Apr 24, 2019

    Art is an ageless pursuit. La Conner artist Dee Doyle is not only painting, in what she calls her encore career, she’s teaching Skagit Valley locals from ages 50 to 100 to do the same. The Maryland transplant describes her painting – still lifes, abstracts and landscapes – as her fourth career, following many years dedicated to downtown revitalization, economic develop-ment and then real estate sales. She came to the Pacific Northwest in 2005. As a high school student she had hoped t...

  • Musings - on the editor's mind

    Ken Stern|Apr 24, 2019

    Are all windows and mirrors Rorschach tests? Is every stimulus each of us receives a look into our own soul? How is it that each of us see and hear the same thing, yet half of us conclude red while the other half insist on blue? For a long time I have thought of the Bible as a Rorschach test. Take my own sect, historically the Universalists. Back in the 1750s and forward they found in the Bible a God of Love that welcomed everyone, universally, into heaven. They insisted on that during a time when almost all of Christianity believed in...

  • Earth Day then, now and to come

    Ken Stern|Apr 24, 2019

    Happy Earth Day week. Monday marked the 49th anniversary of Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was a primary force behind the April 22, 1970 celebration. And a celebration it was, back in the day of tie-dyed shirts, bell bottoms, crowns of daisies, torn jeans and pot smoking. Some things don’t change. While optimism was the order of that day, festivities took place under the shadow of an unpopular president (Nixon) and a divisive war (Vietnam). A long and unbroken harmony has not been my generation’s or my elders’ lot. Forty...

  • Process for selling Kirsch property important

    Apr 24, 2019

    I agree with Linda Talman, Mary Lam and Bob Raymond. Public process has not been followed in this matter. In addition to Linda’s comments about lack of consultation with the Planning Commission, there was no consultation with the Parks Commission. Their minutes do not contain any reference to the sale of the Kirsch property. Let’s start all over, and give proper notice for a public hearing, as you stated at the last meeting. In the meantime, please place on hold the listing of the property with Dick Nord. You can do that, with Council approval,...