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Here we go again. Skagit Public Health reopened its test site at the county fairgrounds on Monday. The hours are 5-8 p.m. Monday-Friday. Free antigen tests, with results in 15 minutes, and free vaccinations are offered. Julie de Losada, emergency preparedness and response manager for Skagit County Public Health, said the ratio was 20 to 1 of people getting tests to vaccinations. One line of cars inched along to the staff inside the F barn at the fairgrounds at 6 p.m.. The wait was probably over...
While Town of La Conner leaders say they listen to their constituents, it has been hard for the opposite to happen – the public hearing town council – for those logging into hybrid meetings this summer. Due to technology-related glitches, action taken during recent in-person council sessions at Maple Hall has been largely inaudible to persons attending on-line, leaving Mayor Ramon Hayes and Town Administrator Scott Thomas to troubleshoot sources of the problem. “We’re trying to find the cause,” Hayes told the Weekly News on Thurs...
Town of La Conner Councilmember Jacques Brunisholz’s resignation from town council was read at the start of the Aug. 24 meeting by Town Administrator Scott Thomas. The four term official had emailed his decision to Mayor Ramon Hayes the week before. Neither Brunisholz nor Hayes were present. Brunisholz later declined to comment, stating “My letter of resignation says it all.” Brunisholz expressed a desire to travel with his wife in his letter, his “regret (at) having to take this abrupt decision” and that he believed “the present town leadershi...
All of a sudden the political season is upon us, with the signs of three La Conner council candidates on lawns around town. Voters will decide in November whether to continue with or replace three council members. The pairings are Ivan Carlson versus John Leaver, Rick Dole against Bill Stokes and Glen Johnson facing MaryLee Chamberlain. Well before the election, hopefully, council will pick a town resident to replace Jacque Brunisholz, who announced his retirement Aug. 24 after 12 years on council. Brunisholz leaves just as his colleagues are s...
I am stunned by the unvaccinated “freedom lovers” who jeopardize the health and life of others, filling our hospitals with COVID-19 patients and demanding superhuman care-giving from our dedicated exhausted healthcare workers. Hospitals are forced to prioritize COVID-19 patients above those who have waited for necessary but elective surgeries because if COVID-19 is left unchecked it is a larger threat to the world. New variants are free to mutate and reproduce in these unprotected people. Does “freedom” really extend to life threatening endange...
Dear Mr. Stern: You fit the bill: another also-ran of the liberal media. To wit: your editorial on August 25. Everything Democrat is good, everything Republican is evil. You have yet to acknowledge any gains Republicans have made, nor have you acknowledged any failures of the Democrats. Read: extremely biased. So what do you say about the following comments by Dr. James Dobson? I firmly believe he is spot on. “The Left has now achieved ultimate power in the White House, in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Consequently there w...
We are supporting Ivan Carlson for the La Conner town council position 2. We have known Ivan all of his life. He and Tawsha are raising their family here in La Conner. Ivan has deep roots in La Conner. He is the fourth generation in his family to volunteer for La Conner Hook and Ladder. His son is the fourth generation of the Carlson family to attend La Conner schools. Ivan cares about the well-being of this town. He understands the importance of keeping our youth healthy and creating available housing for our young families. Ivan knows how...
One person can make a difference and everyone should try.” – John F. Kennedy Two years ago my youngest granddaughter was standing on the side of a pontoon boat as it neared the dock. Waves caused the boat to bounce and she fell over the side, disappearing as the boat closed over her and banged hard against the wooden dock. As she was wearing a life jacket and had had beginning swim lessons at the YMCA she knew to kick and head upwards. She came up under the rocking, darkened boat. Within seconds my daughter, her mother, jumped in, swam u...
After a seven-year battle with multiple health issues, Robert Lee Strickert, 77, surrounded by loving family and friends, passed peacefully at his residence on Friday, August 27, 2021, in Anacortes. Bob was born on March 31, 1944, in Anacortes, the son of George and Alyce (Omundson) Strickert. He was a man who measured his life not by the number of breaths he took, but by the moments that took his breath away. Viewing and Visitation will be held at Evans Funeral Chapel in Anacortes, on Friday,...
The Skagit County commissioners will hold a public hearing on adopting a sales and use tax for affordable housing and homeless services 3:30 p.m. Sept. 9. The 0.1% tax will $1 on a $1,000 purchase. Mount Vernon became the first city in the county to approve this tax Aug. 25, giving them control over its revenue. Burlington and Sedro-Woolley are considering it so their governments can control the funding. If the county acts ahead of municipalities, the commissioners allocate the revenue. The commissioners plan to vote this fall. Anacortes...
La Conner teachers welcome students back to class today, a return to full-time in-person instruction for the first time since March 2020. But planning for the Sept. 1 back to school date has been weeks in the making, including a series of summer budget workshops and hearings capped by passage in late July of a balanced $14 million general fund budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year. The school district anticipates $14,070,000 in revenues and expenditures of $14,022,000 during the ’21-’w22 year. The budget was approved during a July 26 hybrid sch...
The countdown is on for the start of school, meaning numbers are now much on the minds of La Conner students, teachers and administrators. That’s especially the case as the La Conner School District begins developing a new math curriculum during the 2021-22 academic year, Superintendent Will Nelson told board members at their nearly two-hour hybrid meeting Aug. 23. His confirmation of the district’s emphasis on math squared nicely with the school panel’s emerging road map for short-term and long-range district goals. “I’d love to see a focus on...
There was a time, in the late 1980s, when famed actor Danny DeVito and a production crew scouted La Conner as a setting for the dark comedy film “War of the Roses,” an eventual Golden Globe nominee for Best Motion Picture. Alas, the Hollywood suits chose Coupeville – often a high school sports rival of La Conner – for the film shoot. But fast forward more than three decades to last weekend and the sweltering San Joaquin Valley city of McFarland, California, which did land a mov...
Like La Conner, the remote town of Skagway, Alaska, depends on tourists. Unlike La Conner, those tourists come on cruise ships – descending in May and vanishing in September, leaving just 1,200 residents to soldier on until spring. After one too many Skagway winters, Jim Thompson and partner Lisa Sentle pulled up stakes for La Conner last summer. The business they brought with them, Kirmse’s Antiques, they reopened at 501 S. 1st St., evoking southeast Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush. Nam...
Calling the La Conner High School girls’ soccer team a work in progress is a compliment Lady Braves players and head coach Christian Warman accept with pride. That’s because the retooled roster has taken a blue-collar, hard-working approach to preseason workouts. And the result, according to Warman, is steady progress made leading up to the team’s Sept. 16 conference opener at Coupeville. “Preseason practices have been going fantastic,” Warman told the Weekly News Tuesday. “Our captains worked very hard in the off-season to keep this team t...
Jacques Brunisholz once completed a demanding 500-mile hike on the famed Pacific Crest Trail. Years before he trekked across much of the globe, including a stop in Afghanistan nearly a half century ago. But given his passion for public service it likely was harder for him to step away from the La Conner Town Council last week. Still, the retired La Conner High School foreign language and art teacher hardly broke stride in choosing to resign his long-held council seat, a tenure begun about 2008, during the town’s famed flap over the status of a...
OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Agriculture eradicated the first Asian giant hornet nest of the year on August 25. The nest was in the base of a dead alder tree in rural Whatcom County, east of Blaine, about two miles from the nest that WSDA eradicated last October and about one-quarter mile from where a resident reported a live sighting of an Asian giant hornet on August 11. The site was about one-quarter mile from the Canadian border. WSDA staff began Wednesday’s e...
Monday, August 23 1:39 p.m.: Patrolling works – Deputies patrolling the area of Pioneer Park located a male with an outstanding arrest warrant. The subject was taken into custody for the warrant. S. 4th St., Pioneer Park. La Conner. Tuesday, August 24 9:29 a.m.: Fake phone call – Report a fraudulent phone call. Channel Dr., Greater La Conner. 1:35 p.m.: No sleeping zone – Report of a male sleeping on private property. Deputies contacted the male who agreed to move along after refusing assistance from deputies. La Conner...
If there is anything amiss, it is that our local vegetable stands are only open during the growing seasons. I should love to stop into a small local market to select the freshest of ingredients. We have driven around the valley to buy winter crops from the back of a wagon. Organic foods are favored. In our area we can now purchase locally milled flours, fresh cheeses, breads, meats and eggs. In the ideal situation, we can create our daily menus from each of these. We can also plant fruit...
