Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 726 - 750 of 3028
The sands of time have shifted from the hourglass to poly bags that will soon be strategically placed along the La Conner waterfront ahead of king tide season. Facing an Oct. 1 deadline to install sandbags and ecology blocks in areas prone to flooding, the La Conner Town Council last week approved purchases of equipment and barriers designed to thwart the high-water damage that plagued the town last December. The council, acting upon recommendations of the Emergency Management Commission, gave Public Works Director Brian Lease the go-ahead at...
Contributions to local firefighting by retired Skagit County Fire District 13 Commissioner Larry Kibbee won’t soon – if ever – be forgotten. That is because Kibbee’s name will be associated with improvements at the district’s Snee-Oosh Road firehall. The district’s new firefighter and EMT residential units will be dedicated in honor of Kibbee’s service and showcased during a Sept. 13 public open house 12-2 p.m. at the Snee-Oosh station. “It will be a two-hour event,” district fire chief Wood Weiss said, and will include building tours, i...
Did you talk like a pirate Tuesday, the 26th annual International Talk like a Pirate Day? Arrr you ready for fall? It starts Friday, Sept. 22 at 11:50 p.m....
The La Conner Town Council will hold a special meeting 5 p.m. Sept. 26 to hear 2024 budget presentations on public works, code enforcement and fire department programs. Mayor Ramon Hayes called the meeting today, Friday, Sept. 22. The draft 2024 budget estimates almost $7 million in revenue and slightly over $8 million in expenditures. The 13 pages in the packet lists only these programs. The code enforcement request is $73,616, up about 20%, and the fire department budget is $242,487, up about 10%. The special meeting packet, and the regular...
As students return to Washington classrooms, state education officials are closely monitoring how three cash-strapped public school districts are spending money. La Conner, Marysville and Mount Baker districts, all located in Western Washington and part of Northwest Educational Service District 189, are in this position because they are beginning the school year without a balanced budget as the state requires. In August, each inked an agreement with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction requiring the districts to regularly file bud...
There's no doubt Marna Hanneman has the resume to be La Conner's next mayor. Having served nearly a decade on the La Conner Planning Commission, a key advisory panel focused on land use and historic preservation, Hanneman comes with relevant academic and professional credentials. She holds a degree in business administration from the University of Maryland and has enjoyed wide-ranging careers in marketing, property management and insurance. And not to be overlooked is her long managerial stint...
Shopping at Trader Joe's in Bellingham recently, I ran into two young men who I could tell from their wardrobe were ultra-Orthodox Jews. We chatted briefly and they told me that a rabbi from Brooklyn was headed this way to start a Chabad in Skagit County. A Chabad is a congregation organized by members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty that was founded in 1775 by Rabbi Shneur Zalman in Lithuania. Chabad is a worldwide Hasidic movement known for its outreach activities. It is a system...
MOUNT VERNON - Nicole Roozen is the new executive director of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, its board announced Sept. 11. Roozen joined the Tulip Festival staff at the end of August. "Nicole's resume and marketing expertise is impressive," said incoming Board President Rachael Woods. "What really impressed the committee was her growth mindset and passion for innovation. We've been fortunate to have steadfast leadership for 20 years, so the operations and workflow for the festival are dialed...
Short-term rentals have been the talk of the town. That isn’t going to change anytime soon. The community can participate at a 6 p.m. open house Oct. 17 at the La Conner Civic Garden Club. Encouraging input on revising short-term rentals regulations is the goal. The La Conner Planning Commission has been reviewing the issue this summer. “We want to hear from as many people as possible,” Assistant Planner Ajah Eills told the Weekly News Friday. “The Town is totally neutral on this.” Short-term rentals are permitted in La Conner’s commercial...
In Leavenworth, the owner must be present. Spokane separates them into two types. San Jaun County only allows 693 for their population of 18,662. Clyde Hill requires a business license, but no other permitting. Poulsbo states that an ADU cannot be used for it, but has no other regulations. Westport disallows more than one on a single parcel. What could result in such different standards and regulations around Washington state? Short-term rentals, typically defined as rentals of a residential unit for less than 30 days. Requirements for short-te...
The $60,820 in August sales tax revenue reported to the Town of La Conner from the state’s Department of Revenue is the third highest June total ever, though down $9,563 from 2022 and $1,900 from 2021. The $399,898 total year to date is 65.6% of the forecasted revenue, almost matching projections. The special use fire tax total of $6,064, as always, tracked sales tax totals and was also almost 10% below the same month last year. People are still staying overnight in La Conner. The $19,848 collected in hotel motel tax revenue set another m...
It's hard to take a photo of a fast-moving salmon – even when you are surrounded by them. They splash. They skitter. They hit your kayak and soak your shirt. One second they are a tiny ripple in the water and the next they speed past your camera, while you snap pictures of empty water. On Sunday morning at low tide, 10 of us welcomed chinook salmon back to the Samish River with the Skagit River Poetry Foundation. Our agenda: drift among the salmon, talk about salmon habitat and lifecycles, r...
Among its many devotees, the annual Pioneer Picnic in La Conner is always a winner. Especially by the staff and volunteers at the Skagit County Historical Museum. This year was no exception as proceeds from the annual picnic in August allowed the La Conner Civic Garden Club and Skagit County Pioneer Association to contribute a total of $4,000 to the museum last week. The joint contribution by the organizations to the museum was approved during the association’s board meeting at the Skagit City School Building on Fir Island Friday afternoon. T...
In the “Agritourism stakeholders” story Aug. 30, it was Mikala Staples Hughes of Hughes Family Farm who said, “Farmers lose operational hours to individual requests by neighbors to not spray when they are home, or they choose to skip an area of a field when digging spuds because the dust could ruin the neighbor’s barbeque,” she said. “Or maybe they have to skip a pole with a big gun when they’re irrigating because vendors are setting up chairs at the neighboring wedding venue. These challenges are paired with the already complicated n...
A measure to dissolve the Columbia County Rural Library District in southeastern Washington has been temporarily blocked from the Nov. 7 ballot. Superior Court Judge Julie Karl ruled Sept. 6 that the proposition that would shut down the county’s only library is invalid. The temporary restraining order she issued will block the measure from the ballot and prevent officials from printing ballots for 14 days. The clock is ticking. According to the county auditor, the first ballots are supposed to be mailed to military and overseas voters Sept. 2...
Despite perfect late summer weather, thoughts of potential natural disasters – earthquakes, tsunamis, wildland fires and more – were on the minds of those visiting John K. Bob Ball Park on Swinomish Reservation Saturday afternoon. Emergency management staff and volunteers from throughout the region shared information and provided take-home items for use during major disaster events. The four-hour Swinomish Disaster Preparedness Fair, coordinated by the tribal emergency management dep...
Twelve carvers, 12 sponsors, 12 prizes and 12 carvings from 24 cans of Spam . Way too much information to get into this space. Briefly, the winners are, “not written in any kind of order.” Everyone got a Spam T shirt. Better than the Seattle carving contest Spam Dunk: Peregrine O’Gormley, “Roasted Pig.” Weird and Wonderful: “Playing with Fire (your brain on Tom Robbins).” Pearl Spam: Mandy Turner, “Hot Trash: Spam jewelry displayed on Spam.” YOWZER: Chris Theis, “Stacked geometric sculpture.” Spam for the Masses: Pieter VanZanden: “Tom Robbi...
A master storyteller, La Conner author Tom Robbins lent his name to another well-received work here Saturday. Only this time he did so not with his pen, but with his mere presence. And it had everything to do with fun rather than work. That's because a large crowd – many dressed as characters from his best-selling novels – descended on town for a festive, sun-splashed afternoon celebrating the La Conner wordsmith's decades-long mastery of wit, wisdom and eclectic thought. The timing cou...
Hard work and perseverance paid dividends for La Conner Schools ahead of the Labor Day weekend. District officials learned Friday that their application for a 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant to support the Braves Club after-school program has been approved. Past proposals had not been selected. The award recommends funding of up to $450,000 annually for five years, for a total of $2.5 million, a district news release states. A final funding level decision is expected in mid-September. “After three years of applying,” school board p...
The almost quarter inch of rain Sunday, like the 0.43 inch of rain that fell Aug. 29-30, with. 0.4 inches the 29th and 0.03 the 30th, may end Skagit County’s summer burn ban but is not alleviating the region’s drought. The 0.5 inch August rainfall total was 0.7 inches below the century’s average of 1.2 inches, making it the eighth driest since 2000 and one of 14 with less than an inch of precipitation. August rainfall was 0.7 inches below the century average of 1.2 inches, 57.8%. Seven of the driest years have been since 2014. Last year only...
Skagit County's Farmland Legacy Program has finalized two farmland preservation projects this August, permanently protecting another 60 acres of farmland from development. The La Conner farmland is managed by two families – the Rings and the Lillquists – each of whom are descendants of Isaac Dunlap who served as Skagit County's first County Commissioner in 1889. Together, all 60 acres are leased to Thulen Farms. Landowner Karl Lillquist, along with his nieces, nephews and uncle, John Ring, exp...
The median price of the 126 homes that closed in Skagit County in July was $545,000, slightly down in the five months since March. Anacortes home prices continue to influence values county wide. The median sold home price in that market was down considerably from June and July 2022, over $100,000 and $150,000 respectively. Nine of the 10 homes sold in the La Conner market were in Shelter Bay or on the Fidalgo peninsula. Homes are generally selling at or within 10% of the list price, either...
Unsafe levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins have prompted the Washington Department of Health to close all beaches in Skagit County to recreational harvesting of all species of shellfish. This includes clams, geoduck, oysters, mussels, scallops and other invertebrates such as the moon snail. Crab meat is not affected, but “crab butter” and crab entrails can harbor biotoxins and should be discarded during PSP advisories. PSP and other naturally occurring biotoxins are not destroyed by cooking or freezing. Algae that contain the tox...
Four members of the U.S. House of Representatives visited the Port of Skagit Aug. 8 to learn more about Skagit Regional Airport and projects supported by federal grant dollars. Representative Rick Larsen (D-Everett) coordinated the visit, which included four members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and several staff. Rep. Larsen, as ranking member of the committee, was joined by Committee Chairman Sam Graves of Missouri, Rep. Julia Brownley and Rep. Mark Desaulnier, both of California. The visit to Skagit Regional Airpor...
Emergency preparedness is serious stuff. One need only look at this summer’s headlines, from accounts of wildland fires on Maui to hurricane activity in Florida. Bracing for the “big one” or getting ready to deal with tsunamis doesn’t have to be entirely grim. A case in point is the disaster preparedness fair Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at John K. Bob Ball Park on Swinomish Reservation. The Sept. 9 event will blend emergency training and demonstrations with food, raffles and giveaways. In addition, Fire District 13, which serves Swinomish and rur...