La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Tom and I were touched and grateful for everyone who participated in Tom Robbins Day. The event uplifted our community and reminded us to play, imagine and create. The costumes and parade participants were truly delightful. The day emphasized what a... Full story

Thank you for printing the Tom Robbins graduation address article. I graduated at about the same time and spent my formative years in the Skagit Valley. Although I experienced a traditional high school commencement speech, not a word of which I can... Full story

On Sept. 2 La Conner got our soul back. In honor of Tom Robbins our town came out to honor one of its own. The energy was electric, the costumes outrageous and the best part of the entire day was the sense of community. Truly that is a feeling that...

utheast of Lahaina on Maui with sticky-foot gekkoes and cockroaches for roommates and obnoxious rats as my nearest neighbors. As the embers cool and the tempers flair from the recent Maui wildfires, I can’t help admitting geologists are correct in c... Full story

It’s peak season for food here in La Conner. Let’s start with seafood, crab, oysters, prawns and I tasted some locally caught smoked salmon the other day, yum. La Conner is wonderfully positioned between the water and the farmland. There are so man... Full story

There is order in the establishment of frontier towns like La Conner. Religion usually precedes law enforcement and the saloon precedes either religion or law enforcement. Opportunity is the single lure of the frontier, though opportunity is not the... Full story

In mid-August Bob Raymond and I met with Rep. Clyde Shavers over coffee. Wow, what an impressive guy! He thinks five years ahead. Green hydrogen. Agritourism. Affordable housing. Financial education in our high schools. Investing in our rural... Full story

Fire Blanket saves lives Please share this with your readers! Several weeks ago, I nearly set my home on fire. I had a three-quart saucepan, with 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, on the gas stove, as part of a recipe in the making. I stepped away from... Full story

I’ve lived in La Conner and the surrounding area for 38 years and continue to be thrilled by all the wonderful organizations here that support gardening, farming, land conservation, the Sunrise Food Bank, Kiwanis, Rotary and Soroptimists, to name a...

I recently received an invitation from the Skagit County Republican Party to its annual Lincoln-Reagan gala. I've never voted for a Republican, but I do recall long political discussions with my father, a lifelong Republican,. We often disagreed on...

I was very sad to hear that the city council had voted to remove the salmon slide. The letter (Weekly News, June 7) mentioned that it was going to be removed because of the continued cost of maintenance. Having watched it closely for the past few...

What poisons have been unleashed in America? In Jewish mythology, a dybbuk is a malicious, possessing spirit, believed to be a dislocated soul. Pandora opened her jar (dubbed a box in the 16th century) out of curiosity, thus releasing all manner of e...

After reading in the Weekly News about the La Conner Town Council’s decision to destroy the fish slide in Conner Waterfront Park due to money issues and other things, I have some questions. As I’m involved, of course I have some thoughts. The onl...

No political party, no politician can heal the evident and destructive ills of our country. We, long ago, took God out of our schools, eliminated the Ten Commandments and crosses from public areas. Now in that void, evil has moved in. I have lived a...

Dear Editor: Your May 24 editorial (“The decisions we make,” Weekly News) suggests that concerns about sex-change interventions on minors arise from “madness and meanness” and “fear and hate,” spread by the “false prophets” of “a religion of limit...

Dear Editor, Thank you for your May 24 editorial “The decisions we make.” You describe well bigotry’s basis in fear and its manifestation in cowardice. You also point your readers to pay attention and speak up. I encourage the same. An Ameri...

It’s with great interest that I hear about the parcel of property being quasi-gifted to the town. I’ve looked at that property for a very long time. During the slough burp of Dec 27, it was pretty much covered in water. I’ve lived at Channel Cove,...

Part II following May 17 So where are we at the moment? The Shelter Bay board once again surprises no one with their majority vote to declare the recall petitions for the five executive officers are invalid. Rather than listening and adhering to the...

Shelter Bay, as an organization and entity, is both an anomaly and a conundrum. It attempts to operate functionally as both a corporation and a homeowner’s association, and the lines of authority and responsibility between them have become i...

For World Migratory Bird Day, May 13th, Skagit Audubon Society especially appreciated the leadership of U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, who is sponsoring a bill reauthorizing and bolstering the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act. As members of the...

I hope I am not alone in my wry reaction to the half-page ad in the May 3 La Conner Weekly News titled, “Opportunity For Positive Change in Shelter Bay.” Among the several issues mentioned was the need to practice transparency. The ad was sub...

The circumstances at our schools have me concerned, but that’s nothing new, I’ve seen these budgetary shortcomings coming for several years now. Maybe my farm was small and inconsequential, but it was a viable business for more than a quarter cen...

I was lucky enough to be a raindrop in the sea of gun reform in Washington state. My husband and I attended one of the later hearings on HB 1240, the assault weapons ban, as representatives of Safe and Sane Skagit, a charter member of The Alliance...