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

Sometimes the only choice is the best choice.

Such was the case when Skagit County Fire District 13 voters went to the polls in November to choose a successor to J.J. Wilbur, whose candidacy for the La Conner School Board made him ineligible to run for his commissioner seat.

Bobbie Scopa was the lone person to file for the vacancy and so unopposed.

Turns out, the fire district would have been hard pressed to find a more qualified candidate.

Scopa is a retired firefighter who spent more than four decades working for several fire districts as well as the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of...