Five years. Two-hundred-sixty issues. Today’s Weekly News is the 261st printed since I bought this newspaper in 2017. Thank you for reading your community newspaper.

This issue starts my sixth year as publisher and editor. Still, as I have written before, I own it, but it is your newspaper.

What have I learned, covering the community through good times and bad? I am biased as I view our most important institutions, binding greater La Conner together, as the La Conner School District, the Town of La Conner government, the La Conner Regional Library, and the two fire departments, La Conner’s and Fire District 13. Close behind are the Swinomish tribe and the Shelter Bay community.

And then there is the Weekly News, this odd entity, the only business sector named in the Constitution, named in the First Amendment, with the responsibility to use its freedom of the press for the good of the citizenry.

With 500-plus students from greater La Conner and property owners' tax dollars funding it, La Conner Schools are not only essential, their graduates are our future.

The library’s importance is seen daily on the corner of Morris and Sixth streets as the construction of the La Conner Swinomish Library building nears completion. Its existence is a huge community success, having taken many people working very hard, contributing many dollars over many years. The Swinomish Tribe’s tremdously large support of the project makes its reality possible.

The 900-plus residents in La Conner are less than 20% of the 98257 zip code or the school district’s over 5,000 residents. Only town citizens vote and only property owners pay that tax, but the town is the central hub of our little region. The decisions the town council makes and the leadership and the mayor offer have an outsized impact on the larger community.

The heart of greater La Conner, writ large, are its people, of course. Our median age is above 55, so almost half of us are retired and have time to spare.

Our elders’ commitment to others is seen in the robust activities of the local Kiwanis, Rotary and Soroptimist clubs, the Friends of the Library, PEO, Civic Garden Glub and others.

The fire departments, school district, Town, Shelter Bay and the tribe are fueled by volunteers as well as staffs and local officials.

All the activities and events, from the now extinct Smelt Derby through Easter Egg hunts, Saturday street fairs, Art’s Alive, Chowder on the Channel and Santa’s two appearances at the Rotary’s pancake breakfast and later to light the Gilkey Square Christmas tree are made possible by you.

The dissenters who insist on saying “What?” and “Wait” and “No” deserve our respects and thanks. Six MoNA board members did that. School staff and parents did that. Residents, if belatedly, did that after the Town decided to buy and sell the Hedlins’ Maple Avenue ballfield property the same day. Showing up and asking questions and being a thorn in the side of authority is a trait as American as apple pie. No one can have enough pie.

I have been wrong and I have made mistakes with some of the words I have written. I also always strive to be honest in my assessments and analysis. When wrong, I print corrections and – as this week – apologies. My goal is to engage and encourage participation, not to win arguments.

The paper offers words to make sense of the people whose lives, hopes and fears make up our community. I aim to be accurate. I hope I hit the mark as much as any human being does.

Thank you readers, and a special thank you to the staff and contributors of the Weekly News.

Thanks everyone for your participation and commitment to your community newspaper. Thank you for caring about your future, your potential and the planet’s possibilities.