Mayor Hayes' final council meeting ends without fanfare

Four-term La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes chaired his final town council meeting Dec. 12, but it was a business-as-usual session with no celebration or reception.

Hayes wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“It’s just not my personality,” he told the Weekly News afterward on his reluctance to see the meeting morph into a retirement party.

“Once something is done, it’s over,” he explained. “And we had a very long, grueling agenda to work through.”

There was, however, mention during the meeting – which included a 20-minute executive session on a new labor agreement with public works staff – of Hayes b...