She’s back
Fired up
Novie McCabe is headed for Winter Olympic Games
Lupo Brio takes over Tappi’s space in Twisp
SPORTS Page B1
STORY Page A6
Methow Valley News
PUBLISHED WEEKLY SINCE 1903
T WISP, WASHINGTON
VOL . 122 NO.40
W W W.METHOW VALLEYNEWS.COM
JANUARY 28, 2026
$1.50
Property insurance at a premium in valley Proposed laws aim to help consumers BY MARCY STAMPER
Homeowners and businesses in the Methow Valley are finding it increasingly difficult to get property insurance — or seeing their policies cancelled when they come up for renewal — as more companies decline to issue policies in areas they deem at high risk of wildfire. Those that continue to write policies have raised premiums substantially. The risk of wildfire to residential areas has been increasing as the climate grows hotter and drier. At the same time, more people are living near forested areas, where fire risk is even higher. That also puts them further from fire stations. Now, a handful of bills under consideration in the state Legislature seek to provide some help to consumers. Senate Bill 5928 would provide more information about why an insurance company denied coverage, and bill 6079 would offer grants to help people
retrofit their home and property to be better protected against the risk of wildfire. Both bills are cosponsored by Sen. Shelley Short (R, 7th Dist.). Bill 5928 would require insurers to provide consumers with their wildfire-risk score, explain the factors that adversely contributed to the score, and outline steps the consumer can take to improve the score — all in clear language. Insurers would have to offer discounts to people who could show they had taken steps to reduce fire risk. The homeowner would be able to appeal the score and the insurer’s determination. Bill cosponsor Sen. Judy Warnick (R, 13th Dist.) told the Senate Committee on Business, Trade & Economic Development at a hearing this month that she and Short “hear almost daily” from consumers who have lost insurance or face exorbitant premiums. Insurance companies regularly cancel policies, even for customers who’ve had the coverage for years, Warnick said. Most insurers subscribe to services offered by companies that provide risk assessments based
on satellite imagery, fire science and statistical modeling, and use those scores to set the cost of a policy. That information helps companies decide whether a property is eligible for coverage, David Forte, Senior Property & Casualty Policy Advisor for the Insurance Commissioner, told the committee. Bill 6079 would provide grants to property owners, contractors and nonprofits to reduce fire risk through the Strengthen Washington Homes Program. It would prevent insurance companies from disqualifying a property from coverage if the home is “wildfire prepared.” The grant program would use standards from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, which include retrofitting homes to keep out embers, said Aaron VanTuyl, communications and media manager for the Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner. The grant program is one of five recommendations made by the Wildfire Mitigation and Resiliency Standards Working Group in a report to the Legislature in December. Grants would
Photo by Marcy Stamper
The Sun Mountain Ranch Club in the Twin Lakes area is a certified Firewise USA community, meaning property owners have taken steps to reduce the wildfire risk to individual homes and the entire development. be administered by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, which requested both bills. In the past two years, more than 25 communities in the
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county — most in the Methow Valley — have received Firewise USA certification, said Okanogan Conservation District Forests and Wildfire Lead Eli
Loftis, who helps with on-theground assessments and technical assistance for communities
See INSURANCE, A3
Artist, activist takes seat on Twisp Town Council Tim McGuire climbs learning curve during first months in office BY RALPH SCHWARTZ
Photo by Steve Mitchell
Delayed by not deterred, the rescheduled Doggie Dash was staged last weekend at Methow Trails headquarters in Winthrop. The real attaction was, of course, the imaginative costumes. More photos, page B5.
State program CHIPS in to support three local affordable housing projects Grants will help with basic infrastructure
Tim McGuire was always driven to be an artist. Alongside a career in commercial photography, McGuire has shown his photographs and paintings in Seattle and the Methow Valley. He’s also had a drive over most of his adult life for politics — one reason he decided to run last year for a seat on the Twisp Town Council. “I think always in the back of my mind, political office has been kind of something I’ve thought about,” McGuire said in an interview, one day after he was sworn in on Jan. 13 to replace council member Wyatt Lundquist. McGuire actually took an oath of office at Twisp town hall before, in August 2025, after he was appointed to the council seat vacated by Aaron Studen. Lundquist and Katrina Auburn, both of whom did not seek reelection in 2025, made up the council’s more conservative-leaning contingent on the five-person board. McGuire’s arrival is part of the council’s shift to the left in 2026.
Political views
BY DON NELSON
Three Methow Valley affordable housing projects are the beneficiaries of significant grants from the state Department of Commerce that will be used to help pay for basic infrastructure. The awards come from the department’s Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program (CHIP), which pays for waterworks infrastructure and reimburses public utilities for waived connection feeds needed to bring water utilities to a project, according to a Commerce news release. The Town of Winthrop will receive a $1,146,652 grant to support what’s known as the Larkspur development, and a $593,150 grant for a housing project planned in the nearby Hecken-
See HOUSING, A2
In 2007, McGuire volunteered to support Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Last year, he and his wife, Amy, met with U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican, to challenge the Trump administration’s cuts to health care and the the proposed sale of public lands. He went so far as to tell Newhouse that the current administration was undermining the rule of law and the federal government as a whole. Tim and Amy also are regulars at the Saturday anti-Trump protests in Twisp. All that said, McGuire rejected the notion that political activism has a place on the council. “I don’t necessarily think that there should be national politics in the Town of Twisp, at least not at the town council,” he said.
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Image courtesy of Catholic Charities Eastern Washington
An artist’s rendering shows a proposed design for Twisp Family Haven, a low-income apartment complex to be built in Twisp. dorn neighborhood. Both projects are on sites owned by the Methow Housing Trust, which intends to develop them over the next several years — Larkspur first, and then Heckendorn. The Town of Twisp also received
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a CHIP grant — $924,884 for sewer and water connections at Twisp Family Haven, the Catholic Charities Eastern Washington (CCEW) development to be built this year behind Rosauers.
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Photo by Ralph Schwartz
New Twisp Town Council member Tim McGuire moved to town in 2022 after vacationing in the Methow Valley for decades. “But as you can see in places like Minneapolis now, national politics came to them. They have to deal with it,” he added, referring to the aggressive sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in that city and the shooting deat of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of an ICE agent. “And if it comes to this town, we will have to deal with it, and I will do what I think is in alignment with the Constitution of the United States and the state of Washington,” McGuire said. He also mentioned climate change, a global issue with local impacts — especially in a community that depends so much on ample snow for its winter recreation and summer water supply. “It’s really affecting this valley, and I hope we can somehow do the best we can to deal with what’s happening,” he said, noting that this year’s mild winter was “bad for business.”
Portrait of the artist
McGuire, 59, has creativity in his genes. His mother and grandmother were painters. His father, who was a landscape architect for the U.S. Forest
See McGUIRE, A2
INSIDE ...
OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 HARTS PASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 ARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A7 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . B2 COMMUNIT Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 VALLEY LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B8