In Our View: Cheers & jeers

Cheers: To Linear Technology’s decision to consider an expansion at its Camas facility. Linear has long been an important piece of Clark County’s cluster of semiconductor manufacturers, currently providing good jobs to 260 workers. The company has seen enough upturn in its business to consider expanding its facilities, and a second factory, or fab, could be built at its Prune Hill site. If so, it could double Linear’s local employment.

Although no new wafer fabs have been built here in several years, Camas seems to have a good chance to win this plant. Linear’s main campus, in California’s Silicon Valley, is already full. Furthermore, the city of Camas has promised to work with the company to expedite the permitting and development process. A Linear executive cautions that the decision to build a second fab depends on the company continuing to receive more orders for its products. Meanwhile, there is welcome news that more equipment and jobs are already being added at Camas.

Jeers: To the La Center City Council’s muddled, mixed message on the Cowlitz Tribe’s proposed casino resort. Recent elections changed the makeup of the city council, a majority of which was strongly opposed to the project. Apparently trying to test the mood of the new council, Mayor Jim Irish slipped an item into a recent consent agenda that would have repealed, with no chance for public debate, a 2007 ordinance stating the council’s opposition to the resort, which would be built outside the city limits at the La Center junction with Interstate 5.

Luckily, wiser heads prevailed. The repeal ordinance was pulled. Important policy like this needs to be fully considered in public. But it’s odd to see why this gambit even came about. Irish says that repealing the old ordinance wouldn’t automatically mean the council now favors the Indian casino. OK, so what does it mean? Perhaps it means that La Center would be sending confusing mixed messages about this controversial project.

Cheers: To efforts by a local doctor and the city to save an east Vancouver tree. The Douglas fir stands near the intersection of Southeast 164th Avenue and Tech Center Drive, where Dr. Todd Berinstein and others long have admired it as an island of nature amid an asphalt and concrete world. So Berinstein raised the alarm when a proposed right-turn lane appeared to threaten the tree. An engineer and the city’s urban forester, summoned to the scene, concluded the tree can be protected and preserved with some precautions. We’re sure Berinstein will be watching, and so will we.

Jeers: To flabby Washington State Patrol trooper candidates who can’t pass the agility test. The patrol requires its cadets to do pushups, sit-ups and a 1.5-mile run. One-third couldn’t. Even more dismaying: younger applicants are less likely to pass. Only 64 percent of applicants in their 20s passed the test; 94 percent of those in their 40s passed. We can only hope the state’s crooks are equally out of shape.

Cheers: To direct, round-trip passenger rail service between Vancouver and that Canadian city by the same name. Amtrak launched daily service late last year and now it will last through at least Sept. 30, although it requires Canada to pay another shift of customs agents. Without it, travelers originating south of Portland have to overnight in Seattle if they want to reach British Columbia by rail.

Service will now continue at least through September, so travelers should get their passports (or enhanced driver’s licenses) in order. Officials have previously said that the longevity of the service depends in part on ridership. About 100 tickets for each 200-seat train need to be sold.