Cheers: To U.S. Cellular’s new solar-powered communications tower south of Mount St. Helens. Installed and made operational less than a month ago, it may have saved its first life last weekend after a snowmobile rolled and fractured a Vancouver woman’s leg. North Country EMS and the Volcano Rescue Team were quickly summoned by cell phone, thanks to the new tower, and the woman was rescued from a steep slope and flown to a hospital, where she underwent successful surgery.

Longtime North Country director Tom McDowell said afterward that the new tower plugs a coverage gap where no phone service was available. It cost $800,000 to design, build and install the tower, and Skamania County kicked in $100,000 of the cost because of its public benefit. Though humans and technology can intrude too much on nature, here’s a prominent exception.

Jeers: To bureaucratic objections by Woodland’s city clerk against using E-Verify. The Department of Homeland Security database allows employers to check on the citizenship status of their employees to verify they have the right to work in the United States. The database is not without its flaws, but it’s a major tool in the effort to keep jobs out of the hands of illegal aliens. Woodland already uses E-Verify to check its own new employees. Recently the city council’s finance committee recommended requiring all firms with city contracts valued at more than $1,000 to certify that they use E-Verify, too.

That brought objections from City Clerk/Treasurer Mari Ripp, who complained that checking contractors for compliance would be burdensome, and that she would need additional staff time. Really? Maybe the city should look at reducing its contracts, too.

Cheers: To the Columbia Land Trust’s latest deal, which preserves 6,900 acres of forest land on the northern border of Clark County, near Swift Reservoir. The land is owned by Pope Resources, a private timber company that had considered subdividing the remote, hilly site into lots for recreational homes. That would be a poor use of the land, which isn’t served by utilities. The $2.4 million agreement preserves Pope’s right to continue to grow and harvest timber on the property, but forbids ever subdividing it. The Vancouver-based trust’s deal was underwritten by a grant from the U.S. Forest Service as part of a nationwide initiative to conserve working forests.

Jeers: To Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget, which would devote $20 million to be spent on parks and wildlife habitat projects — but only in the Puget Sound region. It’s going to be a tough year for these projects as the Great Recession causes major reductions in state spending. Gregoire’s proposed budget, in fact, eliminates all funding for the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, which for 21 years has evaluated and distributed parks and recreation grants statewide.

Where the governor’s budget goes wrong is zeroing out these competitive grants and leaving $20 million in another account for Puget Sound projects. To voters weary of hearing about federal earmarks, it sounds like the same sort of bad policy.

Cheers: To Neighbors on Watch who help spot stolen vehicles. These civic-minded volunteers motor around town in cars equipped with automatic scanners that can identify and read license plates, and check them against a list of stolen vehicles. If there’s a match, the volunteers use a two-way radio to report it to police officers, who can follow up. The city purchased the scanners in August and was promptly forced to defend itself before a state labor arbitrator after the police officers’ union filed a grievance. The arbitrator threw out the ridiculous gripe, but not before it cost the city $3,150.

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