Were you away for the weekend? Catch up on some big stories.
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With more than 100 million online video views, 190,000 subscribers and a new Hollywood book and movie deal, the Vancouver-made “The Haunting of Sunshine Girl” may be the city’s most successful film and video project ever.
But as the series and its network continue to grow, what has been a Clark County success may move elsewhere, largely because of Washington’s small film incentive cap.
The cap of $3.5 million annually is lower than many other states, including Oregon, which has a cap of $10 million; New Mexico, which has a rolling cap of $50 million; and California, which has a cap of $330 million.
And the Washington cap — which limits the 35 percent tax break that productions can get for filming here — gets used up fast.
This year, Washington’s film incentive budget for the year was gone by late April, mostly on two projects that shot elsewhere in the state. If that budget were larger, the state film office could have easily lured many more productions statewide, said Amy Lillard, executive director of the agency, called Washington Filmworks.
“We turned away all these productions that would have spent $55 million in our local economy this year,” Lillard said. “As for the cap, I guess I’d just like to see supply keep up with demand.”
The small cap could also mean that the approaching “Haunting of Sunshine Girl” movie won’t be able to film here, in the Southwest Washington city and county where it’s set.
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It’s Nutcracker season. Around Clark County, hundreds of young ballet dancers wearing tights and frothy tulle tutus are working long hours in dance studios perfecting leaps and arabesques to bring “The Nutcracker” to life.
This holiday season, six productions — five of them traditional “Nutcracker” ballets — feature Clark County students dancing roles from the youngest little angels to complex principal roles that require young women to dance on their toes and young men to lift their partners over their heads, all while smiling and making it look effortless.
For dance enthusiasts who are nuts about “The Nutcracker,” it’s possible to attend a show every weekend in December. In all, there are 22 “Nutcracker” shows in Clark County and 17 shows presented in Portland by professional dance company Oregon Ballet Theater. That’s 39 “Nutcracker” shows to immerse yourself in the story of the girl Marie (in some productions, she is Clara), her godfather Drosselmeyer’s gift to her of a nutcracker and her fanciful dream about the nutcracker coming to life as the Nutcracker Prince and journeying with her to the Kingdom of Sweets.
Vancouver Dance Theatre’s “Nutcracker” is the oldest in Clark County, dating back to 1976. The performance has such a long history that its artistic director, Christina Wilder, danced in the production as a child. The nonprofit organization welcomes dancers of all ages and abilities, said Ursula Transom, spokeswoman.
Each year, every dance studio adds new costumes and twists to keep the performance fresh. This year, “The Nutcracker” presented by DanceWorks and Vancouver City Ballet added an aerial silk artist during its Arabian dance. Aerial silk artists climb, twist, spin and seem to free fall while holding onto sheets hung from the ceiling.
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Two-year-old Ruby Bardzik peered nervously from her mom’s lap across the five foot divide of carpet that lay between her and the large bearded man, dressed in festive red and white.
The man, who identified himself only as Santa (“spelled S-A-N-T-A,” as he informed a nearby reporter), gave a gentle smile to the youngster, trying to calm her.
Traffic was slow for the Merry Old Elf (The Columbian has it on good authority that this is Santa’s street name) as the Vancouver Rotary Festival of Trees ramped up on Saturday morning. Later in the day, the line of children and pets wanting to visit with him grew long.
Of course, Santa wasn’t the only somewhat mysterious visitor to the festival, in its 19th year, which is an annual fundraiser that helps Rotary fund scholarships and community projects.
Another favorite stood by the door at the Hilton Vancouver Washington and greeted — and occasionally mystified — visitors to the event, which continues through 4 p.m. today.
“Hi! I’m Piney the Talking Tree,” said the tall, star-covered and brightly decorated creature standing sentinel at the festival gateway. “All my cousins are down the hall. You should say hi to them.”
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Volunteers help uneasy riders learn the C-Tran system
When Wendy Olmstead ventured onto a C-Tran bus for a trip to the Westfield Vancouver mall this month, it was a step into the unknown.
The Washougal resident had never used C-Tran before, and was navigating a new community to boot. Olmstead just moved to Clark County from California.
But Olmstead felt mostly at ease while she waited for a No. 92 bus in Camas to start her trip. That’s because she had help: Waiting with her were Veronica Marti, who leads C-Tran’s Travel Training program, and C-Tran travel ambassador Virginia Edwards. Both are part of an effort by the transit agency to make its service more accessible and less intimidating, particularly for older residents.
“It’s just more of getting over the fear of using the bus and learning to use that schedule,” Marti said. “It can be overwhelming at first.”
As for the source of that fear for many people, she added: “It’s that unknown. They haven’t done it.”
C-Tran has offered travel training in some form for years, but the agency hired Marti in 2013 to coordinate the program full-time. Marti often meets with riders as an introduction, then accompanies them on one or more trips, offering guidance along the way.
Many of the riders Marti works with cannot drive. Olmstead, 63, took a proactive step in reaching out to C-Tran. She still has a car, but doesn’t expect to get another one. So Olmstead decided to learn the ropes on her own terms.
“I want to be comfortable with taking the bus before I have to stop driving,” said Olmstead, who has three adult children in the area.
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Nineteen Clark County residents have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop C-Tran from receiving federal funding for planning the Fourth Plain Bus Rapid Transit Project without first obtaining voter approval for the agency’s overall high-capacity transit system plan.
The plaintiffs, who include many Republican political activists, ask that the Clark County Superior Court bar the agency from spending sales and use tax revenues on the planning or funding of the project.
The $53 million bus rapid transit line, scheduled to open as early 2016, would extend between the Westfield Vancouver mall and downtown, primarily along the city’s Fourth Plain corridor. The enhanced bus system employs larger vehicles, specialized traffic signals, raised boarding platforms and other features. Construction is slated to begin next year.
While a federal grant will finance most of the project, the C-Tran Board of Directors also authorized about $6.7 million in local funding for the project in July.
C-Tran has said the new system on the Fourth Plain Corridor will eventually result in a net savings to the agency’s bottom line.
The court complaint claims that the BRT is not part of high-capacity transit as defined by the High Capacity Transit Act and is inconsistent with C-Tran’s comprehensive plan and 20-year transit development plan.
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