Tom Mielke, chairman of the Board of Clark County Commissioners, said Wednesday that his proposal to formally establish existing departments by ordinance has nothing to do with saving Don Benton’s job as director of Environmental Services, as alleged by former Commissioner Ed Barnes.
Mielke, who earlier did not return a phone call from The Columbian giving him the opportunity to refute Barnes, said nothing could be farther from the truth.
“What we have today has been very, very successful,” Mielke said of the county’s structure.
Under the voter-approved county charter, effective Jan. 1, executive authority over departments will be turned over County Manager Mark McCauley, the current county administrator.
Mielke and Commissioners David Madore and Jeanne Stewart discussed the proposed ordinance Wednesday during their weekly board time meeting.
They agreed the ordinance should proceed to a public hearing, 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St., Vancouver.
Washington Elementary School and other nearby neighborhood schools will serve as information and resource hubs for people who must leave the Courtyard Village Apartments in Rose Village. But that doesn’t mean there will be any easy answers for those being displaced.
“We are a community school and this is a crisis in our community,” said assistance coordinator Catherine MacCallum-Ceballos during a Tuesday night meeting at Washington Elementary that drew more than 100 residents of Courtyard Village, as well as city council members and homeless advocates with the Council for the Homeless and Share.
Andy Silver, the executive director of the Council for the Homeless, said local churches and other supporters are looking to amass a dedicated fund that will help with damage deposits, first and last month rental requirements and the other costs associated with moving. Donors can send checks to the Council for the Homeless, which will administer the fund, at 2500 Main St., Vancouver, 98660; make sure to write “Courtyard Village” in the memo line.
Bruno Amicci has a deep fascination with the 1930s and with the art, film and culture from a time when America — even after being knocked around in the Great Depression — retained a profound sense of inventiveness and optimism.
So when the Portland businessman and founder of Triad Technology Group heard that the historic Luepke building, a downtown Vancouver art deco landmark from 1936, was for sale in April, he bought it.
And when he more recently heard that the 105-year-old business on the site, Luepke Florist, was going to go out of business, he bought that, too.
The purchase was finalized Monday afternoon.
“I just didn’t want to see an old institution like that die,” said Amicci, who purchased the company — which will remain open through the transition — about a week ago.
Cheryl Strayed never ventured into Washington during the hike depicted in her best-selling memoir “Wild.”
But the 2012 book drew widespread attention to the entire Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches 2,650 miles between Mexico and Canada. The movie version of “Wild” — which opened in a limited release Friday — figures to brighten the spotlight even more.
“It’s really unprecedented,” Jack Haskel, trail information specialist with the Pacific Crest Trail Association, said of the attention. “Primarily, we’re seeing lots of people get excited about the Pacific Crest Trail.”
That means more hikers on the trail in California, Oregon and Washington. Locally, managers are expecting an uptick in the coming weeks and months as people learn about the trail and perhaps become inspired by Strayed’s journey, which ended at the Oregon-Washington border.
State, federal and tribal biologists predict a run of 232,500 spring chinook — the most prized of the Columbia River salmon — will return in 2015 headed for waters upstream of Bonneville Dam.
“We had a great season last year, I’d expect a great season this year,” said Steve Watrous of Vancouver, a member of the bistate Columbia River Recreational Advisor Group.
The spring chinook forecast for the Snake and mid- and upper Columbia rivers is the most anticipated number of the year among anglers. A good forecast fuels fishing optimism that sells tackle, bait and boats, plus books trips with guides.
Good spring chinook fishing segues into anglers staying on the water for summer chinook, summer steelhead and fall chinook.
In 2014, the Columbia River Technical Advisory Committee forecast a return of 227,000. The actual return was 242,000.
