Were you away for the weekend? Catch up on some big stories.
The calendar rolled into winter at 3:03 p.m. Pacific Time Sunday. Does it feel like winter? How does winter feel around here, anyway? Local weather coverage is online here.
Greg Misarti and his wife, Nell Warren, have a vision for their 5-acre property outside Washougal.
It’s called Kahnaway: an art and ecology center offering residencies and workshops for people to grow personally and artistically. Among its assets is a multi-purpose studio fashioned from an old barn in a serene setting that offers sweeping views of the Columbia River. Misarti and Warren, both artists themselves, want to share the land that’s inspired them, Misarti said.
“You don’t really appreciate it until you have been here and stay here and work here,” he said.
But an operation like Kahnaway isn’t allowed outright on the property, which sits inside the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Misarti and Warren applied for a plan amendment from the Columbia River Gorge Commission, the planning authority in the scenic area.
That was in 2009. More than five years later, they’re still waiting. But the commission has no plans to review their application any time soon.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” Misarti said. “It’s a little unnerving, because you never really know if it’s going to pan out at all.”
The commission, hobbled by tight budgets for years, struggles to keep up with even its most basic duties, staff and appointed leaders say. As staffing levels and resources have dwindled, so has the agency’s relevance and reach in some circles. In Klickitat County, where development applications go directly to the commission, permits for something as simple as a patio take more than a year to process.
Other projects remain in a holding pattern with no end in sight.
When Sen. Ann Rivers announced this month she is running for chairwoman of the Clark County Council, she included a second announcement that’s rarer among politicians: She plans to keep her seat in the state Senate.
In her defense, she pointed up the road to Sen. Tim Sheldon, who is also a county commissioner in Mason County.
“So I know it can be done,” Rivers wrote in a press release.
Sheldon, a Democrat from Potlatch, was elected to the upper chamber in 1997 and first elected to the Mason County post in 2004.
Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed transportation budget doesn’t fund any Southwest Washington projects, but on Friday the governor said he hasn’t forgotten the region.
“We do have significant improvements that are needed in Southwest Washington,” Inslee said during an interview at The Columbian.
The governor’s proposed budget reserves $650 million of unallocated money to fund a host of projects “of local concern” statewide, he said.
Local projects Inslee mentioned included widening of Interstate 205 in Vancouver, the widening of state Highway 502/Main Street in Battle Ground, and a rail overpass in Ridgefield.
Last legislative session, an unsuccessful transportation revenue package included only $46 million for projects in Clark County.
Some officials blamed it on the Columbia River Crossing vacuum, noting that after the Interstate 5 Bridge replacement project’s demise, $450 million that had been reserved for Clark County was quickly designated elsewhere.
“Look, I’m the guy who tried to get a billion dollars for a transportation project for Southwest Washington,” Inslee said, rounding up on the combined Oregon and Washington CRC funds.
While speaking about the project, Inslee observed that “a little frustration has creeped” into his tone.
“Your legislators killed it. The people you sent to Olympia killed a billion-dollar investment in your community,” Inslee said, calling it “regretful.”
“But I want to assure you, that doesn’t diminish my commitment to try and do what we can for the transportation projects in Southwest Washington,” he said.
Andy Silver, the executive director of the Council for the Homeless, said Thursday that his agency will join forces with Clark County, the city of Vancouver, the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington and the Vancouver Housing Authority to “start a really broad community conversation about affordable housing” in the wake of the Courtyard Village Apartments crisis that erupted this month.
Community support for 16 displaced households — and the rest complex’s residents — has been swift and generous, he said, so is it conceivable that donations will outpace the need among residents leaving Courtyard Village? Not a chance, Silver said. Don’t forget that 16 families are just the first wave.
Silver wants more than charity from the concerned public, he said. He wants ideas and participation in that conversation about affordable housing in 2015. He and other housing advocates have spent the past year calling attention to the fact that the local apartment vacancy rate is very low — hovering around 2.5 percent — and that some landlords are able to leverage that into higher rents, leaving the neediest renters behind.
“We are very impressed with the community’s response at this point, but this is definitely the tip of an iceberg,” he said. “We need to get a conversation going quickly.
“What are the laws locally and statewide that are holding us back? What are the gaps in financing and capacity? What are the regional and national best practices, and how can we bring them here? What are our own strengths and weaknesses?”
Jennifer Wade and the “love of her life,” Greg Thorkildson, were holding hands, laughing and having a great time when they met Wade’s sister for dinner June 7 at a local restaurant.
“After dinner, we headed home, which is the last thing I remember of that night,” Wade said. “The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital asking for Greg and being told that we were in an accident, and that he did not survive the accident.”
Luka I. Tapuaialupe, 30, of Vancouver was sentenced Friday to 5 1/2 years in prison for negligently causing the vehicle crash June 7 that killed Thorkildson, 40, and then fleeing the scene on foot. Wade, 37, was seriously injured in the collision.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Tapuaialupe pleaded guilty Friday to vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and hit-and-run causing death. In exchange, Vu agreed to recommend a sentence of five years, about six months less than the maximum.
In a low voice, which was barely audible, Tapuaialupe apologized to the family and asked for their forgiveness.
Thorkildson’s family and friends packed Judge Robert Lewis’ courtroom Friday to ask the judge to sentence Tapuaialupe to the maximum.
Lewis thanked the family for relaying how Thorkildson’s death had impacted their lives.
“It does affect me; I won’t pretend that it doesn’t,” Lewis said. “In a way, it should be irrelevant to me because — I’ll say this to the defendant — no person, however friendless or isolated they are in life, deserves to be left to die as a result of your actions. That is the most disturbing thing to me.”
He sentenced Tapuaialupe to the maximum allowed under the law — 5 1/2 years in prison and 18 months of community supervision. His driver’s license also will be revoked for a period of two years after his release from prison.
