Gov. Jay Inslee directed state agencies Thursday to tackle mounting public safety concerns and develop an oil spill response plan as train traffic continues to increase, particularly in Southwest Washington.
He announced the directive at a meeting of The Columbian’s editorial board in Vancouver.
“The Pacific Northwest is experiencing rapid changes in how crude oil is moving through rail corridors and over Washington waters, creating new safety and environmental concerns,” the directive reads.
The governor asked the Department of Ecology to work with other state agencies, the Federal Railroad Administration and tribal governments to “identify data and information gaps that hinder improvements in public safety and spill prevention and response.”
Ed Barnes usually finds himself seated directly in front of the Clark County commissioners, a little piece of real estate that allows him to launch his weekly criticisms against the board.
But the view is about to change.
This week, the 80-year-old labor leader will take a seat behind the dais, joining the two men with whom he often butts heads, commissioners David Madore and Tom Mielke. Last week, the commissioners chose to appoint Barnes to fill out the remainder of former Commissioner Steve Stuart’s District 3 term, which expires at the end of the year.
While Barnes, a Democrat, isn’t running an election campaign to hold onto the seat past December — Democrat Craig Pridemore and Republican Jeanne Stewart are vying for the position in the long-term — he has vowed to get up to speed and serve the citizens of Clark County.
Read the full story here. See a video his swearing in here.
The day before Monserrat Hernandez Garcia was slated to graduate from Hudson’s Bay High School, her family was not planning a graduation party, but a funeral.
The 18-year-old senior was killed Sunday after being struck by a bus in downtown Portland. She was on her way to her part-time job at Bridgeport Brewing Co.’s pub in the Pearl District.
Tuesday afternoon at the family’s home, friends stopped by to bring flowers and prayer candles in memory of the young woman.
“I can’t let her go,” said her sister, Jozelin Hernandez Garcia, 20. “I keep thinking she’s going to walk in the door and say, ‘I’m here! Did you miss me?’ I know she’s in a better place now.”
Her mother, Maria Garcia Hernandez, walked into the living room carrying an armload of medals her daughter had won in science competitions. She knelt on the floor and hung them on the wall next to a string of Rosary beads and photos of her daughter. A collection of prayer candles burned on a small table in front of the photos. Yellow, red and white roses were arranged on the floor beneath the table.
A Skyview High School teacher and baseball coach has been arrested on a warrant alleging sexual misconduct with a 13-year-old boy.
The incidents allegedly occurred in 1997 in Frederick, Md.
Eric M. Estes, 41, was taken into custody Wednesday evening, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
During a hearing in Clark County District Court on Thursday, Estes agreed not to contest his extradition to Maryland. Court Commissioner Jeffrey Witteman ordered that Estes remain in Clark County Jail without bail until he is transported to that state. Witteman said it’s unclear how long it will take to transport Estes, but the fact that Estes waived extradition accelerates the process.
In 1997, Estes was a 25-year-old right-handed pitcher for the Frederick Keys, a minor league baseball team.
In 2007, the Frederick Police Department began investigating allegations that Estes inappropriately touched and engaged in sexual contact with a 13-year-old boy between April 1997 and September 1997. According to a police news release, the case was investigated but suspended because of a lack of adequate information.
Sportsmen feuded Wednesday before the Columbia River Compact whether anglers should be required to release wild summer chinook salmon in the season opening on Monday.
June 16 marks the start of the summer salmon management period. The lower Columbia will be open Monday through June 30 for six salmon, although only two adult hatchery summer chinook or hatchery steelhead or one of each. Any sockeye can be retained, but count against the two-adult limit.
However, an eight-hour commercial fishery is scheduled Monday night in the lower Columbia and the gillnetters can keep any summer chinook — wild or hatchery.
Tribal commercial fishing begins at 6 a.m. Monday in the Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day pools — again with wild or hatchery fish able to be retained.
Beginning Saturday, any chinook — hatchery or wild — can be kept off the Washington coast.
Getting fired isn’t so rare, especially in the churning world of broadcast media. But getting rehired by a media company that publicly apologizes for its flub is a singular career achievement.
“I want to speak to you about a mistake that ‘The Wolf’ made back on Aug. 6, 2012,” program director Mike Moore of Portland country music station KWJJ “The Wolf,” recently said on the air. On that date, minutes after they’d finished up that morning’s drive-time radio show, the station canned DJs and wits Mikel Chase and Amy Faust. The plan was to replace “The Mike and Amy Show,” a super-popular 13-year feature, with a successful syndicated show from Seattle.
Faust said she’d both halfway expected the pink slip and yet was “absolutely shocked” that corporate station managers based on the East Coast actually went through with it.
But something unexpected happened, Moore continued: “Almost immediately, many of you told us that we’d made a mistake. We received thousands of calls, Facebook posts, emails and even snail mail letters. The overwhelming sentiment was that you really missed Mike and Amy, and you wanted them to come back. You also wanted a local show.”