Morning Press: Open carry, mental health, homecoming, oil, music
A quick roundup of the weekend's stories
The Columbian
Published: September 28, 2014, 5:00pm
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Were you away for the weekend? Catch up on some big stories.
Will September reach a total of 1 inch of rainfall? It would take some significant showers in these final two days. Local weather coverage is online here.
Earlier this summer, Rep. Jim Moeller took to Facebook and issued what some gun-rights advocates perceived as a challenge.
“I will refuse to conduct the business of the state as long as any ‘open carry’ nuts (are) in the gallery,” Moeller, D-Vancouver, wrote on his Elect Jim Moeller Facebook page.
As speaker pro tempore of the state House of Representatives, Moeller often presides when the House is session.
Frank Decker, who is not one of Moeller’s constituents but a Vancouver resident and a gun-rights advocate, saw the post.
“My immediate reaction was, challenge accepted,” Decker said.
Decker created his own Facebook page titled “Moeller’s Open Carry Challenge.” The page has more than 80 “likes,” and the goal, Decker said, is to have a volunteer openly carry a firearm in the gallery of the House every day during the 2015 legislative session, which kicks off in January.
“The best case scenario is that Jim would come to his senses and realize he’s not being intimidated by us being there; he’s not being threatened,” Decker said.
Moeller, said it’s the equivalent of having someone shouting at him from the gallery.
“It’s ridiculous it’s allowed,” Moeller said. “It’s not allowed in courthouses, it’s not allowed in jails or bars or schools, and I think it’s ridiculous it’s allowed in the gallery.”
Gregory’s teenager was diagnosed with bipolar disorder six years ago.
In those six years, the family has made at least a dozen trips to hospital emergency departments. The teen’s first trip to the emergency department was because of an overdose. The subsequent trips were during times of heightened crisis when Gregory’s teenager would go from being a big-hearted, kind child to destroying furniture and threatening self-harm or to harm Gregory and his wife.
“We know it isn’t the appropriate place to get care, but where else do we go?” Gregory said. “Jail is also not the appropriate place, but those are the only two places families have.”
Gregory and his family live in Vancouver. The Columbian is not using his real name, at his request, to protect his family’s privacy as his teenager continues to seek mental health services in the community.
Gregory’s frustration is shared not only by other families, but also health care providers, emergency department staff and mental health service providers.
All acknowledge the mental health care system in Clark County and across the state has gaping holes. The service needs reach across the spectrum of mental health care: crisis services that give families an option other than emergency rooms or law enforcement intervention; inpatient beds that provide intensive treatment, counseling and medication management; qualified counselors and prescribers to provide treatment; and outpatient services to prevent more crisis situations.
In some ways, those voids have been compounded, local providers say, by this year’s Medicaid expansion, which added tens of thousands of adults to the health program for low-income people. That expansion also meant a dramatic increase in the number of people eligible for state-funded mental health services.
When Teresa Brum joined Vancouver’s Community and Economic Development Department in January, the city gained a well-educated leader with experience in both the public and private sectors. Vancouver’s downtown, meanwhile, welcomed not only a new champion of its continued progress but a new resident, too.
“I intentionally moved to downtown,” Brum said, “and I’m very, very committed to downtown revitalization.”
Indeed, helping to further rejuvenate the city’s core is one of several commitments Brum is expected to carry out as manager of the economic development division of the city’s Community and Economic Development Department. It’s a division focused on three programs: planning, community development and parking.
Brum started her new job, which pays $104,000 annually, on Jan. 27. Her previous experience includes 18 years as Spokane’s business and development director and, most recently, two years running Brum & Associates, a private consulting firm.
Of all the projects that fill Brum’s to-do list, two stand out: redevelopment of a former industrial mill site on Vancouver’s waterfront into a hub of residential and commercial activity, and reconstruction of Block 10, the last completely vacant block in the downtown redevelopment area.
What’s more, the city is attempting to cultivate high-tech companies. In October 2013, the Washington State Department of Commerce named portions of Vancouver and Camas as an Innovation Partnership Zone, or IPZ. It opens possibilities for funding additional fiber-optic cable, and for development of a business incubator to develop technologies and talent. The Vancouver-Camas IPZ, one of 18 such zones in the state, is called the Applied Digital Technology Accelerator. It includes Vancouver’s downtown and waterfront, as well as both sides of Southeast 192nd Avenue.
No small tasks, to be sure. But Brum said the city hired her with the understanding that she’d get things done.
BATTLE GROUND — When his family brought him back home Saturday from a long hospital stay, Jack Fletcher had a slight detour. He rode the last few miles in a fire engine.
It was just one of several surprises awaiting the Fletchers as they finally brought their son home, almost two months after a near-fatal auto accident.
There were several banners — “Welcome home Jack” and “We love you” — along the fence at Prairie High School, facing Northeast 117th Avenue.
There was a huge sign welcoming him back to his neighborhood. And that’s where dozens of friends, neighbors, rugby teammates and members of the fire cadet program greeted him with hugs and handshakes.
And, of course, there was Clark County Fire & Rescue’s cadet engine. For two years, the cadet engine was something of his rolling red classroom when Fletcher was a student in the agency’s fire cadet program. Fletcher was the program’s cadet chief last year.
Valree Irwin, this year’s cadet chief, was among those gathered at the cadet engine, waiting for the Fletchers’ car to pull into the shopping center parking lot with their former classmate.
“I know Jack, and I know his leadership,” she said. “He was great. It’s big shoes to fill.”
Most Clark County residents don’t pay close attention to the North Dakota Industrial Commission. But the three-member regulatory body has the authority to influence something increasingly familiar to Southwest Washington and the Northwest: oil trains.
The commission this week heard testimony on whether crude oil extracted from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields should be “stabilized” before it’s transported by rail, and whether the process would make it safer. Stabilization strips flammable natural gas liquids from the oil, reducing its volatility, advocates argue.
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The question has gained particular scrutiny in the wake of a string of high-profile derailments and explosions involving crude oil since last year. Multiple reports and analyses have found Bakken oil to be more volatile than other crudes.
A recent public hearing in Bismarck, N.D., drew a standing-room-only crowd, according to the state Department of Mineral Resources. But much of the hearing was dominated by oil producers who resisted calls to further stabilize Bakken crude before it’s transported. The companies maintain that the oil’s properties are largely the same as other crude sources.
More than 11,000 oil wells produce an average of 1 million barrels of crude per day in North Dakota, almost all of that from the Bakken fields in the western half of the state. Washington is on the receiving end of much of that oil, some 60 percent of which travels by rail. Clark County sees two to three oil trains per day roll through on the way to West Coast refineries. A proposed oil transfer terminal at the Port of Vancouver could more than double that.
Water is the big theme at the season-opening concerts of the Vancouver Symphony on Oct. 4 and 5. Salvador Brotons, who is starting his 24th year as the orchestra’s music director, has chosen four works that should create a splash for this all-orchestral program.
On tap are Ferde Grofe’s “Mississippi Suite,” Bedyich Smetana’s “The Moldau,” Johann Strauss Jr.’s “The Blue Danube,” and Claude Debussy’s “La mer” (“The Sea”).
o What: All orchestral concert features water music by Grofe, Smetana, Strauss Jr. and Debussy.
o When: 3 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Oct 5.
o Where: Skyview High School Concert Hall, 1300 N.W. 139th St., Vancouver.
o Cost: $50 reserved, $35 general, $30 seniors and $10 students.
“You can hear the water in each piece, but it’s always in a different style,” noted symphony cellist Annie Harkey Power.
The splashiest piece on the program is Debussy’s “La mer” (“The Sea”), a symphonic tone poem in three movements that depicts the ocean in its many moods. You can easily imagine waves that change from a tranquil state to those that are playful and later absolutely wild.
“This will be my first time to play ‘La mer,’ ” said principal trumpeter Bruce Dun. “I’ve been listening to several recordings. … There are spots with intricate tonguing patterns — triple tonguing and switching between notes. A lot of them are soft. That’s really difficult to do well.”
“I’ve been playing cello for 28 years, and this is my first time to play this great work,” added Harkey Power. “So I’m very excited about it. It has a lot of unusual ways of using time signatures plus many key changes. There’s no particular story line, but we will make it exciting. This music is more than just notes on a page.”
