Lawmakers are allowed $120 per day to help offset food and lodging expenses while they are in session. They also are reimbursed for some mileage costs. The costs from the three special overtime sessions already top $600,000 with per diem, travel and temporary staff costs for both chambers. The House has not finished tallying its total. Lawmakers were set to adjourn at the end of April but were unable to agree on a balanced budget until July.
Read more about the cost of the special session.
Fire boat tour offers officials views of riverfront projects
With blue skies and temperatures in the 70s, it was the perfect day for a boat tour of the Columbia River.
But the boat the Vancouver City Council, city staff members, and Port of Vancouver and business leaders boarded Monday was no pleasure craft. It was the Vancouver Fire Department’s new $1.59 million quick-response boat, Discovery, purchased with a federal grant. Dedicated in May 2014, the 46-foot long boat named after Capt. George Vancouver’s vessel is equipped to respond to fires, medical calls, chemical spills and search-and-rescue missions.
It took a full year to train the fire department to use the custom-designed boat, which is the biggest fire boat that the builder, Munson Marine, has ever constructed, said Fire Division Chief Steve Eldred. The vessel officially went into service earlier this summer, on June 15.
“It’s not something where you can just take guys and say, ‘go drive it,’ ” Eldred said.
Learn more about the new fire boat.
Former Evergreen drama teacher pleads guilty to sex with student
A former Evergreen High School drama teacher pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that she had sex with a 15-year-old male student.
Learn more about the McCrea deal.
Vancouver signs new company to treat wastewater
Starting next year, a new company will operate and maintain Vancouver’s two wastewater treatment plants and industrial food-waste pretreatment lagoon under a 10-year contract the City Council approved Monday.
The contract with Colorado-based engineering consulting firm CH2M (Operations Management International Inc.) will save the city about $1.6 million per year. The total operation and maintenance costs for the wastewater plants are projected to be $8.1 million next year, compared with $9.7 million in 2014. The first several years’ savings will pay for two proposed capital improvement projects at the treatment facilities, according to city documents.
Veolia Water has operated the city’s Marine Park and Westside water reclamation facilities since 1978, on a contract last renewed in 2011.