Vancouver city officials are urging residents to water their lawns, “don’t do stupid stuff” and clear debris away from homes to reduce the risk of a blaze after months of drought.
Unlike many other communities across the region that are encouraging water conservation, Vancouver doesn’t have a water shortage, City Manager Eric Holmes told the city council on Monday. Residents should try to keep their vegetation green because it will suppress fires, he said.
“Vancouver is in the luxurious position of having a tremendous water supply. We do not need to conserve,” Holmes said. “So if folks are choosing not to water their lawns or allowing things to go brown because they think there’s a water supply problem, that is not the case in Vancouver.”
It’s been a challenging summer for the Vancouver Fire Department, Fire Chief Joe Molina told the council.
“It’s more activity than I’ve seen in recent years,” he said Monday. “We just haven’t had this many fires this close together as we have in the last two weeks.”
Investigators at the Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office have been busy this week investigating numerous fires that have ranged in damage from scorching vegetation to displacing families from their homes.
The uptick led the agency to send out a press release reminding Vancouver residents that a burn ban remains in effect and illegal burns could result in citations. The agency has already issued a $500 citation and said that it’s prepared for more.
As extremely dry and windy conditions persist, firefighters have been sent to a number of vegetation fires across the city in recent weeks. Several of those fires were close together, within a tight time frame, which has led investigators to suspect arson.
Between 11:23 p.m. Wednesday and about 4 a.m. Thursday, Vancouver firefighters responded to four fires that are now under investigation as possible arson incidents, Vancouver Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli said. No injuries were reported in the incidents, but they caused plenty of damage.
“It’s currently unknown if any of these fires are related to the previous rash of fires that occurred downtown in May,” Scarpelli said.
Changes to the state’s medical marijuana program — part of an overhaul of the system recently approved by lawmakers — take effect Friday.
The state’s Liquor Control Board is now the Liquor and Cannabis Board.
And post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries will now be considered qualifying conditions for patients hoping to receive a medical marijuana card.
Patrick Seifert, who owns a medical marijuana collective and is an advocate for veterans, plans to add PTSD to his medical marijuana card immediately.
Seifert, who lives in Olympia, works with veterans who already have medical marijuana cards; but, he said, acknowledging PTSD as a qualifying condition is an important and symbolic step.
That’s where Seifert’s, and many other medical marijuana advocates’, favorable opinion of the legislation ends.
The goal of Senate Bill 5052, which was signed into law in April, is to align the state’s medical and recreational marijuana systems with the intent of ensuring the drug is delivered in a safe, regulated manner.
The Clark County council may have inadvertently violated the home-rule charter Tuesday when two of the three members voted to reaffirm a portion of the county’s stormwater fee ordinance — action the council later undid and rescheduled for another day.
Councilors Tom Mielke and David Madore, both Republicans, voted to uphold Clark County’s stormwater fee increases, which the board approved about a year ago. Councilor Jeanne Stewart, a Republican, left the meeting prior to the public hearing and vote on the ordinance. Late Tuesday night, Stewart said she had family in town she had to meet.
After voting to maintain the fees, Madore, chair of the board, adjourned the meeting. However, the council, absent Stewart, reconvened several minutes later at Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Chris Horne’s urging to announce that the vote was in potential violation of the charter. The council will instead attempt to address the ordinance today during its weekly board time meeting.
When Heidi Owens moved to Vancouver seven months ago, she chose a house in the Hough neighborhood because she could tell downtown was on the cusp of greatness. She loved the feel of her new home but noticed it was missing one thing.
“The biggest issue I saw was that there was no grocery store,” she said.
So she went onto nextdoor.com, a social media site for neighbors, and posted a question: “Would you shop at a grocery store in downtown or uptown Vancouver?”
The question has since garnered more than 100 posts — resoundingly, neighbors said they would.
“People said, ‘We’ve had this discussion,’ or ‘We talk about this all the time,’ ” Owens said.
After learning that it had been a long-standing issue, Owens connected with another neighbor, Nancy Schultz, and began doing some research on how to go about attracting a grocer.
They started by reaching out to some people they knew who worked at various grocery stores and were told that if these companies saw a demand, they may do their own study and potentially open a store.
