After the wet and windy weekend, when will the sun return? Check the forecast.
Top news of the weekend or stories you may have missed:
Critics of medical marijuana often note that most of the people using the system aren’t actually sick — they’re just using it as a way to get cheap, untaxed pot.
And the critics aren’t entirely wrong. Even those in the medical marijuana community admit that there are likely more people gaming the system than there are people using it as intended.
But that’s not the entire story.
For seriously ill patients, the drug and medical access to it can be a lifesaver, life-extender or at least make life bearable — but because others abuse the system and because of the drug’s federally illegal status, medical marijuana can also be a patient’s nightmare.
“The system just isn’t set up for people that really need it,” said Katie Zinno, a Vancouver medical marijuana patient suffering from rare illnesses. “I have so many different problems, (traditional) medicine isn’t set up to treat me.”
Learn more about the debate around medical marijuana.
Legislature gets ready to work on education
More than halfway through the legislative session, the most pressing issue continues to loom over the Washington Legislature: how to satisfy the requirements of McCleary.
“It’s always in the back of our minds,” said Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center.
Yet, although discussion of the McCleary v. Washington case dominated in the months leading up to the session, talk of how to adequately fund the state’s public schools has since been relatively quiet.
What dialogue has been public echoes talking points and positions formed long before lawmakers were in the same building.
This week, a key policy deadline passed, and a shift of focus to the budget is expected. Parents, educators, Washington Supreme Court justices and many rank-and-file lawmakers are waiting for the House budget writers to unveil a proposal shedding light on how they propose to meet the constitutionally mandated “paramount duty” of providing for public school children.
Read more about education-related legislation.
Co-owner sues Christensen Shipyards
Christensen Shipyards, the financially troubled builder of yachts in Vancouver, now faces a total of five lawsuits, including one leveled by Henry Luken, the deep-pocketed Tennessee businessman who owns 50 percent of the company.
Based on court filings, it appears Christensen, which once sold a yacht to Tiger Woods and boasted of a turnaround after the economic crash, is approaching an endgame in which it will no longer exist in its present form, if it survives at all.
In a lawsuit filed on March 9, Luken and Christensen Financing LLC, apparently a current or former affiliate of Luken’s, are asking a Clark County Superior Court judge to appoint a receiver to assume control of Christensen Shipyards and to manage its assets.
With the power to sell and to negotiate with the yacht builder’s customers, the suit says, a receiver would ensure that partially completed boats, including two separately purchased by Luken and Christensen Financing, are finished.
Learn more about the lawsuits.
After hearing from both the victims and the perpetrator in a shooting at Vancouver’s Veterans Affairs campus last year, Clark County Judge Suzan Clark strayed from an agreement between attorneys and sentenced Deborah Lennon to 22½ years in prison.
Having worked in a courtroom as a judge and a lawyer since 1986, Clark said: “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more disturbing case in so many ways.”
Lennon spent about two years stalking Allen Bricker, her former supervisor at Veterans Affairs. She wrote Bricker hundreds of emails where she professed her love, urged Bricker to leave his wife and eventually made threats to kill him.
She tried to follow through with those threats on Feb. 4, 2014, when she walked into Bricker’s fourth-floor office and shot him. Bricker survived his injuries but still has two bullets lodged in his body — one in his spine and one in his chest muscle.
Read more about Lennon’s sentence.
Add this to the usual reasons for not getting around to income tax filing: the weather is just too good to spend it organizing documents and filling out tax forms.
That excuse won’t work with the Internal Revenue Service, of course. But it’s better than “The dog chewed up my tax forms.”
Seriously, the time has arrived even for procrastinators to get this year’s tax filings out the door by April 15. About half of Washington’s approximately 2.7 million taxpayers have filed already, according to IRS numbers through March 6. If you’re among those who haven’t, chances are that you are among those who expect to pay the government this year, or do no better than break even. The expectation of a tax return is a powerful motivator for promptness.
All of us know the basic drill, made easier these days by electronic filing software. For those just jumping into 2014 taxes, the biggest change is in the area of health care. This is the first year the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare by some, makes its way into the IRS lexicon.
Learn more tips and information on filing your taxes.
A legend from the volleyball world visited athletes from Evergreen High School and a couple of middle schools Friday, hoping to inspire girls to chase after their dreams and get an education.
Misty May-Treanor, a three-time gold medalists in beach volleyball, is in the region this week, putting on a volleyball clinic in Portland. She took time Friday morning to visit an old family friend. May-Treanor and her family have been friends with Evergreeen volleyball coach Joe Boken and family since they were children, living in Southern California.
Volleyball players from Evergreen welcomed athletes from Cascade and Covington middle schools, listening to May-Treanor tell her story about how she went from a three-sport athlete in high school to indoor volleyball national champion in college, and then her transition to beach volleyball and Olympic success.
“I think it’s important because the players who took the time for me when I was their age helped feed the fire in me,” May-Treanor said. “You want to inspire them.”
Read more about Misty May-Treanor’s visit.
