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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
Twenty-one people were arrested for trespassing Saturday afternoon when they sat in the middle of a railroad crossing near the Vancouver Amtrak station and refused to move.
Vancouver police pulled the anti-fossil-fuel demonstrators away one by one from the circle they were sitting in while the engineer of a locomotive parked at the other end of the crossing intermittently blared its horn. A crowd of about 80 other demonstrators looked on from behind the activated crossing gates and strained to make their voices heard above the warning bell as they sang and thanked the arrested by name.
It pays to be a man at a public agency in Clark County.
A man was the top-paid employee last year at most public agencies in the county. Just six of the area’s 35 major public agencies gave their highest salary to a woman.
To find the first woman on that 35-agency list, you’d have to scroll down to No. 22: Washougal schools Superintendent Dawn Tarzian, who earned a $130,132 base salary in 2015 before she retired. The top-earning man, Mel Netzhammer, chancellor of Washington State University Vancouver, received an annual base salary of $320,970.
Being a father can be a tough assignment.
When The Columbian asked readers to contribute memories and tales for Father’s Day, we knew we’d get more than Hallmark cards. One traditional sort of dad can be a stern, uncompromising fellow. Another traditional dad is, well, long gone. But many more dads are the fun, friendly, reliable and upstanding sort — somehow finding the sweet spot where “leader/teacher/lawgiver” shares a comfy chair with tenderness and compassion, good humor and love.
Clark County’s influenza season is officially over, local health officials said Wednesday.
This year’s flu season, which began in late January and lasted about 17 weeks, peaked in early April. During that time, Clark County had seven flu-associated deaths, and at least 485 lab-confirmed flu cases were reported. There were four flu outbreaks in long-term care facilities, according to Clark County Public Health.
Volunteers, family and friends gathered Friday afternoon to see Ken Garringer and Christi and Chris Tandberg, with their three kids, take the keys to their new homes, celebrating their move-ins after more than two years of work with Habitat for Humanity.
Before Christi could get a chance to say what her kids — David, 3, Olivia, 5, and Michael, 6 — thought of having a home of their own, they excitedly dragged her away to check things out.
