Cheers: Signs of the season are in abundance. In downtown Vancouver, Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, and about 500 revelers took part last week in the lighting of the community Christmas tree in Esther Short Park. In Olympia, a tree has been installed in the Capitol Rotunda and adorned with more than 5,000 lights and nearly 200 decorations. All around, stores and shopping malls are ringing with reminders that Christmas is drawing near.
While Americans celebrate Christmas and the holidays in various ways, the joy and glad tidings of the season can be universal. The decorations and the lights and the trees and the presents are not the most important part of Christmas for many, but they can help brighten the spirits of even the most disgruntled Grinch at this time of year.
Jeers: Whether or not a proposed oil terminal gets built at the Port of Vancouver, crude-bearing trains will continue to roll through the city and through other communities along the Columbia River. As a new report delivered to lawmakers points out, the state is ill-equipped to handle the increased volume in oil-by-rail traffic.
For example, according to the report, nearly 60 percent of first responders say they do not have sufficient training or resources to handle a train derailment accompanied by a fire. The report details a dozen recommendations for the Legislature to consider during its upcoming session, and among the most important is this: Ensuring that those who transport oil can pay for cleanup in the event of an accident. Throughout the state, oil-by-rail shipments went from none in 2011 to 714 million gallons in 2013 — and the number promises to grow. State officials are still playing catchup and must make public safety as it relates to oil trains a priority beginning in January.
Cheers: Clark County commissioners have approved a two-year budget that does not raise property taxes and that provides “flexibility to react to changing circumstances,” according to budget director Bob Stevens. In other words, the county budget for 2015-16 is just about everything that taxpayers could have wanted. Among the highlights is the addition of 10 custody deputies for the Sheriff’s Office — joining eight enforcement deputies approved earlier this year.
The biennial budget dedicates $896 million to all county funds, with about $296 million going to the general fund over which commissioners have discretion. In 2008, the total two-year budget was about $1 billion. Which means that in one way, at least, county officials have managed to serve their constituents well.
Jeers: The carcasses of some 30 to 40 crows were found last week in Portland parks, and the preliminary assumption is that the birds were intentionally poisoned. The carcasses are being sent a federal laboratory where investigators will try to determine the cause of death.
Whether or not the birds were intentionally killed, the situation is sad. The cruelty required for somebody to kill a large group of crows would be unconscionable. And if the birds died by natural or environmental causes, that also would be disconcerting. Suffice it to say that dozens of crows dying in public parks is disturbing.
Cheers: A copy of the novel “Gone With the Wind” has been returned to the library at Rogers High School in Spokane — 65 years after it was checked out. Betty Mandershied, then a senior at Rogers, checked out the book on Jan. 4, 1949. There’s no word on its travels since then, but the novel somehow ended up in Carmel, Maine.
After being discovered there, it was returned to the library on the other side of the country. School officials graciously waived the late fees.
