Around the area, Oct. 14, 2008

Evergreen Public Schools’ first community tour of the school year is set for Oct. 30 in east Vancouver.

The free tour, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., will include Mountain View High School, Shahala Middle School and Fisher’s Landing Elementary School.

Guests will visit classrooms, hear from students and ask questions of district workers.

Participants will meet at the Clark County Skills Center, 12200 N.E. 28th St., in Vancouver, to begin the tour. Following the trip, guests will return to the Skills Center for a complimentary lunch served by culinary arts students.

Preregistration is requested. This can be done at evergreenps.org, or by calling Evergreen’s community relations department at 360-604-4088.

Clark County’s commissioners are considering removing code provisions that prohibit “strip development” in some zones without defining the term.

Instead, they plan to eventually develop design standards.

“That’s where the control measures are going to come in — how it looks, as opposed to how it functions,” county Planner Gary Albrecht said Monday.

The change, scheduled for discussion in an Oct. 29 work session, would affect sites in the unincorporated county zoned “community commercial.”

The public meeting will be in the sixth-floor training room of the county Public Service Center at 1300 Franklin St.