The freezing rain predicted for today is the latest chilly development in a wild weather week that featured lots of snow in Clark County. Following is a brief excerpt from Sunday’s weather story.
February’s winter blast is going out with a treacherous twist, topping off days worth of snow with a layer of ice.
Steady snowfall throughout the day Saturday turned to sleet and then to freezing rain at about 5 p.m., prompting warnings about hazardous roads and possible power outages throughout the region.
After the second workplace shooting in less than 48 hours last week, Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Neiman said he wasn’t surprised by the comments from survivors.
He was, however, a little saddened by the common theme.
“I had several employees come by, and to a person they said, ‘I never believed this would happen here,'” Neiman said. “They need to get out of that mindset, because it does happen.”
It’s not paranoid to have a sense of situational awareness. A company plan of action is never a bad thing — and it could save lives, he said.
According to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 767 workplace deaths in the United States due to violence or suicide in 2012. Workplace homicides and suicides were both slightly lower in 2012 than 2011.
There were 375 workers killed in shootings on the job in 2012. Robbers accounted for 33 percent of the assailants; co-workers accounted for 13 percent.
For months, developer Barry Cain has told anyone who would listen that his plan for a $1.3 billion Vancouver waterfront development was threatened by a proposed oil terminal about 2 miles downriver at the Port of Vancouver.
Now Cain, president of Tualatin, Ore.-based Gramor Development, is ramping up his rhetoric. Last week, he told The Columbian’s editorial board flatly that the $110 million oil terminal would kill plans to bring urban density to 32 acres of downtown Columbia River-front property. It’s an assertion strongly rejected by the Port of Vancouver and the proposed terminal’s developers, Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, who have repeatedly said that they think the two projects can coexist.
Asked about the chance of the project going forward if the oil transfer terminal is built, Cain said, “Zero.”
Port of Vancouver officials strongly disagree. Todd Coleman, the Port’s executive director, said safety and other concerns are being considered in the rigorous environmental review of the $110 million oil terminal now underway by the state Energy Facility Siting Evaluation Council, or EFSEC.
A Florida-based developer has requested city review for an apartment complex at the Veterans Affairs campus in Vancouver.
The 69-unit project, to be built on a parking lot along East Fourth Plain Boulevard, would serve homeless and low-income veterans as part of a nationwide VA initiative to reduce the number of veterans without homes.
Freedoms Path, as the project is called, is one of 38 veterans’ housing projects being developed around the nation at VA facilities. Communities for Veterans, a Sarasota, Fla.-based firm, has been selected for eight of those projects, including Vancouver, said Adam Gratzer, a project manager for the company. The Vancouver project is to be financed in part using federal low-income housing tax credits made available through the state of Washington.
The project, which has been under discussion since 2011, is not yet a done deal. Gratzer said developers hope the Vancouver Housing Authority will be able to secure federal housing vouchers, which provide rent subsidies and coordinated services, that will make the project financially viable.
The 64,000-square-foot, four-story building would be built on the southwest corner of the intersection of East Fourth Plain and St. Johns boulevards.
Plans submitted to the city in preparation for a Feb. 27 pre-application conference show that the building would have 21 studio and 48 one-bedroom apartments. Parking would be provided with on-site spaces and a shared parking lot that has not yet been constructed, according to the proposal.
