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News / Clark County News

Morning Press: Ridgefield, Townsend, Cougar pantry, charter vote, biking Italy, Kaiser influence

The Columbian
Published: September 14, 2014, 5:00pm

Local weather coverage is online here.

Were you away for the weekend? Catch up on some big stories.

Ridgefield is rising after Great Recession

Dale and Karol Cushenbery counted themselves lucky when they recently closed the purchase of their new home in Ridgefield.

The retired couple moved in last week to their custom-built house in Pioneer Canyon, the city’s largest subdivision. Not only did they beat other buyers looking at the in-demand property nestled between a wetland and a narrow stretch of woodland, they felt it was just the right time to settle down in the small but fast-growing city.

When the housing market collapsed, homebuilding nearly came to a halt in Ridgefield. But the city was one of the first in the state to see a rebirth of construction activity, with an uptick in building permits for new homes in 2012.

Now, seven years after the start of the Great Recession, Ridgefield is showing signs of a healthier and stronger recovery than the rest of Clark County, with more developable land than the other small cities and faster population growth. With a number of major infrastructure projects underway and an aggressive marketing campaign to draw in new businesses and homeowners, community leaders and residents believe the city is poised for a boom.

Like many other new homeowners in Ridgefield, that hopeful outlook was a big part of what attracted the Cushenberys to the city.

“This place is lively, it’s happening, it’s up and coming,” Dale Cushenbery said. “I just felt like six months ago, we needed to get into Ridgefield now, because someday it’s going to be like Beaverton, Ore., or West Linn.”

In terms of a population comparison, Beaverton may be a stretch, but the latter could be spot on. With an estimated population of a little more than 6,000 now and the second-fastest growth rate in the state this year at 8.8 percent, Ridgefield is projected to more than quadruple in size in the next decade.

  • Read the complete story here.

County candidate’s loss of city job was controversial

In her bid to oust Tony Golik as Clark County prosecutor, private lawyer Josephine Townsend, 54, of Vancouver has criticized the incumbent for alleged mismanagement of his office. Yet public documents show the Republican challenger has a record of missteps, discipline and mismanagement during her career.

After three years as Vancouver’s city prosecutor, her performance led to her resignation in lieu of termination in February 2005. She was disciplined by the Washington State Bar Association in January 2006 for misconduct during her term as city prosecutor, and then failed to disclose the discipline when she was appointed to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct in March 2006. She stepped down from the commission in July 2007 when members of the commission’s executive committee learned about the discipline from another source and asked for her resignation.

Meanwhile, when she sought judicial offices, Townsend has garnered mainly negative feedback in Clark County Bar Association peer opinion polls on categories such as integrity.

As recently as last Tuesday, Townsend continued to deny that she resigned from the Vancouver job in lieu of termination.

“I worked out a severance agreement with the city, and I was not asked to resign,” she told The Columbian’s editorial board Tuesday. Her resignation letter was dated Feb. 23, 2005, a week after Gathe wrote the termination letter.

Then-city attorney Ted Gathe says that Townsend did, in fact, resign to avoid termination.

“That’s not true,” Townsend said. “I don’t know why he would say that.”

  • Read the complete story here.

Food pantry helps WSUV hungry

A 2012 financial aid system glitch at Washington State University that delayed the disbursement of millions of dollars in grants and loans also revealed just how needy some students really are. Many of the same students who relied on that money to pay for tuition and other expenses told school officials about being forced to make some very hard choices.

“Students not eating or not being able to feed their families because they needed to buy books” was the kind of anecdote that started making the rounds, according to Kafiat Beckley, supervisor of the Cougar Center, which houses student services offices and programs at Washington State University Vancouver.

Beckley pointed out that WSUV’s nonresidential campus attracts a student body that’s older and more experienced — and busier with jobs, families and other adult responsibilities — than your typical “college kids.” And, Beckley said, those nontraditional students are likelier than others to have been hit hard by the Great Recession, experiencing layoffs and foreclosures, financial crises and other fallout.

9 Photos
Jim West, left, and Sherri McMillan joke around during  a game of Celebrity Hopscotch at the Share Fromhold Service Center as part of the Give More 24 charity event, Thursday, September 18, 2014.
Give More 24! day of giving Photo Gallery

“It became clear to us as financial aid was delayed that some of our students face food insecurity on a daily basis. Hunger can have a huge impact on a student’s success,” says a recent memo to faculty and staff from Chancellor Mel Netzhammer.

So, student services personnel have launched a discreet little on-campus food bank: the Cougar Food Pantry. The pantry is tucked into a side alcove in the Cougar Center and it’s really little more than a storage area for shelf-stable goods that can sit in room-temperature cabinets and not go bad for a while. Except, the donated supplies in the pantry don’t sit for long.

“Since we opened the Cougar Pantry we have discovered just how great the need is among our students. Use of the pantry has far exceeded what we anticipated,” Netzhammer wrote.

  • Read the complete story here.

PAC forms to fight change to County government

A new political action committee has formed to fight a proposed overhaul of Clark County government.

The committee, known as Don’t Lose Your Voice, trails the pro-charter political committee in money and, seemingly, prominence — at least for now — but its supporters say it’s working on a ground-up campaign.

So far, the PAC, formed in late August, has raised $4,150, according to filings with the Washington state Public Disclosure Commission. The money will be spent primarily on signs and literature, Long said.

Most of it has come from one source, Chuck Miller, a Republican activist who’s previously fought against same-sex marriage and illegal immigration. His wife, Anna Miller, is Clark County Commissioner David Madore’s personal assistant.

With less than two months before voters will decide whether to approve the charter, the Don’t Lose Your Voice PAC is part of a coordinated effort by Clark County Republicans to fight it. Last month, local Republican precinct committee officers voted to support a resolution opposing the proposed charter, approved in spring by a 15-member board of freeholders.

Charter opponents also have created a website, www.votenocharter.com, to spread their message. It includes video statements from critics of the charter, including Mielke and Yacolt Mayor Jeff Carothers.

  • Read the complete story here.

Battle Ground woman tours Italy by bike

Cindi Rauch, a retired Battle Ground teacher, knows how to pack her summer with fun and adventure.

Two years ago, she biked 5,000 miles — 100 miles in each state — to celebrate her 60th birthday.

This summer, Rauch, 62, and her friend Patty Holt, both seasoned cyclists, spent a month touring Italy on bikes.

To transport their bikes on the plane, they packed them in large plastic bags. Each woman left one pannier, or cargo carrier, on her bike and packed the other as carry-on luggage.

“Let the savoring begin,” Rauch wrote on her blog, Savoring Italy.

Although Holt had visited Italy before, it was Rauch’s first trip. Neither spoke or understood much Italian.

“This trip to Italy squelched that fear of not speaking the language,” Rauch said. “We got ourselves in situations more than I can count where we were talking to someone who spoke no English, and we spoke very little Italian. But it always worked out. We were able to do the charades, hand signals to communicate.”

Sometimes, they got lost. But getting lost led to interesting experiences.

In San Mineato, their host directed them to a restaurant at an agri turismo, a working farm that provides lodging and meals, literally combining agriculture and tourism. But they got lost and went to the wrong one, where they found one table was set for a large group.

“We shyly asked the kitchen staff if we could join them for dinner,” Rauch said.

  • Read the complete story here.

Kaiser Permanente’s move from PeaceHealth to Legacy reverberates in Clark County

Both PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center say they’re seeing notably fewer people arriving without any health insurance, a shift that’s good for any hospital’s bottom line. But a decision last year by health insurance giant Kaiser Permanente to shift patients from PeaceHealth to Legacy seems to be having a much bigger financial impact on local hospitals than the expansion in coverage that came with the Affordable Care Act.

The result: PeaceHealth Southwest is feeling a financial squeeze, with fewer visits since the start of the year and less money coming in the door.

At Legacy Salmon Creek, revenue is up, visits are climbing and new jobs have been posted for medical professionals. But hospital leaders say they’re having to spend more, too, to keep up with the growing demand.

Kaiser covers about 121,000 people in Southwest Washington, while the Affordable Care Act has added only 26,700 enrollees to local Medicaid rolls and 8,600 people to private individual health plans since the beginning of the year.

It’s little wonder that it’s difficult to tease out just how significant health reform will ultimately be for local hospitals’ bottom lines, says Bryce Helgerson, chief administrative officer at Legacy Salmon Creek.

  • Read the complete story here.
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