It may be wet, but at least your pipes shouldn’t freeze. Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
CAMAS — A verdant pasture is speckled with cows of all colors feeding under a clear November sky. This used to be a quiet neighborhood, one would imagine. It used to be outside city limits, to be sure.
There are a lot of things Camas used to be.
Across the street from the small farm sits a new 80,000-square-foot development, home to an indoor shooting range and office space. There are plans for two more commercial buildings on the site, where a parking lot has supplanted the soil.
There are a lot of things Camas is going to be.
In its 109-year existence, Camas has gone from mill town to model city, a budding cosmopolis on the edge of a metropolis. It’s different. For some that means better, and for others that means worse. But it’s still the Home of the Papermakers.
“Camas is a city of 20,000 that thinks it’s a city of 4,000,” Mayor Scott Higgins said. “Bottom line, you have to believe in keeping your culture and you work to keep it.”
Clark County is on track to spend more this holiday season, based on higher retail sales over the last several years and improved finances for some households. Retail spending in Clark County has gone up 24 percent over the last 10 years during the fourth quarter, which covers those key holiday shopping months ending on New Year’s Eve.
Nearly $5 billion was spent in the county’s retail industry in the last three months of 2014, according to the Washington State Department of Revenue.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if holiday sales were a little bit better in Washington than nationally,” said Steve Lerch, chief economist and executive director at the Washington State Economic Forecast Council. He said personal income and employment are the biggest drivers of consumer spending, and they’ve both been improving. Statewide, real disposable income is up nearly 4 percent over the last year. Personal saving rates have grown, too, according to the council.
Even Santa needs a break from the cacophony of shopping malls and his workshop at the North Pole.
The man in red made a quiet stop Saturday on Northeast 18th Street to visit kids who would rather be anywhere than an overstimulating mall.
“You have to pay it forward, and that’s why I do this,” said Mr. Claus.
Sensory Santa, a two-hour event put on by the Vancouver Autism Moms Support Group, took over The Arc of Southwest Washington on Saturday afternoon. Meant for children with any kind of disability, it was a chance to meet Father Christmas without the lines, the noise or the hurry normally associated with the Santa Claus photo-op.
“One mom came up and said her daughter had never had a picture with Santa because she’s afraid,” said Autism Moms organizer Melissa Dodge. “But today, she rushed right up.”
It starts right after Halloween: The shimmering notes of Christmas music, the green and red-dominated print ads and grocery store end caps loaded down with assorted nuts and glac? fruits.
It seems to come earlier and earlier with each year that passes. We haven’t even come down from the Halloween candy high when we are swept into the next season of excess.
But what if your days are not “merry and bright?” How do you navigate the months of potlucks, parties and holiday events when you’re grieving or in crisis?
There’s help. Several churches and nonprofits offer services and workshops for people who are struggling to navigate the holidays for any number of reasons — but especially those who have lost loved ones or are dealing with health problems.
Southwest Washington lawmakers honed their skills tackling big topics — a carbon cap proposal, the Interstate 5 Bridge, school funding — in a short period of time during a legislative preview breakfast Friday morning at the Hilton Vancouver Washington.
It’s an ability they will need during the upcoming abbreviated legislative session, which starts Jan. 11 and lasts 60 days.
The previous legislative session was the longest ever in a single year, with lawmakers going into several overtime sessions.
“I really do want business to be done in a timely manner,” Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, told the room packed full of politicians and business leaders.
The 2016 legislative outlook breakfast was hosted by the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, Identity Clark County and the Columbia River Economic Development Council. The Southwest Washington lawmakers who sat on the panel were: Sens. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, Ann Rivers, R-La Center, Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, and Reps. Liz Pike, R-Camas, Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, Sharon Wylie, D-Vancouver, and Harris.
One of the first questions lawmakers faced from the audience on Friday morning is what they will do to replace the aging Interstate 5 Bridge.
If you were to tell Sundari Sitaram three years ago that she’d be spending her 51st birthday on her way to live in a bungalow in rural Thailand, she’d have never believed you.
“I thought living out of your backpack was something you did in your 20s, so it’s pretty funny to be 51 and living in the jungle,” she said.
In October, the former Camas woman sold everything she owned to buy a one-way ticket to a place more than 7,000 miles away from her comfortable life. And though moving across the world was a tough decision, it came down to one thing for Sitaram: the best way to create real change when it comes to the treatment of elephants in Southeast Asia was to be there.
Sitaram is the founder and executive director of Heart of Ganesh, a Clark County nonprofit group that seeks to educate and empower others to take compassionate action for captive and endangered elephants.
The Cowlitz Indian Tribe released fresh details this week about the $510 million casino-resort project now under construction along Interstate 5 at Exit 16 outside of La Center.
Scheduled to open in spring 2017, the three-phase project initially will include a one-story casino-resort building of 368,000 total square feet. It will include a 100,000-square-foot gaming floor, plus meeting facilities and 15 different restaurants, bars and retail shops, according to the tribe.
The large gaming space — about the size of a Fred Meyer store — will make it “one of the premier entertainment and meeting destinations of the Northwest,” the tribe stated in a fact sheet. “Exciting games of chance and skill will be found in an environment that brings forward the culture of the Northwest and pays tribute to the heritage of the Cowlitz Tribe.”
Designed to have a Northwest feel with stone, wood, natural light and subtle tribal touches, the casino will feature 2,500 slots, 75 gaming tables, 60 high-limit slots and five high-limit tables. The venue for meetings and conventions can seat up to 2,500 people. The complex will include 3,000 on-site parking spaces, with valet and VIP services to be offered.
