If you were away for the weekend, catch up with these stories.
Anticipated temperatures over 100? didn’t manifest, but the heat is continuing. Check our local weather coverage.
Is PeaceHealth feeling poorly?
Three weeks ago, PeaceHealth set out a belated welcome mat for hundreds of Clark County business leaders and elected officials. The operator of PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and nine other medical centers in three states wanted to introduce itself to the community — something PeaceHealth leaders say they hadn’t done since moving corporate offices here from Bellevue four years ago.
For two hours, visitors filled the vast entryway of the Columbia Center at Columbia Tech Center. PeaceHealth leaders touted the health care system’s economic impact as Clark County’s largest employer, with nearly 4,300 employees and $295 million in local payroll. Guests snacking on sumptuous foods checked out displays of services and technology offered at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, the county’s largest medical facility.
While PeaceHealth officials joked about their four-year delay in introducing themselves to the community, they made no mention of another point of awkwardness about the event timing, coming in the midst of major turmoil that is rumbling through the health care system.
In just the last few months, many of PeaceHealth’s top leaders have been replaced or their positions eliminated, raising questions about the direction of the nonprofit that is operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. Meanwhile, some employee groups at two Oregon hospitals, in Eugene and Springfield, have voted to unionize over complaints about staffing levels and employee benefits; and workers in both Bellingham and Vancouver have gone public with complaints about staffing and employee benefits.
All the while, PeaceHealth is struggling internally to adapt its leadership and its sprawling health care system to meet the mandates of the Affordable Care Act. Its future is uncertain in an era of tight finances and industry consolidation.
Stirring, sparkling, spectacular — and safe
There’s something about the prospect of blowing things up that makes level-headed people regress into Beavis- and Butthead-like pyromaniacs.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
“Heh heh heh. That was cool.” (Google it, kids.)
With fireworks going on sale Sunday in Clark County in the middle of a heat wave, it’s time to revisit a few rules, warnings and safety tips. Deputy fire marshals will be ramping up patrols this year in Vancouver, where the only day fireworks may be shot off is July 4. People who use fireworks inside city limits on days other than July 4 face fines starting at $250. (See chart for full list of when it’s legal to buy and discharge fireworks throughout Clark County.)
One of the most important things Vancouver Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli wants people to know: It’s not only illegal to modify fireworks so they’re louder and flashier, it’s also extremely dangerous. Follow the instructions on the packaging.
Scarpelli recalls the time a 17-year-old Vancouver boy made a “sparkler bomb” out of legal fireworks and sparklers. He blew off his right hand and lost some fingers on his left hand.
“It was a horrible thing,” she said.
People who get busted altering fireworks or using illegal fireworks face a minimum fine of $500 and possibly a criminal citation, she said.
Heat’s harder without a roof
At Share House’s daily lunchtime on Friday, volunteers passed out bottled water for clients to take with them as they reentered the day’s heat.
It’s an effort to ease the discomfort of being stuck outdoors on hot days without the ability to simply turn on the kitchen tap to keep hydrated. And, Share of Vancouver hopes, getting enough water will prevent the city’s homeless from ending up in the hospital for heat stroke.
Some people stuffed the bottles in backpacks or filled up empty bottles in the bathroom before leaving the downtown Vancouver shelter. Those living on the streets will inevitably experience the difficult weather this weekend and throughout summer.
As lunch ended, outreach case manager Willie Hurst loaded up his van with cases of bottled water to give out in parks and homeless campgrounds around the city. “When there’s warm weather, we’ll do this,” Hurst said.
A water mister was also set up in the shelter’s parking lot to help clients keep cool. The main goal is to keep people from needing to go to the hospital for heat-related health problems, said Jessica Lightheart, Share’s community relations director. The agency is particularly worried about its elderly clients, who are more at risk of being dehydrated.
The agency recently reached out to its supporters, asking for cases of bottled water. When PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center heard about the need, it donated two pallets (about 2,600 bottles) of water, the largest donation so far. The goal is to prevent those most at risk from needing treatment for heat-related illness.
“We need to be proactive in keeping people healthy, and this fits right in with that,” said hospital spokesman Randy Querin.
Still, hospital staff are aware of the possible influx of patients.
“It’s hard because the hydration is one thing, but finding a place out of the sun is another,” Lightheart said.
Besides shady spots and waterways, there aren’t many public places to go to keep cool in downtown Vancouver, where most of the city’s homeless reside and use services.
Liz Wallace stopped and gazed at a window into wonder.
“I think it’s awesome: to take something that would normally be discarded and make stained glass out of it,” Wallace said.
What caught Wallace’s eye really was a window, salvaged from an old house and given a second life. Wallace, a Kelso resident, was standing in front of Darla Lynn’s booth Saturday afternoon at Clark County’s Recycled Arts Festival.
Lynn uses windows and similar items — including glass doors of old cabinets — as the frameworks for her pieces of art. Lynn, owner of Treasure Mosaics in Molalla, Ore., cuts pieces of discarded glass, including bottle bottoms and necks, into translucent circles and rings that form her designs.
Lynn also can do custom work.
“I do heritage pieces,” Lynn said. In those projects, she uses glassware that might have been passed down from an aunt or grandmother.
“When you see them, you remember, ‘My auntie used to have that sugar bowl.’ “
Of course, these are fairly flat panels, so she can’t use the entire piece of glassware. It only works, Lynn said, if “they’re willing to let me cut it.”
Lynn was one of about 160 artists who are displaying their trash-into-treasure talents in the 10th annual art festival this weekend.
Carjacking suspect appears in court
A Longview man accused of pointing a gun at police after leading them on a high-speed chase through Hazel Dell that ended in west Vancouver’s Lincoln neighborhood Thursday evening made a first appearance in Clark County Superior Court on Friday.
Scott D. Lavelle, 23, was captured shortly before 8:15 p.m. by officers and a police dog. He appeared Friday morning on suspicion of attempting to elude police, two counts of first-degree assault, theft of a motor vehicle, first-degree robbery and being an ex-convict in possession of a firearm.
Lavelle also allegedly eluded authorities earlier in the day in Felida.
Lavelle was wanted in connection with a kidnapping case in Cowlitz County and on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver, court records said.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Superior Court, police were advised later that day by the Drug Task Force that Lavelle was seen in the area of Northwest 119th Street. He was reportedly heading to the Country Market, 1804 N.W. 119th St., to meet his grandmother.
At about 6:30 p.m., police spotted a man matching Lavelle’s description speeding in a white Mercury Cougar near the market on Northwest 119th Street. Deputies attempted to pull over the car, which continued southbound, reportedly hitting speeds of 80 mph, court documents said.
Lavelle had obtained the car in an armed carjacking at the market, the affidavit says.
Immigrant owners bring Iranian flavors to Skamania General Store
SKAMANIA — The sign in front of the Skamania General Store still advertises biscuits and gravy.
Well into its second century, the white wooden landmark remains a place where Columbia Gorge residents can pick up a few staples, or where travelers on state Highway 14 can fuel up.
And now they can pick up some hummus and pita.
Other offerings reflect 21st-century ownership in a 100-year-old setting. Do customers in the store’s Beacon Rock Cafe eat a lot of a grilled eggplant?
“They do now,” Firoozeh Zamanizadeh said. “And they like it.”
She is part of a Vancouver family that has owned the Skamania General Store for almost four years. It has been a big adventure for the Zamanizadeh family, which includes sons Kourosh and Armun, but it isn’t their biggest adventure.
Firoozeh and Muhammad Zamanizadeh (she goes by Rose and he goes by Mike) took separate paths from Iran to the United States when they were teens.
Kourosh Zamanizadeh said that his parents grew up on the same block in Iran and “they had been elementary school students together.”
Mike came to California in 1979, when he was 14, to go to school. Rose arrived a few years later when she was 19; she also came here for an education, but Rose’s move was much more dramatic because of the Iranian Revolution. Her family had ties to the previous regime, and after the revolution, many opportunities were closed to her.
After graduating from high school, “it was impossible for me to continue my education in Iran,” she said. “I decided to come here.”
When Rose flew into Oakland, Mike met her at the airport.
“Pops always had a crush on Mom,” said Kourosh, who works for an investment management firm in San Francisco.
