What could have been a routine county meeting anywhere else devolved into political theater Tuesday at the Clark County council meeting.
With Council Chair Marc Boldt, no party preference, and Republicans Julie Olson and Jeanne Stewart in the majority, the council restored its legal advertising to The Columbian, and approved a pass-through grant from Kaiser Permanente to the city of Vancouver.
Despite protests by Republican Councilors David Madore and Tom Mielke, the council approved The Columbian as its paper of record, a designation Clark County has granted to the Battle Ground Reflector, a weekly newspaper, since 2014.
“It’s really not about what paper we like better,” Olson said, alluding to the ongoing tension between Mielke and Madore and The Columbian.
Purchasing Manager Mike Westerman told the council that the county has actually spent more on legal ads since granting the advertising to The Reflector. The county spent about $57,000 on legal ads with The Columbian in fiscal year 2013, he said. In fiscal year 2014, meanwhile, it paid The Reflector $67,000, as well as an additional $55,000 to The Columbian due to The Reflector’s limited circulation area.
“We’re not saving money,” Westerman said. “All we are, is creating frustration in the county.”
In another split vote, the Clark County council approved $67,500 in pass-through funding from Kaiser Permanente to the city of Vancouver to hire a planning consultant for the Fourth Plain Forward project, an initiative aimed at revitalizing a half-mile stretch of East Fourth Plain Boulevard.
Clark County Public Health was recently awarded a $250,000 grant from the healthcare provider to fund the project over the next three years.
But Mielke pressed Dr. Alan Melnick, Clark County’s Public Health Director, on why the county is committing more money to this project. The answer from Melnick and Acting County Manager Mark McCauley was simple: It isn’t.
“It’s a simple pass-through,” McCauley told Mielke.
Melnick added: “There’s not a dime of county funding that goes into this, at all.”
Madore, meanwhile, lambasted the project as an example of the “war on cars” and an effort to force people into high-density housing.
“What this really is, certainly sidewalks are good, streetlights are good, pedestrian crossing, good,” he said. “But this is not that.”
The council also unanimously approved the creation of a rural industrial land bank, which converts the 600-acre Lagler and Ackerland properties south of Battle Ground from agriculture to light industrial.
The project and community contributions by Dennis Lagler, owner of the properties, received praise from the council.
Tuesday’s meeting also featured a quiet group of demonstrators, made up of members from the local chapter of Black Lives Matter and the Facebook groups Clark County Citizens for Good Governance and Clark County Citizens Unfiltered. Some demonstrators attended Tuesday’s meeting dressed in black T-shirts to show support for county staff.
Cecelia Towner, founder of the local Black Lives Matter movement, urged the county to hire a diversity officer to oversee county employment practices and advocate for protected groups.
“We are here because we want to make sure that county employees matter,” she told the board. “Hiring practices should not be subject to political gain. Employees that do their job well should be valued, regardless of race, gender, disability or not, or other factors.”
