Is the weather going to turn on us again? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the week:
Friday was a day of firsts for longtime Costco employee Mathew Rios — he typically has the day off, and he’s certainly never performed life-saving measures while dressed as a Bavarian elf.
It was shortly before 10:30 a.m. and Rios had just started his shift at the Vancouver warehouse, 6720 N.E. 84th St. He’s worked for Costco for 22 years, 11 of which have been at that store.
The 42-year-old said he doesn’t usually dress up for Christmas, but he decided to get into the spirit by wearing an elf hat, suspenders over a green shirt and a poinsettia-colored tie. People were calling him the “mountain elf,” he said, because of his beard.
Learn more about Rios’ life-saving actions.
Vancouver twins Brandi and Kandi Dreier have always struggled with their weight. Over the years, they’ve tried nearly everything to drop the pounds with little success.
For the last several years, the now 30-year-olds have tried to get weight-loss surgery, but their health insurance never covered the procedure. With an insurance change last year, the women thought they would finally get the surgeries that could change their lives.
Read more about Brandi and Kandi’s journey.
Clark County Assessor Peter Van Nortwick recalled attending a Washington Association of County Assessors meeting where one of his counterparts from a smaller county joked that larger counties had plans to eliminate the smaller ones.
“It does make sense,” Van Nortwick, a Republican, said he concluded after mulling the idea.
Learn more about the idea to merge come counties into others.
After six weeks in the hospital, Juan Rubio was out and finally got a real meal: a take-out steak from a nearby Shari’s.
“It’s my first real food today,” he said Dec. 13 from his hotel suite, hours after being discharged.
Juan, his wife, Lindsey, and their two girls, 10-year-old Ashlee and 4-year-old Isabela, split a room at the Candlewood Suites near the airport while they wait for their east Vancouver house to be remodeled and plan for an uncertain future.
Read more about the Rubio family’s plans for the future.
Salmon and steelhead anglers in the Columbia River would pay 69 percent more in fees under the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s final hunting and fishing license increase proposals for 2017-19.
The license fee package submitted to the Office of Financial Management in September would increase the annual cost to fish for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River from a current $38.25 to $64.75.
Read the reasons behind the proposed fee increase.
Nearly a decade ago, Foode Cafe & Catering barely bumped through the economic downturn of 2008. Today, the Vancouver cafe and catering company is on the cusp of opening its third location on the ground floor of the Riverview Tower, 900 Washington St., in downtown Vancouver.
The success surprises owners Joseph Nutting and Joél Nehm, who launched the business together when it was known as Cream & Sugar. Then it was sequestered on the ground floor of the Vancouvercenter, subsisting almost entirely on workers from a nearby Columbia River Crossing office. Three-fourths of the business came from those workers. Without them, Nutting guessed they wouldn’t have survived a recession in full-bore.
Learn more about Foode Cafe’s move.
