What’s on tap for this week’s weather? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
It was 130 years ago this month when the territorial Legislature approved a bill to create the Washington School for Defective Youth to educate “the deaf, blind and feeble-minded children of the Territory of Washington.”
Thankfully, public attitudes toward people with disabilities have changed drastically since 1886.
That’s not all that’s changed. New technology helps bring services to blind and deaf people in ways never before possible and opens doors for them to navigate successfully in the world.
If an earthquake causes destruction in Clark County or a disease outbreak strikes the community, first responders, medical workers and others who would be working on the front lines will be prepared to help the community respond — including the youngest local residents.
Fifty people from across Southwest Washington and northern Portland underwent a two-day training seminar on pediatric disaster preparedness this week. Clark County Public Health hosted the seminar, which was funded by a Department of Homeland Security grant.
The training was aimed at people working in public health, schools, emergency medical services, medical clinics, hospitals, law enforcement and disaster response. And the goal was to get local organizations thinking about special considerations for children for a variety of disasters — earthquakes, plane crashes, disease outbreaks, tornadoes, floods.
“Kids are not little adults,” said Robin Albrandt, regional emergency response coordinator with Clark County Public Health.
“This is a group that doesn’t have the ability to meet their own needs,” added John Rinard of Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, who conducted the training.
YACOLT — Fathers wearing ties, suspenders and suit jackets wandered around the gymnasium, anxiously awaiting their daughters’ arrival. As the girls trickled in, many in formal dresses, their fathers called out and pulled them into a tight embrace.
For some of the men, it was the most contact they’ve had with their daughters in years. Usual visits consist of sitting at a table across from each other with little to no physical contact.
But on Saturday, inmates at Larch Corrections Center were given the opportunity to participate in the prison’s second father-daughter dance. Last year, only eight inmates signed up. That number more than doubled this year, with 17 inmates and about 25 daughters of all ages, up to 18 years old.
Only inmates who have daughters, and who had no major infractions for the last 90 days, could participate, said Nancy Simmons, Larch’s community partnerships program coordinator. Larch Corrections Center is a minimum-security prison that houses inmates who have four years or less left on their sentences.
The city of Vancouver is on better financial footing now than in the last 10 years, putting it in a good position to weather a mild economic recession that’s expected next year, according to city finance staff.
After the brutal job and service cuts of the Great Recession, achieving this level of stability hasn’t been easy — and there’s still more hard work to be done to close a $7.2 million budget gap that’s forecast for 2022, Deputy Finance Director Natasha Ramras said this week.
But although the city’s financial picture appears “very stable” for the next six years and no service cuts are in sight, the city isn’t at a point where it can add employees unless it finds new revenue sources to pay for them, said Ramras, who recently provided the city council with a financial snapshot in preparation for this fall’s 2017-18 budget adoption.
For the second legislative session in a row, Reps. Liz Pike, R-Camas, and Sharon Wylie, D-Vancouver, teamed up to champion a measure that would create a bistate bridge coalition.
House Bill 2414 would carve out $100,000 to create a work group of lawmakers from both sides of the river to discuss how to improve congestion over the Columbia River.
Three years after the Washington Legislature voted to kill the Columbia River Crossing, any conversation about possible crossings or upgrades remains contentious.
On Friday afternoon, Wylie admitted “it may be too soon” to try to convince people to come back to the table.
Both Wylie and Pike said their latest effort is likely dead, although they are quick to point out nothing is truly dead in the Legislature until the final gavel falls.
