What’s ahead following a windy weekend? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed it, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
Clark County Councilor David Madore signaled at Saturday’s Republican convention that he plans to run to keep his seat on the council.
“If you will have me, I will be glad to continue to represent you and I will fight for you,” Madore told a packed and cheering crowd at the Clark County Republican Party’s convention at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.
Madore’s apparent campaign announcement came shortly after sources said Republican Councilor Tom Mielke told The Reflector, Battle Ground’s weekly newspaper, that he does not plan to run to keep his seat on the county council for a third term.
Both announcements come in the midst of continued strife on the Clark County council. Republican Councilors Julie Olson and Jeanne Stewart and Chair Marc Boldt, a former Republican who now has no party preference, have voted to overturn initiatives and policies championed last year by Madore and Mielke.
Learn more about Madore’s plans and Mielke’s plans.
On Piper’s first day on the job last November, the drug-sniffing black Lab helped nab three alleged drug dealers — and seize more than 25 pounds of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine; $220,000 in cash; some guns; and two cars.
The drugs were destroyed. The cash and the rest of the seized items may help foot the bill for Clark County’s multi-agency drug task force, which receives about $100,000 annually through the practice, said Clark County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. John Horch, who leads the task force.
Revenue from seized cash and selling seized items at auction also covered half of the roughly $15,000 it cost to buy Piper, he said.
Read more about asset forfeiture.
Recent accusations by Clark County Councilor David Madore that his fellow councilors and the acting county manager violated the Open Public Meetings Act may have merit, open government experts say.
The allegations were borne from last week’s board time meeting, when Acting County Manager Mark McCauley revealed he had not sent a public meeting notice to The Reflector, the county’s newspaper of record, announcing a public hearing on March 22 that was scheduled by resolution in September. The deadline to publish that notice in the Battle Ground weekly has passed.
Three of the five councilors, McCauley explained, were uninterested in the topic: a charter amendment Madore proposed limiting Clark County’s ability to raise property taxes.
“I anticipated this outcome,” McCauley said. “I didn’t want to publish a public notice for a hearing that wasn’t going to occur.”
Toby Nixon, president for the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said the action “reeks of a public meetings violation.” Nixon is a city councilor in Kirkland and said “there would be hell to pay” if Kirkland’s city manager had done the same thing.
Learn more about the controversy at the county.
Preliminary construction work is underway on downtown Vancouver’s 7.3-acre public park that will be the heart of a future $1.3 billion mixed-use development on the Columbia River.
Once completed, the $17 million city park is expected to be a community, regional and state draw, said Julie Hannon, the city’s Parks and Recreation director. The park is scheduled to open to the public late next year.
Learn more about the waterfront park project.
Anyone hoping for the drama of the national Republican presidential race would have been disappointed.
Saturday’s Clark County Republican Party Convention was calm, methodical and filled with long, foot-tapping periods of waiting for ballots to be counted.
But 10 hours after the convention began, the party had accomplished what it came to do: elect 102 delegates for May’s state Republican convention in Pasco and approve this year’s party platform.
“It was a huge success,” Clark County party Chairman Kenny Smith said Saturday evening.
Read more about the Clark County GOP convention.
