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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, and two former subordinates have signaled to Clark County that they intend to file a lawsuit for what’s described as hostility and retaliation the trio experienced before losing their jobs at the county’s now eliminated Department of Environmental Services.
All three were part of a series of hires orchestrated by County Councilors David Madore and Tom Mielke that were derided as political favors.
Three nearly identical tort claims, which signal an intention to sue, were filed Oct. 19 with the county’s Risk Management Division on behalf of Benton along with Susan Rice and Christopher Clifford. The claims state that each suffered economic damages, ongoing medical expenses, reduced employability and emotional distress from working at the county.
Benton and Clifford both seek $2 million each in damages and attorney’s fees. Rice seeks $1 million.
The claims take aim at County Manager Mark McCauley as being especially abusive. The new county charter approved by voters in 2014, after the three claimants had received their county jobs, gives McCauley authority to hire and fire personnel.
Read the full story, Benton seeks $2 million from county.
Hunter — the black Lab who sparked a social media maelstrom after he was adopted by another family while his owner was away fighting wildfires — awaits re-adoption at the animal shelter after he was picked up while roaming loose, and his owner refused to pay the ticket to get him back.
Paul Scarpelli, manager of Clark County’s animal control division, said the dog had a history of roaming around his neighborhood dating to before when he was picked up earlier this month.
Around Oct. 14, animal control picked up the dog and brought it to the animal shelter.
Scarpelli said the county wrote the dog’s owner, William Jones of Battle Ground, a citation, but he refused to pay.
“So, basically, he made it his decision he wasn’t going to reclaim the dog,” Scarpelli said.
Animal control had received multiple reports of the dog getting loose before he was brought in this month, Scarpelli said, and from before he was picked up and adopted by a new family around late August.
“That’s the whole reason he got picked up and taken to the shelter all those months ago,” he said. “We gave this guy every opportunity.”
Read the full story, Hunter the black Lab back at animal shelter.
When a small group of well-educated American women put their heads together in the early 1880s, one of their first projects was disproving the myth that college is bad for ladies. That too much brain stress would render them infertile and unhealthy. This was a common belief — promoted by a famous doctor who’d graduated from Harvard.
To combat that idea, this group of smart Boston ladies mailed surveys to their peers, collected the results and collaborated with the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics on a scientific paper called “Health Statistics of Female College Graduates.” It destroyed the notion that women must choose between their bodies and their brains.
That groundbreaking group eventually called itself the American Association of University Women; its branches quickly spread from coast to coast. AAUW’s mission is to open up the world of higher education for women; that means everything from providing scholarships and mentorships for women entering science and engineering fields to fighting gender discrimination through leadership development, policy advocacy and lawsuits.
On Nov. 14, you can attend a luncheon performance that reviews, in fashionable style, the whole history of AAUW in Vancouver. The local chapter, founded by a gathering of 23 women at the Evergreen Hotel on lower Main Street on Nov. 14, 1931, will celebrate its 85th birthday with an original play called “Thinking Back, Looking Forward.”
Read the full story, AAUW of Vancouver celebrates its history.
