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Here are some of the stories that grabbed readers’ attention this week.
HAZEL DELL — Rick and Renee Amies’ Hazel Dell home glows each Christmas season with light-up reindeer and strands upon strands of lights.
“It’s all her fault,” Rick Amies joked.
“Honestly, it all started from where Rick grew up on 43rd and Lincoln,” Renee said.
She recalled when she was a teenager growing up in the east county and driving to the Lincoln neighborhood in Vancouver to see two homes the owners covered with Christmas lights.
One of those houses was Rick’s. He grew up near Northwest Lincoln Avenue and West 43rd Street. His neighbor was Anthony Furio. In 1959, Furio started a famous local display, where he covered his house in thousands of blue lights.
Why is there no direct on- and offramp to (north) Interstate 5 from state Highway 500?
That question was high in mind for many of our readers who participated in our Clark Asks feature, where readers ask questions for reporters to dig into and answer.
Every day, thousands of people navigate the Highway 500/I-5 interchange as part of their regular commute.
Drivers entering or exiting I-5 via Highway 500 south of East 39th Street enjoy an uninterrupted high-speed transition from one roadway to the next thanks to a flyover ramp. Meanwhile, drivers coming from or going to I-5 north of East 39th Street via Highway 500 find themselves navigating surface streets and waiting at traffic lights.
Half a dozen students at Mountain View High School have contracted whooping cough since last month.
Clark County Public Health has received reports of six cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, at the east Vancouver school since November. In response, school officials sent a letter home with students, alerting parents to the cases and the signs and symptoms of the disease.
“Pertussis is just circulating in the community,” said Monica Czapla, infectious disease program manager at Clark County Public Health. “Because of the long incubation period and the long contagious period, it can be circulating for a while.”
Whooping cough is an illness spread through respiratory secretions from coughing and sneezing. For the first few weeks, people with whooping cough can be contagious but only have seemingly harmless symptoms similar to those of a cold, such as runny nose, low-grade fever and mild cough.
Zack Groen doesn’t know what “normal” feels like.
Groen, 25, was an average, healthy baby. But by age 6, he had fallen off of the growth chart. That’s also when the frequent vomiting, diarrhea and lethargy started.
“I haven’t ever really felt much different,” said Groen, who lives in Woodland.
By the time Groen was 9, he weighed less than he did as a 6-year-old. He saw numerous specialists who ran a litany of tests looking for tumors and leukemia and lesions in his upper gastrointestinal tract. Everything came back negative.
Finally, when Groen was 11 and weighed just 43 pounds, he was diagnosed with celiac disease — an immune reaction to eating gluten that can damage the small intestine and prevent the absorption of nutrients.
After cutting gluten from his diet, Groen experienced some improvement. He had occasional stomach issues, but, for the most part, the gastrointestinal symptoms went away. He stopped missing school. His grades improved.
With nearby jurisdictions legalizing recreational cannabis and receiving tax money, Clark County has begun re-examining its policy banning marijuana businesses in unincorporated places such as Hazel Dell and Salmon Creek.
Clark County has prohibited recreational marijuana stores in unincorporated areas since sales were legalized. Meanwhile, recreational pot shops have sprung up in Vancouver and Battle Ground, which don’t have similar restrictions, and Oregon voters legalized the drug in 2014.
Council Chair Marc Boldt said that the county is now considering if it’s worth losing out on cannabis tax revenue and if the county might be able to provide more effective regulations by lifting the ban.
On Wednesday, Clark County took a step toward possibly re-evaluating its policies during a work session where councilors heard from law enforcement and county staff, who described the current regulatory framework as well as the effects of Washington voters legalizing cannabis in 2012.
