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:
January 2017 has turned out to be a month to remember as wind, snow, ice and rain buffeted the region, disrupting daily life to a degree not seen here in many years. And it’s only the 22nd!
The roads were bad. The schools were closed. So was the doctor’s office and the bank. No one picked up the garbage or brought the newspaper.
As things slowly returned to normal toward the end of the last week, The Columbian’s news staff worked the phones and their sources to try to get some perspective on what has generally been three weeks of inconvenience or worse.
Read the full story: A look back at our historic storm
Kylan Johnson’s previous office was a solitary, windowless basement.
Now he hears others walk by his steel cubicle, working and talking, he said last week while leaning back in his chair. They aren’t co-workers. Johnson is part of a wave of entrepreneurs, freelancers, programmers and creatives signing up for co-working spaces to dodge office leases or the distractions of home.
“I came here to be connected to the community,” the 24-year-old Vancouver resident said. “And I have three kids at home, all under the age of 4. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and it was harder to do that in a basement — with no windows.”
Johnson and his ilk are increasingly taking up at co-working spaces like these throughout the Portland-metro area. They cater to an evolving professional class, increasingly linked to companies through the internet instead of a desk.
In Vancouver, Columbia Collective fills that void. The space opened last spring on Washington Street in downtown and has already expanded to a larger space a few blocks away.
“People (today) can fluidly collaborate without needing to be face-to-face,” said co-founder Max Mikhaylenko.
Read the full story: Entrepreneurs, creatives, tech workers finding space at shared offices
It must have been an unusual sight to passers-by, as well over 100 people gathered in the cold and rain on the sidewalk on Fourth Plain Boulevard outside the wasted remains of the Sifton Plaza.
But it was there on Saturday night that a crowd of friends, family and frequent customers of Sifton Market gathered to remember Amy Marie Hooser, the 47-year-old mother of three whose body was found there Jan. 15 after, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, she was murdered and the building destroyed in an arson fire.
Those in attendance, aglow with candlelight, huddled on the sidewalk at 13412 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd. Flowers and balloons have been left in honor of the Vancouver woman, and a poster affixed to the market’s sidewalk sign reads, “In memory of Amy Hooser. We love you!”
Friends recalled Hooser as a warm, bubbly and intelligent woman who had overcome challenges in her personal life.
Denise Sumpter, a Vancouver woman, knew Hooser from time they both spent living in an Oxford House, homes designed to help people recover from drug or alcohol addiction.
“She was just a free spirit,” Sumpter said. She was always there for anyone who needed anything.”
Read the full story: Friends, family remember slain Vancouver woman fondly
It was a small but enthusiastic crowd that gathered at the Vancouver waterfront Saturday for a march in solidarity with Women’s Marches across the world.
About 150 people braved heavy rain and cold temperatures to march in Vancouver’s version of the Women’s March on Washington, a protest movement in the wake of Friday’s inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.
“Stand up!” organizer Suzanne Kendall shouted at the crowd of women, men and children as they traipsed along the Waterfront Renaissance Trail, past condos and waterfront businesses.
“Fight back!” the crowd replied.
Similar events around the world gathered massive crowds. In Portland, organizers of that city’s Women’s March report 100,000 people gathered along the waterfront to demonstrate. In Washington D.C., the crowds were estimated at 500,000.
Kendall, who started an organization called Right2BHeard dedicated to promoting civil discourse, rallied the crowd through a brief rally, then the march.
Read the full story: Rally, march in Vancouver show enthusiasm, solidarity
