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Here are some of the stories that grabbed our readers’ attention this week.
The long-anticipated Ilani Casino Resort opened to much fanfare last week, and with it came a traffic backup of more than 8 miles and lots of idling cars at the Interstate 5 interchange.
Those issues didn’t just frustrate drivers heading to the casino. They also irked those living in La Center who were diverted to back roads if they wanted to leave the city.
• Read more about life near Ilani.
Two people have been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a 34-year-old man whose body was found in a shed on a Hockinson property last week.
Neil Allen Alway, 39, and Ashley Lorraine Barry, 31, both transients, are accused in the slaying of Raymond C. Brandon. Clark County sheriff’s detectives say they believe he was shot in the shed about a week before his body was discovered April 27.
The Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Monday that Brandon died of homicidal violence; he suffered a gunshot wound to his chest.
• Read more about the death of Raymond C. Brandon.
Before the police sweeps in March, recalled Amy Reynolds, the deputy director of the homeless services nonprofit Share, there were tents and structures that about 60 homeless people had built up near the shelter that her organization operates in downtown Vancouver.
Responding to safety and health concerns posed by the encampment, Vancouver police cleared the camps, and some of those homeless people, Reynolds said, found places to camp downtown or at the sound wall on Mill Plain Boulevard.
Others walked about five blocks to the parking structure next to Clark County’s Public Service Center on Franklin Street, which has created a logistical and legal problem for the county.
• Point in Time count: Homeless population up 8 percent.
Steel girders swung into place and cement trucks paraded down to the Vancouver waterfront Thursday morning, but Barry Cain wanted to show off the Columbia River.
“This is the most significant natural resource in this whole area,” he said. “Look at it. To walk out over it, to feel it — to get the whole feeling of the river at the same time is amazing.”
Thursday morning kicked off a new phase in the waterfront development, as cement trucks began arriving to pour the concrete foundation of the Grant Street Pier. The pier will jut out 90 feet over the river, held up by cables tied to a 70-foot mast.
• Port of Vancouver’s Terminal 1 project is inching along.
Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law the legislation directing Washington State University involvement in monitoring and assessing elk hoof disease in Southwest Washington.
Last Thursday, Inslee signed 2SSB 5474, which directs the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine to establish an elk monitoring system in Southwest Washington and to assess causes and potential solutions for elk hoof disease.
WSU is to work collaboratively with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, state veterinarian and interested tribes. WSU must provide an update to the Legislature at least annually.
• Read more about elk hoof disease.
