Cheers: To state parks. Not eager to battle the crowds and engage in some Black Friday shopping? Then consider a visit to a state park in Washington or Oregon the day after Thanksgiving. Both states will waive fees for areas that include Battle Ground Lake, Paradise Point, and Reed Island in Clark County. Typically, Washington requires a Discover Pass for state parks, costing $10 a day or $30 for an annual pass.
Oregon started the trend in 2015, waiving fees for those who would rather partake in Green Friday than Black Friday. This year, Washington is adding Autumn Day, which isn’t quite as colorful but gets the point across. Indeed, avoiding stores and getting outside sounds like a Northwest kind of thing to do.
Jeers: To excessive campaign spending. The absurd amount of money contributed to the recent race for Port of Vancouver commissioner is highlighted by this fact: Losing candidate Kris Greene reports a surplus of about $120,000 in his latest campaign finance filing. Don Orange, who won the election with 65 percent of the vote, reports a surplus of nearly $4,000. Both campaigns say they still have bills to pay, and Orange’s representatives say his campaign will wind up being in debt.
Between them, the candidates attracted about $1 million in contributions, either directly or through in-kind donations. All of that for a contest in which about 55,000 residents were eligible to cast votes. The race was an important one that drew much attention, but it points out the need for campaign finance reform when it comes to port races.
Cheers: To centrist politics. Because neither of the major political parties has a monopoly on good ideas, we welcome any move toward the middle. Brian Baird, a Democrat who represented the 3rd Congressional District from 1999 to 2011, has joined with Chris Vance, former head of the state Republican Party, to promote such an idea.
As part of a national movement to curb partisanship, the new political action committee will promote ideologically moderate candidates, regardless of party. With both national parties paralyzed by rigidity and extremists, moderates often feel ignored, and the hope is that Baird and Vance can help provide them with a political home.
Jeers: To telephone dead zones. Frontier Communications is planning to remove a pay phone near Big Four Ice Caves in the northern Cascades. The ice caves draw about 50,000 visitors a year to the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, including several hundred per day during peak season.
While the thought of a pay phone might seem anachronistic these days, removal of the phone would be problematic. Cell service is limited along the Mountain Loop Highway that leads to the recreation area, and the pay phone typically provides the only link with civilization. Officials say that most 911 calls from the area are made at the phone. Maintaining the land line would seem to be in the best interest of public safety.
Cheers: To Monica Chang. The 15-year-old, a junior in the Magnet program at Camas High School, won the top prize at the Oregon Bioscience Showcase. Competing against a field that included university graduate students, Chang made a presentation about a Washington State University Vancouver project with which she is involved — “A Closer Look at Memory: The Effect of Diurnal Rhythms on Perineuronal Nets.”
Chang, who also is an accomplished pianist, won a $400 iPad mini. “My project is looking at the brain structures that are involved with sleep and memory,” she told the Camas-Washougal Post-Record. “Even though we spend a third of our lives sleeping, we don’t really know what’s happening.”
