Cheers: To street improvements. Vancouver’s Pavement Management Program will have about $10.5 million this year to make our drives a little smoother. Nearly half of the city’s neighborhoods will benefit from 121 miles of pavement resurfacing or preservation. Some of the funding comes from $40 Transportation District Benefit tab fees. While those fees can cause grumbling among residents, seeing the benefits will be a reminder that the money is being put to good use.
Vancouver officials, in recent years, have struggled to adequately maintain local streets and address increasing concerns from residents. Although work on the streets will not begin until July — paving is weather-dependent — we look forward to improvements that can be small but are felt on a daily basis.
Jeers: To tax delinquents. Nobody likes paying taxes, but most of us do it out of a sense of obligation to our community. That’s most of us. Clark County Treasurer Doug Lasher has recommended his office give up pursuit of $114,042 in delinquent taxes in order to save staff time and costs. “We make an effort, but when it finally connects that there are no assets and no way to collect it, we have to move on,” Lasher said.
Notably, the two largest unpaid bills on the list are for now-dissipated businesses that had connections to Nicole, Dennis and Jerry Wubben, according to records examined by The Columbian. Those bills combine for more than $60,000, but the closed businesses sold off their assets. Out of fairness to the rest of us, the Legislature should devise a legal remedy that helps counties collect unpaid tax bills.
Cheers: To safe travels. Highway 503 along Lake Merwin has reopened more than a year after being closed because of a landslide. Located in Cowlitz County, a little north of Clark County, the road was shut down because a 10,000-ton rock slab loomed precariously above the roadway.
“Some of the work took longer than we initially anticipated,” a spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation said. “As the contractor removes layers of rock, you never know what layers and fracture lines are back there.” While the work was time-consuming and cost more than originally expected, thanks go to workers who have returned the roadway to a passable condition.
Jeers: To whooping cough. Woodland Public Schools officials this week revealed that four cases of pertussis — commonly known as whooping cough — have been confirmed in the district. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 16 last year, eight schools in the area reported cases of whooping cough, a highly contagious disease that can be particularly dangerous to infants.
The incidents are a reminder of the need for vaccinations. The Centers for Disease Control report: “Before the whooping cough vaccines were recommended for all infants, about 8,000 people in the United States died each year from whooping cough. Today, because of the vaccine, this number has dropped to fewer than 20 per year.”
Cheers: To snow. Not that we are in the mood for snow here, particularly in mid-April, but we are happy there is plenty of it in the mountains. The state Department of Ecology reports that statewide mountain snowpack is about 119 percent of normal.
With Washington often hampered by drought conditions in recent years, a robust snowpack is good news. Fish managers, downstream city residents and — especially — farmers, will benefit when the snow thaws and provides abundant water through the summer. Melting mountain snow replenishes reservoirs and groundwater and is essential to the environment and many industries. Most important, it helps to keep Washington looking like the Washington we have come to expect.
