It cooled down a little this weekend but the heat will be back. Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories from the weekend:
In the heat and haze Tuesday, hundreds of Evergreen Public Schools teachers protested outside district administrative offices and stormed the school board meeting. It was the same story across town at the Vancouver Public Schools’ board meeting, where an estimated 400 teachers demonstrated in favor of increased wages.
It’s a scene that’s played out at school board meetings across Clark County all summer. Teachers have come wearing their bright red union T-shirts. They’ve tailgated, held picnics and stood on street corners. They’ve waved signs with slogans such as “Keep the McCleary promise,” “Bargain for salaries,” and “Only U can prevent a teacher strike.”
Find out more about how the negotiations are going.
Ty and Tracy Camp have been together for 11 years, and married for seven, but they rarely mix their finances.
Until May, she worked as an assistant vice president and financial center manager at Bank of America in Vancouver, and also owns and manages several residential properties around Clark County. He owns a construction company and Sunshine Farms, a marijuana grower and processor in Sifton. They share only one bank account, which they use to cover mutual costs — a rental property they co-owned, and some standard household expenses.
Which is why Tracy Camp was floored to return home from a vacation with her husband to find that she’d been fired from her position with the bank, and told by an internal company investigator she’d been flagged on suspicion of money laundering.
Read more about why the bank fired Tracy Camp.
J.B. Schutte, the general manager of the Vancouver Mall, said he’d never heard of the Proud Boys until recently and would rather not even mention the group’s name.
But after a dust-up involving a member of the far-right fraternal organization and a teenager that occurred this spring, he’s found himself spending time on politics that he’d rather be spending on mall management.
The mall has recently come under scrutiny after an African-American teenager, Mykel Mosley, was driven off in handcuffs in the back of a police car and accused of felony charges that were later dropped. A member of the Proud Boys who allegedly assaulted him, Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, walked free and hasn’t been accused or charged with a crime in connection with the incident.
Captured on video, the incident caught the attention of Portland-based social justice group Western States Center and an account was published in The Seattle Times. Earlier this month, Southwest Washington Communities United for Change, an informal activist group, organized a rally at Vancouver Mall with the stated purpose of holding its management accountable for how it responded.
Learn more about accounts of the altercation and watch a video.
BATTLE GROUND — Some of the most effective firefighting happens well before the flaming front is bearing down on a house, which is why Clark County Fire District 3 staff are going door to door in parts of the district to help residents assess and deal with wildfire risk factors around their homes.
District Fire Marshal Chris Drone and Jacob Guisinger, a district fire risk specialist, surveyed homes in the Battle Ground Lake area Thursday as part of the district’s efforts this summer to help firefighters and residents plan ahead for any fires.
“There’s kind of two sides of it,” Drone said in the backyard of a rental house. “We’re protecting the homeowner from a potential forest fire, and we’re protecting the forest from a potential fire here.”
Read more about the service offered by Fire District 3.
Should the city of Vancouver finance parking garages? As downtown businesses grow and flourish, the decades-old question has been posed once again.
“We’re not waiting around for that question to be answered,” said Chad Eiken, Vancouver’s community and economic development director. “We’re looking at other options and other ways to relieve some of the pressure.”
A recent study by Dixon Associates found that despite anecdotal experiences of limited parking, the city actually has ample space already available.
“Overall, the on-street system is working pretty well,” Eiken said.
The rule of thumb is, if more than 85 percent of a city’s on-street parking is full, then there’s a problem, said Teresa Brum, Vancouver’s economic development division manager. The Dixon study found even during the summer — the busiest time in downtown Vancouver — parking capacity didn’t exceed 85 percent.
Learn more about plans for downtown parking.
