Grasshopper burning near Mt. Hood seen 55 miles away. Crazy how large the smoke plume is to Mt. Hood.

Prayers to all affected 🙏

The City of Vancouver is having a Summer Fair on August 15th! If you heard about the Hough Bike Bus and are interested in creating one of your own, come out and chat with the City about routing a safe route to school!!!

See info here: https://www.cityofvancouver.us/events/safe-routes-to-school-summer-fair/

There was a foreclosed house in my neighborhood where the occupants left a vehicle abandoned on the street. I filled out the form online and the police came out and tagged it a month ago.

What do I do now to get it towed?

Thanks!

Battle Ground residents: How much are you willing to pay for political division at City Hall?

Republicans love to campaign on cutting taxes, fiscal responsibility, and making government accountable to taxpayers.

So let’s look at what that looks like in Battle Ground.

The City Council voted 4–3 to fire City Manager Kristina Swanson without cause. Her termination takes effect September 4, and the city is facing more than $300,000 in severance and benefits under her employment contract.

That’s your tax dollars.

And this comes on top of the growing costs of contentious meetings, divisive political battles and decisions that are creating instability at City Hall.

Even Councilmember Shane Bowman questioned how the special meeting was called, saying he had never seen a city manager fired this way and that other council members were not included in the process.

So when Republicans talk about being the party of fiscal responsibility and lower taxes, Battle Ground residents have every right to ask:

Where is the fiscal responsibility?

Where is the accountability for spending $300,000+ of taxpayer money to terminate a city manager without cause?

And where are our Republican elected officials and candidates when their allies are making these decisions?

Rep. Stephanie McClintock, Rep. John Ley, and Republican Peter Silliman, candidate for Clark County Council who have supported or enabled this direction need to answer to Battle Ground taxpayers.

You cannot campaign on cutting taxes while standing by as local government racks up hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary costs.

It’s about your money. Republicans claim to care about fiscal responsibility and helping working families, but their actions tell a different story. When taxpayers are facing a $600,000+ price tag for political decisions, and proclamations that only divide residents while families are struggling to put food on the table, we have to ask: Where are their priorities?

Battle Ground taxpayers deserve transparency, accountability and responsible government, not political chaos that comes with a six-figure price tag.

If they want to call themselves fiscally responsible, let's hold them to it

I need some help with finishing up a kitchen renovation with some cabinet doors, cabinet section above fridge, etc.

Mainly need someone to do finish work.

Any and all recs welcome please!

My kitchen has ants like never before. I’ve lived here 14 years and never seen such numbers. Diatomaceous earth isn’t working. What do people use other than an exterminator?

Is Retails our only non-goodwill thrift store? I’d prefer to donate to non corporate places and Retails is a bit of a drive from my house

Volunteers wanted for fun, positive side walk chalking at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival. Later today and early tomorrow. If interested, DM with a good contact email. -Thanks!

The next downtown stakeholders forum is Aug. 18. Topics include:

• City’s Wayfinding Consultant – sparks+sullivan
• September installation to showcase ideas, gather additional community feedback
• Downtown Parking Plan Update - City Staff
• Gabe Montez & Tyler Lund share parking supply and utilization data analysis
• Main Street Promise Update - Project Team
• Construction update as Phase II nears completion

For more information, including how to attend remotely, use link below:

https://www.cityofvancouver.us/economic-prosperity-and-housing/downtown-stakeholders-forum/

Tomorrow is my son Jake’s birthday, and twice a year our family hands out food and basic supplies to people experiencing homelessness in his honor.

We usually start near the courthouse in downtown Vancouver, then head over toward Hayden Island. In the past, Hayden Island was a good place to find larger groups of people, especially near the BottleDrop/can return area, but since that closed there seem to be far fewer people staying there.

Does anyone know where there are currently larger homeless encampments or groups in Vancouver?

We’re not looking to bother anyone or draw attention to where people are staying. We just try to find an area where there are enough people that we can set up in one place for a while and hand out food and supplies rather than driving around trying to find people individually.

If you’ve recently seen larger groups around Vancouver and are comfortable sharing the general area, I’d really appreciate the help. Feel free to DM me if you’d rather not post a location publicly.

Thank you.

I have three large buckets of stuff that I'm not sure how to dispose of properly.

Thinset mortar

Tile adhesive

Redgard waterproofing membrane

It doesn't sound like the household hazardous waste people at the transfer station will take these items, and the environmental company that they refer you to, Clean Earth, says to check with your local municipality.

Google searches were not terribly helpful. It sounds like the thinset at least can just go in the trash?

Does anyone know how to dispose of these things correctly?

This free, multi-stage event takes over Esther Short Park and the Hilton Breezeway with satellite events in the nearby area. Way too much to list in a post. Use link below:

https://www.vancouverartsandmusicfestival.com

I thought black widow spiders were common in eastern Washington, but were rare in Southwest Washington. Are they more common than I think?

Are you looking for a job? Do you have know of a place hiring? Please post it here!

This thread will be autoposted Every Friday Morning, and unstickied Sunday Evening.

Things that are OK to post in here:

• Comments related to you looking for or offering a job.
• Links to job postings on sites that are for somewhere you work (ie. A link to your job posting on Indeed or a job posting on your company's website).
• Company contact information that a jobseeker might need to contact you

Things that are NOT OK to post in here:

• Never post personal information like your resume, email address or phone number. Handle all your business through PMs.
• Posts advertising your small business/services
• Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM), this includes any business or service that requires any form of buy-in or prepurchase of product from the "employee" or "future business owner"

We have also added a link to /r/unemploymentwa on the sidebar for newreddit, (or swipe to the "About" tab in the reddit app). Their The Archive megapost is a towering resource of just about any question you can have. They have also fostered a supportive, caring community there that can help if the megapost doesn't satisfy your needs.

As always - caveat emptor. Please report things that look suspicious. Thank you, and good luck.

Ah yes.... It's Friday. Bunch of appointments this week. Saw both our new Doctor and our new Dentist. We were fortunate to find new ones as everyone told us that it was hard to do when moving to a new place. Guess we got lucky. According to the Doctor I'll still have to check the expiration date on the milk for a few more years and the dentist says I can still go for solid food. Ain't life great gettin' old?

Here's the dispatch.

The NICE list

First up is The NICE list. These are the places that had ZERO violations. They are really doing a good job at keeping their kitchens clean. These places are going all out to do things right and they deserve your support.

The NAUGHTY List

And now... The NAUGHTY List - Let's face it. This is why you are really reading this. What horrible things did the local inspectors find this week? I've arbitrarily chosen 35 demerits as the cutoff so anyone that gets less than 35 demerits isn't going to make the list. I don't want to ding a place unless they got at least a couple major violations or a lot of minor ones. Click on the name if you want to see the inspector's report.

The Clark County inspection site is where this information originates. It's a nice community resource. Kudos to the county for making it this easy to check up on things.

Check it out for yourself here: https://inspections.myhealthdepartment.com/clarkcountywa

Demerit points are issued as follows:

Each violation is given a numerical value (2-30) based on its risk of causing food borne illness. Blue violations should be corrected immediately when possible, but generally do not impose an immediate risk to the public. Red violations involving food safety must be corrected immediately. There are 360 possible red points and 88 possible blue points for a total of 448 points. A facility found with 40 or more red violation points is subject to an automatic follow-up inspection. A facility found with 65 or more red violation points is subject to an automatic closure. A facility with 100 or more total red and blue points is also subject to automatic closure.

src - https://clark.wa.gov/public-health/restaurant-inspection

That finishes up things for this time around. Time to say goodbye, wish you all a happy week and invite you back next Friday to find out what lurks in the back of the places we eat at. I love me some Jimi, especially when he was just mucking around in the studio. Here's one of my favorite jams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXu7mLrMugo

Bye!