News

Seattle Times Politics

Protesters arrested in Seattle City Hall charged by city attorney
Author: David Kroman

The arrests and subsequent charges are an intentional pivot by a new council in a city familiar with noisy and disruptive demonstrations toward public officials.

The Chronicle - Centralia

Thurston County man convicted of sexual assault of a child in Lewis County sentenced to over 11 years in prison

A Thurston County man convicted in Lewis County of sexually assaulting a juvenile girl repeatedly between May 2019 and November 2023 was sentenced Wednesday to 136 months, or just over 11 years, in prison.

The man, identified as David Allen Roth, 34, of Olympia, pleaded guilty to one count each of second-degree rape of a child and sexual exploitation of a minor on Feb. 21.

Roth was accused of sexually assaulting the juvenile victim multiple times in Centralia and the Napavine areas between May 2019 and November 2023. He was also accused of asking her to take naked photos of herself and upload them to a file he had access to.

The victim reportedly disclosed the abuse to staff at W.F. West High School in Chehalis on Nov. 11, 2023. The Chehalis Police Department initially responded, but referred the case to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office once investigators learned the abuse did not take place within Chehalis city limits, according to court documents.

When the abuse first began in 2019, Roth told the victim “she was not allowed to tell anyone because he would go to jail or kill himself,” according to court documents.

In addition to jail time, Roth is required to register as a sex offender and serve 36 months on probation. He is also prohibited from having any contact with minors other than his biological children, and that contact must be supervised by another adult who knows of Roth’s conviction in this case.

A lifetime no-contact order protecting the victim is in place.

 

 

 

Chehalis-Centralia Railroad to resume weekend excursions beginning April 6

After a two-year hiatus, the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum (CCRM) will resume weekend excursions this year, beginning April 6.

Through Sept. 29, trains will depart the Chehalis Train Depot at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.

The scenic train ride will take passengers on a two-hour, 18-mile round trip excursion through the Chehalis River Valley, providing passengers with glimpses of scenic vistas, farmland, mountains and rivers.

“Relax and enjoy the sights and sounds of the way travel used to be,” the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad stated in a news release.

Special events throughout the year will include Mother’s Day and Father’s Day train rides, regular dinner and murder mystery dinners, escape room trains, the Wizard Express and Pumpkin Trains.

Tickets for the winter Polar Express will go on sale Sept. 1, with rides commencing Nov. 9.

For more information or to reserve tickets, visit SteamTrainRide.com or call 360-748-9593.

Online reservations are advised, but walk up seats are available for most train rides.

Email info@steamtrainride.com for information on customized experiences, including private charters, group tours, and school day field trips for groups up to 200, reservations of the historic 1920s rail car for groups up to 20.

The Chehalis Train Depot is located at 1101 SW Sylvenus St., across from the Veterans Memorial Museum.

CCRM halted all passenger service in March 2022, when the organization lost its liability insurance coverage.

The group did acquire premises-liability insurance about a month later, which has allowed for stationary events on trains at the Chehalis depot and for crews to make improvements to the property, including about a dozen miles of train tracks.

CCRM President Mary Kay Nelson previously told The Chronicle CCRM is waiting until a lawsuit stemming from a 2019 collision is resolved to reapply for the liability insurance coverage necessary to run its own excursion trains.

CCRM is able to resume excursions this year due to a multi-year agreement with Oregon-based Goose Railway LLC.  As part of the agreement, Goose Lake assumes responsibility for running tourist excursion trains and for training and hiring crew members, while CCRM maintains the tracks, signals, rolling stock and engines.

CCRM also manages the events, schedule, tickets, gift shop and activities, according to previous Chronicle reporting.

Get a bag of books for $5 on final day of AAUW sale in Centralia

In these photos captured Thursday, crowds of people browse the selection of over 18,000 books for sale at the Lewis County American Association of University Women (AAUW) used book sale at the Moose Lodge in Centralia.

Saturday is the final day of the sale, which supports the AAUW’s mission of education for women.

On the final day, attendees can get a bag of books for $5. The Moose Lodge is located at 1400 Grand Avenue in Centralia, just off Kresky Avenue.

Since 1979, the Lewis County AAUW book sale has provided thousands of area residents with the opportunity to discover and purchase books of all types at bargain prices. 

Founded in 1881, AAUW is the largest and oldest national organization working for the professional and educational advancement of women. In 2023, the Lewis County branch celebrated its 100th year since the branch was formed in 1923.

For more information about Lewis County AAUW, email Membership Chairs Kathy Halsan or Cathy Cavness at aauwlcmembership@gmail.com or visit lewiscounty-wa.aauw.net

Community rallies to support Onalaska boy after brain cancer diagnosis

Residents of Southwest Washington have raised more than $13,000 in one day for a Onalasaka student battling brain cancer.

Following months of headaches, a precautionary MRI this week revealed a tumor on Brody Hamilton’s brain. It was determined to be brain cancer. The tumor was successfully removed Thursday, though Hamilton’s family is awaiting for test results to determine the type of cancer.

To help cover medical bills and other expenses, the family started a gofundme.com account that can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/brody-hamilton-overcome-brain-cancer

"The post-op scans of his brain look good and we will be getting a scan of his spinal cord tomorrow," Grace Hamilton, Brody's mom, wrote on GoFundMe. "We’re praying that the spine scans come back good as well. Also praying for all of our fears to be put to ease."

As of Friday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised nearly $14,000 toward a $20,000 fundraising goal.

The GoFundMe notes that while Hamilton was initially hesitant about telling anyone, “before he went in for surgery yesterday he said he wanted as many people to know so that he can have as many people as possible praying for him.”

Lewis County food establishment inspection scores

Editor’s Note: These are reports from health inspections in Lewis County in March, 2024. Red violations are those most likely to cause foodborne illness and must be corrected at the time of inspection. Blue violations relate to overall cleanliness and operational conditions and must be corrected by established deadlines or by the next routine inspection. Any establishment receiving 40 red points or any red point item repeated within an 18-month period is considered a high risk and must be reinspected. An establishment that receives 75 red points or 100 total points (red and blue) on a routine inspection or 40 red points on a repeat inspection will have their food establishment permit suspended. To see the most recent previous inspection reports, visit  https://tinyurl.com/vyfcv47m

Food establishments with violations: Red/Blue/Total

South Pacific Bistro, 432 SW 13th St., Chehalis — 30/5/35

Vegetables and other foods were being left at room temperature. Food that must be temperature controlled for safety needs to cold hold at 41 degrees or cooler at all times. Celery temperature was recorded at 68 degrees and needed to be refrigerated as soon as possible. “Please do not keep vegetables at room temperature,” the health inspector wrote. (25 red)

The kitchen needs a deep clean. (5 blue)

Certified Food Protection Manager certification needs to be implemented within 30 days. (5 red)

Inspection: March 18, 2024

 

Ocean Sky, 601 National Ave., Chehalis — 25/0/25

The facility is clean and organized. Food handlers cards and the hand washing sink were good.

Bare hand contact with food was observed. Employees must wear gloves while handling food that is going to be eaten.

Food temperatures were great.

Certified Food Protection Manager certification is requested within 30 days.

Inspection: March, 18, 2024

Food establishments with perfect scores:

Arco AM/PM, Centralia

Papa Murphy’s Pizza, Centralia

Sweet Inspirations, Chehalis

McFiler’s, Chehalis

Lewis County to hold kick off event for comprehensive plan update

As Lewis County prepares to update its comprehensive plan, county officials will hold a kick-off event next month to engage the public in the process.

The county’s comprehensive plan is a guiding document for development and covers housing, transportation, economic development, land use and environmental preservation, among other areas.

In a county news release, Lewis County Senior Long-Range Planner Mindy Brooks said public feedback is critical in the process of developing the comprehensive plan.

“Growth is coming to Lewis County,” Brooks said in the release. “We have the opportunity to manage and guide where and how that growth occurs. It’s important that the community have a voice in those decisions.”

The “Lewis County 2045 kickoff event” is set for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2, in the Commissioners’ Hearing Room on the second floor of the Lewis County Courthouse at 351 NW North St. in Chehalis.

After the presentation concludes, the county will launch an online survey at https://tinyurl.com/2m9j2cyr to gather input on various aspects of development and growth in Lewis County. The survey will close on May 10.

“I hope people take the survey and attend future meetings to share their thoughts,” Brooks said.

Community members unable to attend the Lewis County 2045 kickoff in person can join via Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/92770578873 or by calling 888-475-4499. The meeting ID will be 927 7057 8873, and the passcode will be 085336.

For more information and to learn about opportunities for public input, go to https://tinyurl.com/2m9j2cyr. For questions about the comprehensive plan, contact Brooks at mindy.brooks@lewiscountywa.gov or 360-740-2610. 

Women pay more for car insurance in Washington, though they don't cause more crashes

Women pay more than $100 a year more than men for car insurance in Washington, though they aren’t necessarily worse drivers, according to a study conducted for Women’s History Month.

In Washington, women pay $103 more than men for car insurance. That’s the sixth-highest difference between men and women in the nation, according to LendingTree.com research.

Women pay $1,562 annually for car insurance in Washington, the 18th-highest of all U.S. states. Women pay more annually than men for auto insurance in 37 states, Lending Tree found in a survey of Quote Wizard data from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023.

Only six states — California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — don’t allow insurance companies to use gender in calculating insurance rates, Lending Tree found.

In most states, female drivers have a higher rate of driving-related incidents, such as crashes and citations for infractions such as speeding and more serious violations such as driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

But not in the Evergreen State.

Massachusetts had the highest incident disparity in the U.S., at 17.8 incidents per 1,000. In Washington, the gender difference is 1.5 incidents, which puts Washington about in the middle.

State Farm (6%) and Nationwide (7%) were the insurance companies with the highest difference between rates charged to men and women, according to MarketWatch.com. Progressive (1%) and Geico (2%) were the lowest.

According to a 2022 report by the insurer Metromile, men are more likely to die in a car crash. But women often suffer more serious injuries in a crash, Metromile reported, using data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Metromile speculated that it’s because men are more likely to drive a larger car or truck, while women drive smaller cars and are more likely to be driving the car that is not at fault for the crash.

Feds want to release up to seven grizzly bears a year in North Cascades

The federal government announced on Thursday it wants to release up to seven grizzly bears each year into Washington's North Cascades. The reintroduction effort would stop when the base population reaches 25 bears.

Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service on Thursday released their final analysis of options for bringing the bruins back to the Cascades. The bears would be part of an "experimental" population, which would give wildlife officials more options for killing or relocating bears that have run-ins with people and livestock.

The agencies were careful to say that the document released Thursday doesn't represent a final decision. Federal regulations state that a final decision can't be released until 30 days after the final environmental analysis is released.

Still, Thursday's announcement represents a major milestone in the push to bring grizzlies back to the mountains between Snoqualmie Pass and the Canada border, where there hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the large omnivores in more than two decades.

Friends of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear, a coalition of organizations that includes tribes and conservation groups, celebrated the moment in a news release.

Snoqualmie Indian Tribe Tribal Chairman Robert M. de los Angeles said in the release that the tribe is excited "to know that this hard-fought effort to bring home grizzlies is so close to becoming a reality.

"This is a critical moment in history, with governments, organizations, and individuals working together to welcome grizzlies back after human action removed them from their home," de los Angeles said.

Opponents of reintroduction have raised concerns that reintroduced bears could pose a threat to humans and livestock. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, among the most vocal critics of the plan, said in an emailed statement Thursday that the final analysis shows "the Biden Administration is more intent on pushing policies about Central Washingtonians than for them."

"The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service held public comment sessions in my district where the overwhelming majority of voices, which I heard firsthand, were adamantly opposed to the introduction of grizzly bears," Newhouse said. "Their voices have been shut out of this entire process."

Grizzly bears have a long history in the North Cascades, dating back thousands of years. Nationwide, the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there were as many as 50,000 grizzlies spread across 18 Western states before 1800.

White settlers viewed the bears as threats, however, and killed most through hunting, trapping and even government-sponsored eradication efforts.

Grizzly numbers had dwindled into the hundreds in the Lower 48 when the bears were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975.

Conservation efforts have brought those numbers up, and there are now roughly 2,000 of the bruins in the Lower 48. Most of those bears are in and around Glacier and Yellowstone national parks, with two smaller populations in far northwest Montana, North Idaho and northeast Washington.

Yet in the North Cascades recovery zone, an area covering about 9,800 square miles that includes the North Cascades National Park Complex, the Fish and Wildlife Service considers grizzlies "functionally extirpated."

The last confirmed grizzly sighting in the U.S. portion of the range came in 1996. On the British Columbia side of the border, there has been just one confirmed grizzly sighting in the range in the past 10 years.

Wayne Kasworm, a biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly recovery program, said the population did so poorly because so few bears were left after decades of killing, leaving the range without enough bears to reproduce and sustain a viable population.

"They largely disappeared because we killed them," Kasworm said.

Natural recolonization of the range is almost impossible for the bears, said Graham Taylor, a program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. He said the bear population on the other side of the Canadian border is small and critically endangered, and that the only populations large enough to support restoring the bears are too far away for natural migration.

That makes a reintroduction program the best shot at bringing grizzlies back. This is the second time in the past decade that the two federal agencies have looked at reintroduction. A previous effort began under the Obama administration in 2015 but was scuttled in 2020 under the Trump Administration.

In 2022, the agencies revived the process. Drafts of the environmental analysis and a rule designating the population as experimental were released for public comment last fall. More than 12,000 comments were received by the end of the comment period in November.

If the plan goes forward, officials would capture grizzlies in areas where they are abundant and release between three and seven per year.

Bears between two and five years old that have not reproduced and have no history of conflict with humans would be selected for the reintroduction, according to the environmental analysis. The releases would continue over several years until a base population of 25 bears is established.

The recovery goal for the North Cascades is a population of 200 bears. Reaching that level could take 60 to 100 years, according to the environmental analysis, because grizzlies are among the slowest reproducing mammals in the world. Kasworm said female grizzlies typically begin reproducing at six years old, and they usually have litters of two cubs every three years.

The environmental analysis identifies three areas where releases could take place — the north and south units of North Cascades National Park and the western Pasayten Wilderness.

Should those bears travel farther out, the experimental designation gives wildlife managers greater leeway in dealing with conflicts that arise. The farther the bears wander from the core of the recovery zone, the more options managers would have for killing or relocating problem bears.

Graham Taylor, a program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said Thursday that the experimental designation is key for the reintroduction.

"It really cuts a lot of the red tape bureaucracy out of it while kind of protecting the species and recovering it," Taylor said.

He added that the North Cascades has plenty of habitat and food for grizzlies, and that the bears just need an opportunity to live there.

"It's really just about giving them a chance, bringing a few back and letting them do their thing," Taylor said.

Columbian Newspaper

Evergreen Public Schools final plan for cuts includes 22 elementary teacher librarians
Author: Griffin Reilly

Evergreen Public Schools’ final recommended budget reduction plan cuts $18.7 million for the 2024-2025 school year with 124 positions lost across the district.

Read more...

Pages