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Montesano teachers vote no confidence in superintendent

See the entire Montesano Education Association survey results:
Download and read 47-page document.

No Lindsey news
McCLEARY — “Unfortunately, there’s nothing new” in the search for 11-year-old Lindsey Baum of McCleary, who vanished from a McCleary street almost three weeks ago, Grays Harbor County Chief Criminal Deputy Dave Pimentel said Tuesday.

“There’s tips coming in but nothing that’s panned out so far,” Pimentel said, adding that there were still FBI agents and detectives working on the case “on a daily basis.”

Lindsey, who was 10 at the time, is reported to have left a friend’s house in the 600 block of Maple Street about 9:15 p.m. Friday, June 26, heading for her own home six or seven blocks away on East Mommsen Road.

County cuts continue
MONTESANO — Despite a 6 percent cut in this year’s budget, Grays Harbor County is facing a 10 percent deficit in the general fund by year’s end.

“This would deplete cash reserves, and commissioners will be evaluating all current level operations,” Commission Chairman Mike Wilson wrote in a letter sent late last week to department heads. “We are asking that, in preparing your 2010 budget, you be very conservative and eliminate any unnecessary spending.”

The 2010 budget process officially began last week with the distribution of budget packages and a budget call issued by Auditor Vern Spatz. A preliminary budget is to be presented to commissioners by Sept. 28, with the final budget adopted Dec. 7.

Some candidates given ‘fake’ e-mails
MONTESANO — The e-mail address of seven political candidates listed on Grays Harbor County’s Web site might have raised some voters’ eyebrows. Until July 13, the Web site listed all seven as having the same nonexistent e-mail address, “fake@yahoo.com.”

McCleary councilman Richard Vatne, who is running for re-election and faces two challengers in the Aug. 18 primary, said that when he filed June 1 at the county auditor’s office, he was told he had to provide an e-mail address.

“I thought, ‘I don’t use (the) computer; I don’t have one,’ ” Vatne said last week. “Then they insisted that I have to have an e-mail address, and I said, ‘No I don’t have to have one of those; I never had one before.”

Besides serving on the McCleary City Council the past four years, Vatne was also the city’s mayor for four years in the 1980s.
“I thought it was off the wall that it happened,” Vatne said. “It never happened before — all you had to do was fill out some paperwork and hand it to them.”

Vatne said he wasn’t sure exactly who had taken his filing information but said he was helped by two women, then a couple of others gave some input when he said he didn’t have an e-mail address.

One came from a “back room,” he said, and told the others to assign him the e-mail address, fake@yahoo.com.

The county’s elections administrator, Julie Murphy, explained Monday that even though folks filed at the auditor’s office, they were nevertheless filing online. And anyone filing online has to provide an e-mail address.

“No one was upset about it; no one complained,” Murphy said. “They thought it was much faster.”

Last year, “they wrote it out by hand, and I had to sit and enter everything in,” Murphy said. “This year, they came up here, and they logged onto … the little computers we have here, and they actually filed online themselves.”

“It’s the state’s program for filing online,” Murphy said, and the space for the e-mail is a required field. But the state isn’t trying to “discriminate against anybody,” she said, adding that it’s just so candidates can receive a congratulatory e-mail and further information after filing.

“When they file, they get an e-mail sent to them congratulating them on filing, and it also has a link that gives them instructions on how to upload a candidate’s statement and a photo,” she said.

Moreover, candidates are then notified when someone files against them, Murphy said. “It just notifies you that there is somebody else in the race, and it will do that each time somebody files.” So candidates will also, then, know, “Now there’s three; you will be in the primary,” she said.

However, Murphy herself has the ability to override the system and enter a candidate’s filing information minus an e-mail address, she said, which she did for about a half dozen candidates when they filed.
Using the state’s program is not required, Murphy said. It’s just what the auditor’s office chose to use. Next year, it’s likely candidates will be able to file from their home computers, she said.

However, acknowledging that listing a bogus e-mail address with “fake” as the user name could conceivably have a negative connotation when attached to a political candidate’s name, Murphy said Monday that she would “go into each one of those (seven) that have the fake e-mail and see if I can delete that and make it a blank field. And if I can’t I’ll talk to the state and see if they can do it.”

Tuesday, the phony e-mail addresses were gone from the county Web site. “I took them of yesterday,” Murphy said. “I just tried it, and it worked.”

“That’s good,” Vatne said Tuesday afternoon. “That’s great.”

Park friends wanted
MONTESANO — Lake Sylvia and Schafer state parks are safe at least through January, but the best chance for long-term protection is the formation of friends groups to bolster state funding, state officials said.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, hosted a meeting at Montesano City Hall last week addressing the future of the parks after a new funding method gave them a reprieve from possible closure this spring due to looming state budget cuts.

The legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation changing an opt-in $5 parks donation on license plate renewals to an opt-out donation. Starting with September registrations, mailed out this month, car owners automatically pay an additional $5 donation unless they check a box. Currently the donation is added to the renewal fee for those who check the box. The change is expected to raise $27 million over the next two years if half the people renewing tabs don’t check the box, State Parks Superintendent Rex Derr said.

Bicyclist dies
RAYMOND — A bicyclist died after being struck last week by a truck driven by a Montesano man, the Washington State Patrol said.
The truck’s driver, 50, has not been charged as of Wednesday morning pending a report by the state patrol, according to the Pacific County Prosecutor’s Office. The state patrol noted inattention as a contributing cause to the collision.

Carolyn Girod, 31, of Cambridge, Mass., and Nils Sorensen, 34, of Warwick, N.Y., were pedaling southbound on the shoulder of Highway 105 about two miles north of Raymond at about 12:20 p.m. Wednesday, July 8. A 1995 Ford cube van driven southbound drifted onto the shoulder, striking Sorensen and forcing him into Girod, the state patrol said.


More Sports

Mid-season champions crowned at GH Raceway
ELMA — When the mid-season point comes each year at Grays Harbor Raceway, they drop the heat races and the leading drivers in every class get one feature race to see where they stand.

You might say that things went according to plan, as each of the feature winners came from somewhere in the top five point positions in the respective class, Saturday, July 11 at the Elma track.

Eastern Washington team takes home Bear Festival tourney title
McCLEARY — It wouldn’t be the Bear Festival with out hearing the actual ‘crack’ of the bat emanating from Beerbower Park all weekend long. Each year an exclusively wooden bat slo-pitch softball tournament takes place in conjunction with McCleary’s Bear Festival and traditionally draws teams from all over the state.
The Pounders, of the Yakima area, won this year’s tournament by topping the Mudhounds — a collection of East County athletes.

RallyCross planned near Brooklyn Tavern this weekend
The Brooklyn Bash, an open-to-all RallyCross event is planned this Friday and Saturday, July 18-19, a mere 200-yards east of the Brooklyn Tavern located at 2611 North River Rd.

The event will be held on a scaled down version of a rally stage, defined by traffic cones and laid out in a field, where street-legal cars take turns racing against the clock.

To compete, participants must have a hardtop vehicle, a helmet and the $40 entry fee. If participants do not have a helmet, one will be provided. There is no cost for spectators.

Registration is held each day from 8-9 a.m. All cars must pass a vehicle technical inspection to ensure the vehicle meets minimum safety requirements — no leaking fluids and no loose objects in the interior or trunk. At 9:45 there will be a parade lap of the course, with racing to follow.

Sports Car Club of America and rally club members get a discount on the entry fee.

Pre-registration and regulations are posted online at www.pacificrallygroup.com or more information may be obtained by calling (360) 249-6173.