Bravo! Vancouver musicians making
concert appearances in Europe

     

Michael Kissinger and Maria Manzo, husband-and-wife team who founded the Bravo! Vancouver music series and the Vancouver Wine & Jazz Festival, will perform with the Dubrovnik (Croatia) Symphony Orchestra and with the Florence (Italy) Gospel Choir this month.

Clarinetist Kissinger, artistic director of both Bravo! Vancouver and Vancouver Wine & Jazz Festival, will perform Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto in Dubrovnik. Pianist Manzo, Bravo! Vancouver music director and director of the St. Joseph Catholic Church Choir, will perform George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in Dubrovnik.

Both will give solo performances with the Florence Gospel Choir.

The 2006-07 Bravo! Vancouver concert series begins Sunday, Dec. 3, with Handel’s Messiah.

Southwest Washington Medical Center
Foundation awards record grant dollars

Southwest Washington Medical Center’s Foundation has awarded a record $755,000 in unrestricted grant dollars for a number of clinical programs, reports Stanton Freidberg, foundation president.

One of the largest grants was to provide for an additional case manager position for Healthy Steps Women’s and Children’s Clinic. Other grants announced will provide for improving psychiatric facilities for the Behavioral Health Department on the Memorial Campus, Family Medicine Southwest residency education, an orthopedic trauma operating room table, software to support new equipment in the Radiation Therapy Department, and an echocardiogram machine in the Heart and Vascular Center.

The foundation is the primary fundraising arm of the medical center and has raised over $40 million for a wide variety of programs. It is a separately incorporated not-for-profit organization.

Cop gets robber,
dog finds purse

The Insider usually does not report crime news, but this story is an exception, showing how efficiently Vancouver’s Police Department goes about its everyday business.

Last evening, at 8:13 p.m., police officers were dispatched to a Safeway store at 13719 SE Mill Plain Boulevard, where a man had grabbed a woman’s purse from her shopping cart. The woman yelled and chased the thief, and so did some other shoppers. The suspect then ran out of the store.

While setting up a containment, officers spotted a male matching the thief’s description. He was detained and identified and arrested for Theft II, a felony.

Officers then sent a K-9 unit (policespeak for police dog) to find the purse, which the K-9 unit did in a nearby back yard.

County to open expanded
permit center in Battle Ground

The Clark County Community Development Department will expand its Battle Ground offices to accommodate increasing demand for permits in mid-Clark County, reports community development director Richard Carson.

Opening early in 2007 is a 2,280 square-foot office in the Gardner Center on Highway 503 at NE 199th Street. The new center will accommodate up to eight employees, who will process permits.

According to Carson, approximately 60 percent of new home building permits are issued to builders who are closer to southern Battle Ground than they are to downtown Vancouver.

People

Troy Rayburn, former Clark County board of commissioners officer, is returning to the county to advise county commissioners on policy issues involving land use and the environment, according to commission board chairman Marc Boldt. Most recently Rayburn was capital construction project manager for the City of Aspen, Colo. Rayburn is also a former governmental affairs director of the Clark County Home Builders Association. He is a graduate of Oregon State University.

Calendar

The Ports of Camas-Washougal, Ridgefield and Vancouver will meet in an informal session at 7 p.m. this evening in the Port of Vancouver hearing room, 3303 Lower River Road, according to The Columbian.

  

Tuesday headlines

Rick Goode, grandson of the founder, takes over as CEO of Columbia Machine--Vancouver Business Journal

Vancouver won't cut back on police and fire services--Columbian, Jeffrey Mize

Amish school shooter 'angry at God; parents of 13-year-old victim 'honestly have forgiven' gunman--NBC News

Local schools keep eye on safety--Columbian, Howard Buck

Shadow of war lingers for 23-year-old Clark County veteran--Columbian, Dean Baker

Brian Baird's sales tax break looks like history--Columbian, Kathie Durbin

Columbia River High School senior Lisa Cavola's carving has place in Oregon Zoo primate exhibit--Columbian, Mike Bailey

Vancouver Chamber's Beth Quartarolo busy listening and planning--Vancouver Business Journal, Neil Zawicki

Online gaming ban could be boon to local card rooms and casinos--Seattle P-I, Mike Lewis

Stocks Rally, Dow sets new high, closing record--USA TODAY, AP

North Korea says it will conduct a nuclear test--USA TODAY

Art Buchwald leaves hospice after 7 months, signs new book contract--Washington Post, Sandra G. Boodman