Vancouver
Wine auction will aid scholarships, food bank
The Lewis River Rotary Club will host Bacchus on the Block, awine auction at 5 p.m. May 2 at the Heathman Lodge, 7801 N.E.Greenwood Drive.
Lewis River Rotary, with 60 members, is one of five Rotary clubsin Clark County.
The event includes dinner, social wine tasting, silent and oralauctions and piano music by Marvin Case, publisher of The Reflector.Club member Tim Hicks will serve as auctioneer and Mike Ciraulo willbe the emcee.
Auction items include a weeklong vacation to Maui, multiple golfpackages and lessons, various fishing and clam-digging trips,several private airplane flights, housecleaning services and winepackages.
Proceeds from the auction benefit academic and vocationalscholarships, the North Clark County Food Bank and Rotary projects.
Tickets are $75 per person and are available by calling MaureenGirven at 360-992-8843 or at www.clubrunner.ca/lewisriver .
Hazel Dell
Program will collect men's business wear
GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for UndergraduatePrograms), a college prep program for low-income students, will takemen's business casual wear between 9 and 11 a.m. Saturday atColumbia River High School, 800 N.W. 99th St.
Organizers are looking for clean dress shirts, ties, sportjackets and slacks. The event is for GEAR UP students.
GEAR UP organizers ask that people donating go to the frontentrance at the high school. Unused clothing will be donated to theSalvation Army. Receipts for tax purposes will not be available.
CLARK COUNTY
New tallies provide little help to radio measure
Another 6,645 ballots were counted Wednesday, but that did littleto change the resounding defeat of a proposed tax increase to payfor a new emergency radio system.
According to tallies released at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, theproposed 0.1 percent sales tax has 27,256 yes votes for 39.87percent, compared with 41,109 no votes for 60.13 percent.
The results are nearly identical to Tuesday's results, when thetax had 39.84 percent support.
Turnout for the election now stands at 35.1 percent.
Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency, which provides 911 callanswering and emergency dispatch, says it must replace the currentemergency radio system before the end of 2012.
Voter rejection of the proposed sales tax, which would have added1 cent of tax to a $10 purchase and raised an estimated $6 millionannually, leaves emergency managers searching for ways to pay for aradio system expected to cost $45 million.
The Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency's finance committeewill start that effort when it meets at noon today.
The committee has four members: Lloyd Tyler, Vancouver's chieffinancial officer; John Ingram, Clark County's finance director;Joan Durgin, Camas' finance director; and Larry Bartel, deputy chiefof support services for Clark County Fire and Rescue.
