Thumbs up: Rainier museum funding
It’s a great thing to see people be rewarded after they’ve worked so long on a project. That’s what happened for the Rainier Historical Society, which recently received a $500,000 grant from the Oregon Legislature to build a stand-alone building to house the Rainier Oregon Historical Museum.
Currently, the museum is inside Rainier City Hall, where it has resided since 2017. While it was a great start for the collection, the limited space presents problems for displaying certain items, such as Rainier’s first fire truck, which dates back to 1936.
The collection has simply outgrown its home — which is a great thing to be able to say. But the new museum has required a lot of hard work and planning from the society. We first reported on members securing and clearing a site back in 2020. At that time, the historical society had less than $2,000 in its building fund.
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The gap between the money members had and the cost of the museum they wanted must have seemed insurmountable, but the people at the historical society didn’t let that stop them. They spent years pursuing grants and squirreling away donations.
By late 2023, they had nearly $400,000 in their building fund, with a target number of $2 million.
Thanks to the recent grant from the state of Oregon and an in-kind donation of $1 million, they’ve finally hit that target. The museum is expected to open in spring 2025, and to say we’re excited is putting it lightly. The chance to see the displays they have planned for their new building become reality can’t come soon enough.
Thumbs down: Smelt licenses
The state of Washington has decided that unlicensed smelt fishing is something officials can no longer allow. The state Legislature has passed a bill requiring all dippers to have a license, and once Gov. Jay Inslee signs the bill, a 90-day clock begins ticking.
After that, there’s one fewer outdoor activity that can be enjoyed without having to get a pass, permit or ticket.
A one-day license for smelt would cost about $10. But officials say that it’s not about collecting funds but, instead, closing loopholes. Tom McBride, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife’s legislative director, said that requiring a license would help enforce overfishing rules. But this just doesn’t add up to us.
With or without a license, overfishing is a violation of the Endangered Species Act. What happened to “ignorance of the law is no excuse?” If not knowing the rules is somehow getting citations excused, that’s the problem that legislators should be trying to solve, rather than doing something that burdens law-abiding recreational fishers as well.
The other goal that legislators hope to accomplish is to close a loophole currently used by people hoping to illegally catch salmon. According to McBride, game wardens are often told that people fishing illegally claim that they are just fishing for carp.
We strongly support protecting salmon, and if that means closing this carp-fishing loophole, that’s what needs to be done. However, we don’t see them as the same issue that can be fixed with the same solution.
One is a question of enforcing an existing law more thoroughly, and the other is about closing off an alibi used by poachers. A one-size solution doesn’t seem like it fits all in this case when the core causes are so different.
Thumbs up: Net Nanny stings
Earlier this week, we reported that the Net Nanny stings had produced yet another conviction. We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work that goes into the program. The initiative has been responsible for more than 300 arrests since it began in 2015, according to the Washington State Patrol.
That number includes 15 men arrested as part of a November bust in Cowlitz County.
There’s a lot of unpleasant jobs out there, but being part of the Net Nanny sting crew has to be among the most emotionally taxing. Even just reading some of the crimes that are investigated by Net Nanny operatives — like attempted child rape or the commercial sexual abuse of a minor — are hard to think about even as abstract criminal charges.
Now just imagine having to talk to the people who perpetrate these crimes, and having to pretend to be a child to lure them in. It’s a dark and difficult task, but if it helps keep kids safe, it’s worth it.
We don’t need to know who’s behind the keyboard; whomever it is, they have more than earned their privacy. We just want to say thank you, and that you’re making a difference.