Region in brief: VA center appointments canceled after power outage
The Spokane Veterans Affairs Medical Center canceled appointments for as many as 300 patients Friday because of a power outage that started Thursday night.
Electricity was restored to the main building, 4815 N. Assembly St., on Thursday night, but not the medical center wing that houses primary care clinics, said associate director Jane Schilke.
Also without power were the ophthalmology, audiology and dental clinics.
The outage apparently resulted from technical trouble within the medical center complex, and not with Avista lines running up to the center.
The facility serves nearly 25,000 veterans in Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Western Montana.
SEATTLE
Snohomish Tribe challenges denial of U.S. recognition
The Snohomish Tribe of Indians sued in federal court this week to overturn a 2004 decision that denied it federal recognition.
The tribe alleges that the Bureau of Indian Affairs acted arbitrarily and applied the wrong legal standards when it made the decision.
“There are certain standards you have to meet to get recognition, and our point is that we met that standard but the government didn’t apply the facts,” said John Devlin, the tribe’s Seattle-based lawyer.
The Tulalip Tribes have long opposed the Snohomish Tribe’s appeal for recognition, arguing that the Snohomish people were among those tribes that originally settled on the Tulalip reservation.
The BIA requires that tribes seeking recognition prove they’ve existed continuously as a distinct community, with political authority over their members. Recognition entitles tribes to federal assistance and rights such as hunting and fishing.
The tribe argues that poor living conditions on the Tulalip Indian Reservation kept many Snohomish Indians from living there, one factor that led the BIA to reject the tribe’s 2004 appeal for recognition.
YAKIMA
Police say man abducted, abused former girlfriend
A man has been charged with abducting his former girlfriend for 12 days and raping and beating her in Yakima.
Thirty-one-year-old Jason M. Burke, also known as Gilberto Martinez, was arraigned Thursday on charges of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree rape, domestic violence assault and violating a no-contact order. He remained in jail Friday with bail set at $300,000.
According to a police affidavit, Burke seized the woman at gunpoint on Feb. 15, threatening to harm her three children if she refused to go with him.
He’s accused of holding her captive at his mother’s house, raping her, hitting her with a gun, choking her and injecting her with methamphetamine. Police wrote that she managed to escape Feb. 27.
ASHFORD, Wash.
Conservationists acquire 142 acres near national park
A conservation group has acquired 142 acres of old-growth forest near the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, ending fears the land could be logged.
The Nisqually Land Trust says it purchased the historic Allen Estate, in Ashford, using a $780,000 federal land grant it obtained through the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR will hold a conservation easement on the property, preventing future development.
In 2005, the estate’s previous owners said they planned to log the property, which includes towering Douglas firs that line the highway leading into the national park’s main entrance.
Many locals thought logging the land could hurt the tourism industry as well as important habitat for endangered species, such as the Northern spotted owl.
The estate was the home of Grenville Allen, the national park’s first superintendent.