A "Wet n Wild" Welcome from Vancouvria, the city that gives out dollar-store glitter lipstick kisses for free with enough PBR and karaoke shooters!

So...I'll be quick in this first post and simply welcome y'all to O Vancouvria!, the blog about Clark County urban life and quirks that aims to displease, confound, and give you giggles all at once. Nothing is off limits here at O Vancouvria!, where we diligently attempt to suction out the muck in the same way Clark Parks Shop-vac'd the milfoil and associated e.coli out of Vancouver Lake and Klineline Pond. We will stir the depths of "the first Vancouver's" murky blackness, causing a Lake Lacamas-polluted size miasma of foul white-trashy air to descend upon government corrupters, know-nothing Potemkin village promoters, and troglodytes of various sizes and whelps who crouch and hide with slingshots full of Tea Party ooze, just looking to throw stones at all our glass houses (of which we have many, particularly in East Vancouver and Camas/Fishers Landing).

We refuse to hunker down and hide away from the painfully weird and blatantly wrong, as Peacehealth does in the old Nautilus Building. We will clear away those weeds and squat openly among the mid-Fourth Plain ruins of Kyocera. We will rip up your crumbling asphalt roads in your half-built empty assed subdivisions, and give your community gardens actual flowers.

To wit, we are here to shake things up (and not continue to annoy our non-Vancouverite Facebook friends with our continued rumblings about things good and bad here in the "Wet and Wild" city). Those who want, can read things here first. I won't stop you.

I envision not a "city on the hill", nor a "beacon of sustainable living" like our neighbor to the south. I look to create and critique Vancouver as a city which holds it own - part of our larger metropolitan area (and soon to number 600K of an estimated 2.4M population in 2020) but also a distinct metropolitan region in its own right. All the pieces are in place: our own County government (soon to increase to conform with other counties who have larger populations like ours) that cooperates frequently with the City of Vancouver (its main growth engine, currently sitting around 170K population estimated) to provide metro-level services in areas like parks & rec, public & environmental health, and zoning; various and sundry incorporated smaller cities that are NOW suburban and exurban satellites of Vancouver directly (Camas, Washougal, Battleground, Ridgefield, La Center, Woodland); unincorporated urban and suburban areas whose recent explosive growth is causing crisis with current tight-fisted County policies, and the desire of many who live there to keep a tight hold on their pocketbooks (Hazel Dell, Salmon Creek, Felida/Lakeshore, Mount Vista, Orchards, Sifton, E Minnehaha/Walnut Grove, Brush Prairie, Hockinson); constant FIGHTS between powers-that-be, and various activist cranks like myself, over the direction, if any, we should take to accommodate/restrict/change growth; continued interest in our area by big business - like Tesoro/Savage's new oil terminal (yes, issues - but using as example); and our daily battle with traffic to/from our neighbor to the south. We have advantages the rest of the Portland/Vancouver metro area does not (or disadvantages, depending on where you sit), including more flexible zoning to allow for growth, good roads, relatively high disposable incomes, sensible "libertarian" attitudes towards each other, and budgets which are not (yet) in crisis. Most importantly - we are NOT part of TriMet's unelected governing body, nor are we dictated to by their regulations and rules - including light rail, growth, and zoning; nor are we dictated to by Seattle's needs like much of the rest of Washington west of the Cascades.

Its no wonder Olympia has traditionally looked upon us with a chary eye, and no wonder we have such activist and go-getter politicians, of all stripes, working hard up north to ensure our needs are met. Its no wonder we hear from Portlanders they'd "like to tear the Interstate Bridge down" (putting, say, kayaks, in its place) or that we're woefully uncultured hicks, or that we gleefully love developers putting up beige monstrosities everywhere. No wonder people from Oregon get lost when they come north of the river, confused by our spaghetti-like streets and non-TriMet conformist street grids.

In short, I write this blog because its high time Vancouverites stop taking the short end of the stick from outsiders north, and south. Its high time we pulled on our "big boy pants" and stood tall. Its high time we stopped being meek and mild, keeping mouths shut when Portland tells us what's good for their goose is necessary for our gander. Its past time we continue as an outpost of hillbilly tax rebellion, refusing to endorse infrastructure improvements, social services, and public necessities simply as a knee-jerk reaction with a fuzzy focus on rebelling against "pinko" Portland. Vancouver as a city, and (dare I say it?) the "Southwest Washington metropolitan area" is here to STAY.