In brief: City issues second boil-water warning
MERCER ISLAND, Wash. – The city of Mercer Island says E. coli has shown up again in a water sample test.
The city issued another boil-water advisory Thursday and ordered all restaurants in the Seattle suburb to close.
The previous boil-water advisory in Mercer Island was issued last weekend and lifted on Monday.
The city says test results on Thursday morning showed one sample with E. coli. There are no reports of illness.
The island in Lake Washington gets its water from Seattle Public Utilities, which says all its other water is safe for drinking.
Idaho store sees run on medical masks
BOISE – The owner of an industrial surplus store near Boise said he had nearly sold out of respirator masks after a disaster preparedness website linked to his store in a post about preparing for an Ebola outbreak.
John Schiff, owner of the Reuseum in Garden City, normally sells just one or two boxes of the particulate respirator masks in a week. But since Tuesday, orders from his online store had jumped. Schiff said his stock of 110 boxes was cleaned out, and he expected his last five boxes to be gone by today.
Federal authorities announced Tuesday that a man who recently was in Liberia had been diagnosed with Ebola at a Dallas hospital.
The virus only spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids.
District discipline levels questioned
PORTLAND – The Oregon Department of Education said the Portland school district disciplines black special education students at a higher-than-acceptable rate, and ordered the district to spend $1.5 million on programs to improve the situation.
Portland Public Schools reported that 19 of its 1,043 black special education students had a long-term disciplinary exclusion during 2012-13. That’s down from 44 of 1,144 students three years earlier, but the state says it’s still too many.
Monorail plan going to Seattle voters
SEATTLE – A monorail proposal is back on the ballot in Seattle.
City voters are being asked to decide next month whether to create a City Transportation Authority to plan and build a 16-mile monorail line between the Ballard and West Seattle neighborhoods. It would be funded with a new tax and car license fee.
The Seattle Times reported the measure will be the sixth monorail vote since a mile-long monorail was built for the 1962 World’s Fair. Taxpayers lost $124 million on a monorail project that was scrapped in 2005.
Opponents to the latest proposal have formed a group called Let’s Not Repeat Past Mistakes.