Counterfeiting 101: If you’re planning to cash a counterfeit check, you may not want to show up at the business where you hope to cash it in a stolen vehicle. That’s the advice of Chelan County Sheriff’s Capt. Jason Mathews, whose agency arrested a 34-year-old Wenatchee woman on Thursday morning after an alert business employee declined to cash two checks, and then got the woman’s license plate number as she drove away and called police.
Lesson No. 2, Mathews says, is not to return to the scene of the attempted crime.
After unsuccessfully cashing her checks, the woman came back to the Chelan business on Highway 97A a short time later, and by then, police had checked out the vehicle’s license number and discovered it had been reported stolen from Wenatchee on Dec. 28.
When deputies arrived at the business, the woman had left again, but they put out information about the stolen vehicle to other agencies, so when a state Department of Fish and Wildlife officer saw her driving north on Highway 97A about 10 miles outside of Wenatchee, he attempted to stop her, Mathews said. She eventually pulled over and was taken into custody, booked into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center on suspicion of possession of a stolen vehicle. Police are still investigating possible charges of identity theft and fraud, he said.
300 days of sunshine? A Wednesday story about some of the odd weather we experienced in 2012 earned a comment from one reader wondering if the National Weather Service keeps stats on total days of sunshine.
Like The Worm, this reader has heard the oft-repeated boast that North Central Washington gets 300 days of sunshine — perhaps a ploy to attract Western Washingtonians across the mountains, perhaps not.
In any case, the reader commented that for the past few years, it doesn’t seem like we’ve met our quota of sunny days.
The Worm decided to pose the question to the National Weather Service, which directed her to a website from the Office of Washington State Climatologist.
That website, climate.washington.edu/cloudcover shows some interesting data, with charts from across the state showing the number of clear days, the number of partly cloudy days, and the number of cloudy days.
The chart for Wenatchee shows monthly averages compiled from 1973 through 2000.
Well, according to this data, if you add all the days of sunny weather and all the days of partly cloudy weather during those years, Pangborn Memorial Airport in East Wenatchee already falls far short of the 300 days expectation. More like 235.7 days of sunshine every year, at least for 27 years worth of data.
Stats from the Omak airport, however, hit the mark, with 299.9 days of sunshine, on average. But, that was only looking at the years 1998 through 2000, so perhaps that’s not a large enough sample.
In any case, The Worm called the state climatology office and talked to assistant state climatologist Karin Bumbaco. She said she’s not sure where the 300 days of sunshine number comes from, but it’s probably a good observation that North Central Washington hasn’t been as sunny in recent years. “The last three springs have been very slow to get to summer,” she noted.
As for updating the information, Bumbaco said that would take some work. It would be nice to do an update, she said, and they may just put the project on their wish list.
Meeting goals:
With more than a week of fundraising left, the Spartan Art Project in Twisp has met its goal of raising $6,000 to refurbish a trailer into a mobile art gallery.
Actually, it surpassed the goal by $10 as of early Friday afternoon with 77 backers through the Kickstarter website, with more than a week of fundraising left to go.
Under Kickstarter rules, people looking to raise money for a creative endeavor must raise all of the funds needed by a specific deadline or lose all pledges, to ensure donors that the projects don’t end up getting half-funded, and never completed.
Twisp artists Matt Armbrust, Steve Ward and Jeff Winslow bought and gutted the Spartan trailer last summer, and now that money has been raised to rebuild the inside, they’ll work toward finishing it by this summer.
“I think it’s amazing,” Armbrust said of the fundraising effort. “It’s a great sigh of relief and a huge feeling of support from the community.”
For those who are still interested, it’s not too late to contribute. The fundraising site — kickstarter.com under Spartan Art Project — will continue to accept donations until Jan. 13. With additional funds, the Spartan will become an even better mobile gallery. “Our commitment is to put every dollar we raise into the trailer,” Armbrust said.
This week’s Worm was compiled by reporter K.C. Mehaffey. Got a tip? Email it to newsroom@wenatcheeworld.com.
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