Local Digest
Few reported cases of whooping cough

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One patient, who was exposed to a Swedish/First Hill campus emergency-room physician with the disease, tested positive late last week and was treated, officials said. They said federal privacy rules prevented them from releasing any details.

A hospital employee tested positive late last week but had been exposed to the disease outside the hospital, according to Public Health — Seattle & King County. Health officials are investigating how the exposure occurred.

All but seven of 215 patients possibly exposed in the emergency room or obstetrics-gynecology unit have been contacted and treated with preventive antibiotics. The seven are homeless, and public-health officials are trying to contact them, Swedish spokesman Ed Boyle said.

More than 190 employees have been evaluated and treated, he said.

The investigation and preventive treatments began after the ER physician was diagnosed with the disease July 23. Two other employees, both obstetrics-gynecology unit employees who were exposed to the physician, also developed the disease and had contact with patients.

Seattle

City Council OKs Thornton Creek plan

The Seattle City Council approved a $7.2 million plan to uncover part of Thornton Creek now buried in a pipe under the Northgate Mall parking lot. The decision ends six years of legal and political battles between the city and community activists.

Environmentalists said the proposal would provide open space and decrease pollution in the creek.

The compromise, first announced in June by Mayor Greg Nickels, was unanimously ratified by the council yesterday.
 
The compromise calls for digging about 20 feet beneath the parking lot and creating a channel, bordered by vegetation, through which the creek would flow. The pipe would remain under the channel bed to act as a safety valve where water could flow during large storms.

As envisioned, the channel would run next to several hundred new apartments and condominiums proposed by Lorig Associates.

Seattle Public Utilities ratepayers would pay for the project through their drainage fees. Public-utilities Director Chuck Clarke said it would have a "negligible" effect on rates.

Olympia

Governor appoints 3 to Puget Sound panel

Gov. Gary Locke has named three new members to the Puget Sound Council, a panel formed to steer conservation and restoration of Puget Sound marine ecoystems.

David Herrera, a fisheries manager for the Skokomish Tribe on Hood Canal, was picked to represent tribal governments. Doug Mah, an Olympia City Council member, was named to represent local governments. Naki Stevens, a program director for a Seattle environmental group, People for Puget Sound, was added to represent environmental groups collectively.

Also, Bill Dewey, a longtime shellfish farmer from Shelton, was reappointed to represent the shellfish industry.

The panel also includes representatives from the oil industry and county governments and several members of the Legislature.

Mountlake Terrace

Premera to lay off 82 on Medicare staff

Premera Blue Cross has given layoff notices to 82 workers in its Medicare-claims unit as the insurer prepares to exit that business at the end of September.

Premera, Washington's largest health insurer, announced in March it will stop processing Medicare hospital claims under contract by the federal government.

Premera said the Medicare business volume was too small to run it efficiently.

Fourteen of the affected workers in Lynnwood have been hired by Noridian Administrative Services, which will take over Premera's Medicare business.

Premera hopes to hire some of the others elsewhere in the company, said spokesman Chris Jarvis. The rest of the workers will be let go Oct. 1.

Seattle

Recall still ongoing for Stouffer's pot pies

A recall of 16-ounce packages of Stouffer's Chicken Pot Pie continues, following the discovery of small pieces of glass and/or plastic in the product.

The pot pies were distributed nationwide, including in the Seattle area, according to Nestlé Prepared Foods, Stouffer's parent company. They were manufactured in Toronto.

The affected packages bear the universal product code 13800-10635, plus the production code 4066VH, followed by a letter ranging from A to Z.

Consumers who have purchased packages should discard them and call the Nestlé Consumer Services hotline, 800-447-1427. They will be sent coupons for replacements, said a company spokesman.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Nestlé launched the recall after it received several consumer complaints and reports of minor injuries. The agency said no other sizes or varieties of Stouffer's products are affected by the recall.

Snohomish County

Eyman, Fay Pullen sue council over I-18

Political consultant Tim Eyman and Fay Pullen, the widow of the late King County councilman, filed suit yesterday against the Metropolitan King County Council, alleging that changes made to Initiative 18 last month undermined the measure, which would reduce the council size from 13 members to nine.

The lawsuit was filed in Snohomish County because King County is the target of the suit.

I-18 will appear on the ballot this fall and was adjusted by the County Council to make the earliest possible nine-member election in 2007 rather than 2005.

"If Members of the King County Council accomplish a delay in the effective date of the Initiative for two years," the lawsuit states, "there is no legal justification to stop them from delaying the effective date of other initiatives by 10 or even 20 years."

Frank Abe, director of communications for the County Council, said the changes were "simply trying to make this measure work by creating a reasonable timeline for implementation."

Kent Pullen, who died in April 2003, co-sponsored a motion in 2002 to decrease the size of the council.

Portland

Light-rail train kills man in wheelchair

A light-rail train struck and killed a man in a wheelchair in southeast Portland, authorities said.

The man, a passenger, had just gotten off the westbound MAX train and was traveling parallel to the tracks when he was hit Sunday night, Tri-Met spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said.

Times staff and news services