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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2017)
11A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017 Water rates: Bills would reflect the new costs in August year, we’ve had to go back with supplemental budgets for expenses we incurred for In line with others “The new rates will put maintenance or emergency us in line with what our expenses. That’s not the way neighbors to the north and to run a train on time.” south are already paying,” Grassick said a pub- City Councilor George Vet- lic process — including a ter said. “Even though it’s citizens’ advisory group, quite a bit more, council mem- it’s still in line bers and mem- with what peo- bers of the public works committee ple in the area are paying.” and staff — have Vetter said been meeting for rates have not 15 months. “It gone up in 10 all really came years. together in the last The average session,” he said. Cannon Beach Along with Dan h o m e o w n e r ’s expenses for Grassick water and waste- water-tank repair water bill is in the or replacement, “low $40s,” Pub- the city faces lic Works Direc- costs to replace tor Dan Grassick brittle under- said. ground pipes, Increases will some of which be included in the have been in the base rate and in ground for more usage costs. than 50 years. “The more water you use, More use, George the more you’re more cost Vetter going to pay,” The base rate Grassick said. for home or com- An average home’s mercial property owners water and wastewater bill of is determined by the cost $41.65 would be adjusted to “to get water to your front $57.68, he said. door,” Grassick said. An increase in storm In a city where 75 per- drain charges would add to cent of property owners are monthly fees. Homeown- second homeowners, own- ers are now billed $4.77 per ers are charged the base rate month for storm use, a num- whether they use the resi- ber likely to increase. dence or not, Grassick said. “You incur costs even if you Improving don’t use water,” he said. infrastructure “That’s the base rate.” If recommendations from The base rate for home- the Civil West Engineer- owners provides about 100 ing Services study com- cubic feet of water or 748 missioned by the city are gallons per month. adopted, rate increases will The unit rate, based on finance up to $6 million in water usage, would increase water infrastructure costs, from $4.35 to $7.15 per 100 including replacement of cubic feet of water used per two water tanks. month. Driving the hike is the Commercial water rates city’s new water and waste- correspond to meter size, water master plans, which from a base allowance of show a need to finance about 400 cubic feet to 20,000 $5 million to $6 million of cubic feet. Cannon Beach “Priority 1” water projects Rural Fire Protection Dis- — ones that should be done trict is exempt from charges. now — and about $2 million Storm drain costs are an in wastewater costs. additional fee for homeown- The biggest expense ers and commercial proper- is replacement or rebuild- ties, Grassick said, and “will ing of the city’s water-stor- be close to double what it is age tanks. One tank holds right now.” 1.6 million gallons; the sec- Vetter said the hikes are ond holds 1 million gallons. still “conjecture” and must “The two big storage tanks be approved by council. need work or replacement to “We’ve got the study withstand seismic events,” from Civil West, they are Grassick said. making recommendations, An additional $2 million and now we, as a council, is needed to fund the city’s have to do decide which rec- wastewater management ommendations we are going upgrades, he said. to follow,” Vetter said. “The reality is we could decide not to raise the rates, but General fund that’s not likely to happen. transfers The rate study was out- But we have not made the lined in January at the City decisions yet. Moving for- Council goals session and ward, we have to make deci- reviewed at last week’s work sions about what aspects of session. that master plan we’re going “For the city, the issue to execute and when.” has been the council has The council plans to known for several years adopt the master plans April the rate structure that the 4 and posted on the city city has in place for water, website the next day, Grass- wastewater and storm, the ick said. The new rate struc- enterprise funds, has not ture could be reflected in the fully funded those pro- budget 2017-18 and go into grams,” Grassick said. “The effect July 1. rates don’t support basic Bills would reflect the operation expenses. Every new costs in August. Continued from Page 1A Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Mike Metzner performs live with Joey Patenaude during the show, “Blues in The Daylight” on Coast Community Radio Monday in Astoria. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives about $445 million annual. Fallout: ‘It’s not yet a done deal’ Continued from Page 1A “It’s not a done deal yet, but it’s the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the time that I’ve been manager here, because there’s not much political will to stop it,” said Rideout, who has been with the station for about 15 years, seven as the general manager. Congress allocates money to public-media platforms through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Oregon Public Broadcasting, a prominent out- let based in Portland, receives a larger chunk of money than Coast Community Radio, head- quartered in Astoria’s Tillicum House on 14th Street. Trump is not the first pres- ident to propose nixing public broadcasting funding, Morgan Holm, chief content officer at OPB, pointed out. “George W. Bush did that pretty much every year he was in office,” he said, “but, ulti- mately, Congress did end up funding CPB at the same level.” OPB, Holm said, is going to watch the situation care- fully, because “Congress is the one that makes the decision on how much to spend,” he said. Holm said he believes there is support on both sides of the aisle for continued fund- ing of public broadcasting, “and we’re anxious to have the opportunity to make that case.” ‘I don’t want to cry wolf, and yet this looks like it really might be the real deal.’ Joanne Rideout general manager of Coast Community Radio Astoria, KCPB in Warrenton and KTCB in Tillamook — broadcasts shows produced by community members, and fea- tures local news, music and other entertainment, as well as national programming. The station is also an emer- gency service, providing one of the mediums for regional communication during power outages, disasters and emer- gencies large and small. “We provide a service that just simply isn’t available any- where else, because we can have live people on the air anytime,” Rideout said. “So, if the power’s out, and you have a radio with batteries in it, or a crank radio, you don’t have access to social media — even if your phone doesn’t work — we can be on the air for you. And it’s a free service that anybody who has a radio can access.” She called the organization a “community service orga- nization that happens to be a radio station.” ‘The real deal’ On the coast Coast Community Radio — which includes KMUN in Astoria City Councilor Cindy Price, who began vol- unteering at KMUN 10 days after moving to town in 1996, said it is too soon for Coast Community Radio fans to panic. Trump’s budget, unveiled Thursday, must be reviewed by Congress before it reaches the president’s desk. The final version may look very differ- ent from Trump’s blueprint while still reflecting Republi- can priorities. “Congress makes the bud- get, not the president,” Price said, “so we really don’t know what’s going to happen.” But, she added, it is time to “start paying attention, for sure.” The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives about $445 million annually — a minute fraction of the roughly $4 trillion federal budget. Trump’s drastic cuts to pub- lic broadcasting and other domestic programs is meant to offset a $54 billion increase in defense spending. Conservatives have long viewed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — and its most famous grantee, National Public Radio — as sympa- thetic to left-wing views and an inappropriate use of gov- ernment funding. Congressio- nal Republicans have periodi- cally threatened to defund the service. “But never have they done so under a president who is so intolerant of dissent, and of the rights of individuals and the institutions of democracy,” Price said in an email. City Councilor Tom Brownson, a Coast Commu- nity Radio programmer since the late 1990s, said the pro- posed cuts would put a lot of stress on the organization. “It’s run on a shoestring, and any defunding will cause a lot of problems for them. There’s just no way around it,” Brownson said. “You pull anything of what they’re get- ting now, and it’s going to be really hard to continue to function.” Rideout said the station would have to do some serious fundraising to fill the budget- ary crater and figure out where the radio team can down- size without sacrificing core services. “I don’t want to cry wolf, and yet this looks like it really might be the real deal,” she said. She hopes lawmak- ers will recognize that pub- lic broadcasting is an import- ant resource. But she knows this attitude might be overly optimistic. “When I look from a dis- tance at Washington, D.C., I see an open field to just shut the whole thing down,” she said. Housing: ‘Astoria has a housing crisis right now’ Continued from Page 1A Mayor Arline LaMear also favored the ideas, except she argued property own- ers currently using ADUs for homestay lodging should be allowed to continue. Councilors Bruce Jones and Zetty Nemlowill said they were satisfied with the code amend- ments as written. Nemlowill, like Price, believes tiny homes should not yet be included in the code but said she was eager to move forward, even with- out the preservation society’s revisions. “I think the time is now to take action to add housing units for Astorians,” she said, “and this proposal, as it’s written, will ensure that these units will be for Astorians.” The point of the code amend- ments, she said, is to make it easier to build ADUs and add to the city’s limited housing stock. And although she believes the preservation society’s sugges- tions are well-intentioned, “I think it would just be too darn tough to build anything with all of those measures in place.” Cronin said he needed to review the revisions before he could properly respond to them. City staff will draft revised amendment language for the council to discuss at a future meeting. ‘Housing crisis’ Though the code amend- ments forbid using new ADUs Lawsuit: Friends have hosted fundraisers to help Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian The Astoria City Council is looking for ways to ease the town’s housing crunch. Continued from Page 1A for temporary lodging, the council wondered whether enforcing a ban was even possible. The city already has trouble cracking down on vacation rentals in residential zones, where such operations are illegal, but not uncommon. Micha Cameron-Lattek, an Astoria resident who supports ADUs, acknowledged the lim- itations of enforcement. “But just because there’s going to be a problem enforcing the intended and legitimate use of it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider ADUs as a real pos- sibility to make sure that the people who want to live here Paul Mitchell, the com- munity outreach manager at Columbia Memorial, said the hospital is unable to com- ment on active or pending litigation. Armington declined to comment. Armington, who co-founded Pacific Coast Imaging in 2007 after moving to the North Coast, has spe- cialist certification in neurora- diology. He is also a philan- thropist who has donated to Columbia Memorial’s new cancer center and the Astoria Music Festival. Christie is well-known in can continue to live here and contribute to our community,” he said. Cameron-Lattek, who owns Street 14 Coffee with his wife, Jennifer, said, “Astoria has a housing crisis right now.” The Cameron-Latteks have spo- ken about the challenges their employees face searching for housing. “People who work here can’t afford to live here. Peo- ple who work here that are, in large part, responsible for Astoria being attractive to vis- itors have a particularly hard time,” he said. In other business: • The council approved a solicitation for bids for the ridgeline timber harvest this summer. In response to ada- mant public comments, the council decided to schedule a meeting to provide the pub- lic with more information about the project — involving commercial timber thin- ning and variable retention treatment — which will take place on 52 acres of the Bear Creek watershed this sum- mer and is estimated to bring in $200,000 in net proceeds to the capital improvement fund. Astoria music circles for his shop and as a mentor to other musicians. Mallternative, on Marine Drive, is a trading post with musical instruments, electronics, video games and records. Friends have hosted fundraisers to help Chris- tie and his daughter, Heather, with medical expenses. James Huegli, a Portland attorney representing Chris- tie, said Christie had “every sign and symptom of a stroke” but his scan was mis- read. He said patients should be advocates for their care at hospitals. “So if something feels wrong and looks wrong and acts wrong, you need to advocate,” he said.