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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015
Mary Todd’s Workers Bar and Grill
By NOEL THOMAS
For The Daily Astorian
I’ve always been drawn to (no pun intend-
ed) Mary Todd’s — it’s a great old Union-
town building with all those angles and tex-
tures — the light-reflecting windows, power
lines, and hunky utility meters contrasting
with and complementing the old horizontal
drop siding. It leans a little this way, a little
that, somehow always in motion. It has at-
mosphere, and a heartbeat.
I’ve drawn it before, thinking about it, so one
morning I packed up my folding chair, drawing
pad, pens and pencils, and set up camp across the
street in front of Suomi Hall. This was done on an
overcast day — the gray sky emphasizing the tan-
gle of utility lines in a way I’d never seen before.
Sketching has always been somewhat of
an obsession for me, but in recent years, it’s
become a necessary part of my daily life,
like eating and sleeping. When I start, I don’t
try for perfection or a finished work, just a
chance to see what I can do. It’s play. I sketch
anything and anyone, and at the end of the
week I get to look back at a visual journal of
where I’ve been and what I’ve seen.
Noel Thomas is an Astoria artist whose work
may be seen and purchased at the RiverSea
Gallery, 1160 Commercial St.
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By PETER WONG
EO Media Group
Pamplin Media Group
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said at a Jan. 20 meeting with the Port-
land Tribune editorial board.
“If we do not raise any more money,
but we are going to pay them (retailers)
more money, that is less money from
the lottery coming into the state budget
— and less on which we can bank on.”
The commission heard public testi-
mony in December.
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she was willing to consider a different
plan, laid out by Oregon Lottery Direc-
tor Jack Roberts, that would have let
some retailers keep more money as an
incentive to increase video lottery sales
and earn more for the state.
That plan would have set a 27.5 per-
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lottery sales, 23 percent on sales be-
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According to the Oregon Lottery’s
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ness year — the latest available — re-
tailer commissions for all games ac-
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Net proceeds transferred to the state
for various purposes, including educa-
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ending June 30, 2013.
Since the Oregon Lottery started
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THE
SALEM — The cut that more than
2,200 retailers receive from video lot-
tery proceeds will remain unchanged
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The Oregon Lottery Commission
voted Friday to leave in place two com-
pensation plans that retailers can choose
from, one rewarding low-volume retail-
ers and the other high-volume retailers.
The plans net them a commission aver-
age of 23 percent.
The new contracts with retailers will
end in June 2020.
The vote was 4-1. The lone dissent-
er was Chris Telfer, a member who is a
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a former state senator.
Telfer said afterward she had no big
objection to what the commission did.
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However, during the last major de-
bate about retailer rates more than a
decade ago, education and social ser-
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percent.
House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Port-
land, said many lawmakers also would
have raised concerns about such a plan,
even though the Lottery Commission is
largely independent of the Legislature.
“I feel like they are doing this on
their own and forgot to ask us,” Kotek
A long history
eo poker and then with other electronic
games in 2005, they have accounted for
about 70 percent of lottery proceeds.
The machines are owned and ser-
viced by the state, but they sit in private
establishments.
Until 2010, when the commission
left them unchanged, retailer compen-
sation rates had been whittled down
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A slight upswing
During its meeting, the commission
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games — are on a modest upswing for
the business year that will end June 30.
Compared with the previous busi-
ness year to date, total sales were up
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percent. Sales of traditional products,
such as scratch-off tickets, were down
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