Government has
drones on hold
Seaside spring
sports previews
PAGE 2A
PAGES 12A, 13A
142nd YEAR, No. 195
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015
ONE DOLLAR
Great Ocean has big
dreams, little reality
Ideas span
Columbia,
West Coast
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huge; we can’t afford it. The number
is more than it (would) cost to buy
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigra- Tongue Point.”
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
tion Services. Each investor can earn
Chen wouldn’t reveal the offer
his citizenship by investing at least made by Great Ocean or a counter-
Earlier this month, The Dai- LQWRDTXDOL¿HGSURMHFWDQG offer by the Port.
ly Astorian reported on a proposal creating or preserving 10 full-time
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by Capt. Huy Ying Chen of Great jobs. Chen has said his proposal can QR VSHFL¿F GLVFXVVLRQ DERXW ZKDW
Ocean Capital Holdings to develop create thousands, with a priority on that offer would be,” the Port’s Ex-
a private shipping terminal at North hiring locally and building the in- ecutive Director Jim Knight said late
Tongue Point, an international air- frastructure needed to accommodate last week, adding that he hasn’t spo-
port on the Astoria Regional Airport, such a massive leap in employment. ken with Chen in at least a couple of
a homeport for cruise ships and a 30-
Chen said Great Ocean offered weeks.
acre tourist center.
the Port of Astoria an undisclosed
The Port pays about $350,000 a
But negotiations on Tongue Point, sum in exchange for the remaining year to lease the property through
WKH¿UVWGRPLQRLQWKHFKDLQRILGHDV ¿YH\HDUVRILWVOHDVHRQDFUHV 2019. As a government agency, it
appear to be falling victim to a lack of North Tongue Point with Missou- doesn’t pay any property taxes to
of communication.
la, Mont.-based Washington Devel- Clatsop County. In 2009, the last
Chen, a Taiwanese-American opment Company.
year property taxes were paid on
from the Puget Sound area, is the
After Great Ocean’s offer, Chen North Tongue Point, it brought the
head of Great Ocean, a federally ap- said, “the Port gave us a number, FRXQW\
proved EB-5 regional center through EXWXQRI¿FLDOO\7KHLUQXPEHULVWRR
In 2014, the appraised land value
Talks in Longview
never developed
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Capt. Huy Ying Chen
of Port’s leased property was more
than $6.2 million, along with more
than $1.7 million in improvements by
the Port and/or Washington Develop-
ment Company. That’s not including
the millions in improvements by ten-
ants at North Tongue Point such as
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foods, J.E. McAmis and others.
See GREAT OCEAN, Page 14A
GIMME
SHELTER
Astoria on target
for portable homes
By KYLE SPURR
The Daily Astorian
P
YJ]$GGDPVNQRZV¿UVWKDQGZKDWDVKHO-
ter with four walls can mean to a home-
less person.
As a teenager 15 years ago, Addams was
homeless with his mother on the Big Island of
Hawaii. A church gave them a tent and sleep-
ing bags. Eventually, Addams and his mother
moved into a house made from construction
scraps. It was a huge difference, he said.
“It didn’t have any electricity, but it was a
step up,” Addams said.
Addams uses his past experience as motiva-
tion for his newly formed project Hvgz Portable
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portable shelters for people in need of a dry,
warm place to sleep and keep their belongings.
The 20-square-foot shelters are built for
Northwest terrain with four durable wheels. The
shelters keep the homeless drier and warmer
than in a tent or no shelter at all.
Since starting the Long Beach (Wash.) Pen-
insula-based group in November, Addams’ ef-
fort has gained national attention through fea-
tures in Seattle and Portland media outlets.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” Addams said
of the recent attention. “I started getting emails
left and right. I have a heart condition already
New frontier
See SHELTER, Page 14A
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
HOW TO HELP
Those interested in donating to Hvgz
Portable Homeless Shelters can visit
http://bit.ly/1I0OcFl or www.hutsfor-
hope.org
Great Ocean Capital Hold-
ing’s and Capt. Huy Ying Chen’s
main website, goastoria.us, or
goshipline.com, reads like Great
Ocean already owns 500,000
square feet of temperature con-
trolled storage, a shipping fleet,
refridgerated containers and in-
land barges.
The group’s ideas range from
bringing produce down the Co-
lumbia on barges from as far east
on the Columbia and Snake rivers
as Lewiston, Idaho, to shipping it
up the Pacific Coast from as far
south as San Antonio, Chile.
But Great Ocean largely
doesn’t exist beyond a rented of-
fice in Kirkland, Wash., and a
string of Port officials who said
they’ve had nothing but talks.
“I spoke to him a few years
ago, and a few months ago,” Gen-
eral Manager Kim Puzey of the
Port of Umatilla said, adding that
he’s had conversations with Chen
over the past decade.
With so many container ship-
pers leaving Portland, Puzey said,
he’d love to have another outlet to
the world market. Hanjin Shipping
Co. left the Port of Portland in
February. The Oregonian reported
that Hanjin moved 1,600 contain-
ers a week at the port’s Terminal
6, including most of Oregon’s ag-
ricultural exports to Asia.
“What Chen’s providing is a
route for Umatilla to get to LA
or the Puget Sound without using
Portland,” Puzey said, adding that
there’s a lot of exports sitting idle
upriver.
Great Ocean is a federally ap-
proved regional center through
the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Pro-
gram, created by Congress in 1990
to spur foreign investment. An im-
migrant investor can put $500,000
into a qualified project to create
10 full-time jobs, in exchange for
their citizenship.
TOP: Pvgz Addams stands outside a portable homeless shelter in his front yard in Ocean
Park, Wash. As a teenager, Addams was homeless with his mother on the Big Island of Ha-
waii. Addams uses his past experiences as motivation for his newly-formed project, Hvgz
Portable Homeless Shelters, a nonprofit group that builds portable shelters for people to
sleep in and keep their belongings. ABOVE: The Hvgz portable shelter comes with about
$150 worth of survival equipment including water, a solar shower, a propane stove and a
sleeping bag. The floor of the shelter is covered with a soft mat and the walls are insulated.
There are more than 600 such
centers around the U.S., and
they’ve been used on projects as
close as two hotels in downtown
Portland financed partially by
EB-5 money and developed by
Williams/Dame & Associations.
But Chen said his is the first such
EB-5 project for international
shipping.
A main part of Great Ocean’s
proposals in the Astoria-War-
renton region is to make North
Tongue Point a privately owned
shipping terminal for packing and
loading products barged down the
Columbia River on Marine High-
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See IDEAS, Page 4A
State IT project management understaffed
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cer in the wake of the Cover
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SALEM — Oregon has strategy is a positive step, au-
taken steps over the last year GLWRUVIRXQGWKH&,2¶VRI¿FH
to prevent major information has taken more than a year to
technology project failures develop the model and still
such as Cover Oregon, but KDV QRW ¿QLVKHG LW 2QH UHD-
the effort remains under- son is the agency where the
staffed and incomplete, ac- CIO works, the Department
cording to an audit released of Administrative Services,
Monday.
does not have enough em-
Auditors also concluded ployees assigned to the proj-
the new project management ect.
strategy would not prevent
Michael Jordan, who was
many of the common prob- FKLHI RSHUDWLQJ RI¿FHU IRU
lems that arose with state the state and director of DAS
IT projects over the last 10 until March 5, agreed with
years.
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Auditors at the Secretary agreed the chief information
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a new project management staffed, and pointed out in a
model developed by Ore- Feb. 24 written response that
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
Associated Press File
Michael Jordan was the former chief operating officer for
the state and director of DAS until March 5.
the agency had asked for 12
more employees in the next
two-year budget starting in
July. Without additional em-
ployees, Jordan estimated his
DJHQF\ ZRXOG ¿QLVK GHYHO-
oping the new project man-
agement strategy by summer
2017.
However, Jordan took
issue with the auditors’ rec-
ommendation for clear con-
sequences when IT projects
fail to meet goals during the
development process; Jordan
wrote that it was also import-
ant to be “supportive and col-
laborative.”
7KH *RYHUQRU¶V 2I¿FH
initially asked for more time
so that George Naughton
could write “an enhanced re-
sponse” to the audit after Jor-
dan resigned March 5, said
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spokesman Tony Green. Kris-
ten Grainger, a spokeswoman
See IT, Page 4A