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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 2015)
NORTH COAST THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015 3A City Council moves ahead with citizen survey plan Questionnaire could ‘entice residents to Cannon Beach’ By DANI PALMER EO Media Group CANNON BEACH — The Cannon Beach City Coun- cil has narrowly approved a $30,000 strategic plan that could guide future policy choices in Cannon Beach. According to City Manag- er Brant Kucera, the National Citizen Survey relies on citi- zen input to provide a detailed analysis and summary of community viewpoints, and is used by cities as large as 2 million and as small as a few hundred. The survey is administered by the National Research Center and the Internation- al City/County Management Association, and serves as a tool for short- and long-term planning. The survey will cost $15,000, with another $10,000-$15,000 for facilita- tion, Kucera said. For the price the city’s get- ting, Kucera said he is “not sure how it’s a bad deal.” He said he has administered the survey in at least six other communities with successful results. “For me, I think that the ability to cross-tabulate our- selves with other communi- ties and from year to year are very important things to see as far as how we rank and then are we having a process of continuous improvement,” he said. He noted that the survey results could be used to entice residents to Cannon Beach. Councilor Mike Bene¿eld ‘That’s what a strategic plan is: a road map in how to get from here to there.’ — Wendy Higgins Cannon Beach city councilor agreed that attracting more full-time residents than sec- ond homeowners should be the goal for the future of the town. Mayor Sam Steidel said he is more concerned about the people already living in Cannon Beach than attract- ing potential newcomers, and would rather see a service needs survey. Steidel said he did not like the National Citizen Survey’s format, which uses the terms “poor, fair, good and excellent” which could be considered subjective. He noted that he believed the survey would be a “waste of time and money.” Steidel added that he had no interest in comparing Can- non Beach to other commu- nities, because of its unique- ness. “We are Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach is us,” he said. Some in the audience agreed. In the crowd of about 15, a handful stood up to speak against the survey be- fore the strategic plan discus- sion even began. Jillayne Sorenson said a national survey may not be the best route for a commu- nity like Cannon Beach with its speci¿c characteristics. “I think there are a number of ways of receiving feed- back from the community,” she said, adding the survey shouldn’t be the only source of input. The way questions are posed could have an impact on the results, Sorenson said, and the survey may not be worth the expense. Kucera said the questions can be customized and sug- gested going with the national survey to avoid bias. An in- house survey may inadver- tently offer leading questions, he added, noting the national survey is statistically defen- sible. Bene¿eld said he wants the city to be proactive, and a strategic plan would assist in that. Councilwoman Wen- dy Higgins said the survey would provide an opportunity for staff and elected of¿cials to utilize community input for future plans and budgets. “That’s what a strategic plan is: a road map in how to get from here to there,” she said. Councilor George Vetter said he wasn’t sure the sur- vey was the best way to spend money and discussed putting it off. Bene¿eld countered that he didn’t see what another month of rehashing would do. Councilors Bene¿eld, Hig- gins and Melissa Cadwallader voted last Tuesday in favor of the survey. Mayor Steidel and Vetter provided the “nay” votes in the 3-2 decision. The survey administration period is estimated to take 17 weeks. Resulting data will be used to develop a strategic plan draft before the new year. North Dakota doctor Massive debris removal begins in Alaska accused of sex abuse By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press By KYLE SPURR The Daily Astorian A North Dakota doctor is accused of sexually abusing a young girl multiple times in Clatsop County over a two- year period. Robert John Gustafson, a surgeon in the 1,200-person town of Hettinger, N.D., plead- ed not guilty Monday in Clat- sop County Circuit Court to 10 counts of ¿rst-degree sex abuse and two counts of ¿rst-degree encouraging child sex abuse. The alleged abuse occurred in Clatsop County between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2011, ac- cording to the indictment. The sex-abuse charges relate to Gustafson allegedly touching the girl, under 14 at the time, and having the girl touch him. Gustafson, 46, appeared in court Monday via video link from Clatsop County Jail, where he is being held on $250,000 bail. His defense lawyer Paul Hood said Gustafson plans to post the required 10 percent amount of bail to be released from jail, and return to North Dakota. “He is a surgeon at the West River Health Center in Hetting- er, North Dakota,” Hood said. “I contacted the health center today, they are holding his job for him. He is the only surgeon at the facility.” As part of his release agree- ment, Gustafson would nor- Robert John Gustafson mally not be allowed to leave the state. However, Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis did not object. “The normal conditions would prohibit he leave the state. The defendant is a doctor apparently licensed in North Dakota, where he lives,” Mar- quis said. “The state does not object to him leaving the state, but we ask he have no contact with any children and surren- der his passport.” Judge Philip Nelson grant- ed the release agreement, and allowed Gustafson to return to North Dakota. Gustafson is re- quired to have no contact with the victim, her family or any children under 18, unless it is necessary at the health center where he works. His next scheduled court appearance is an early resolu- tion conference in September. Hood will request the court let Gustafson not appear in person at the next hearing, since he will be in North Da- kota. JUNEAU, Alaska — A mas- sive cleanup effort is getting underway in Alaska, with tons of marine debris — some likely sent to sea by the 2011 tsunami in Japan — set to be airlifted from rocky beaches and taken by barge for recycling and dis- posal in the Paci¿c Northwest. Hundreds of heavy-du- ty bags of debris, collected in 2013 and 2014 and stockpiled at a storage site in Kodiak, also will be shipped out. The barge is scheduled to arrive in Kodiak by Thursday, before setting off on a roughly one-month venture. The scope of the project, a year in the making, is virtual- ly unheard of in Alaska. It was spurred, in part, by the mass of material that’s washed ashore — things like buoys, ¿shing lines, plastics and fuel drums — and the high cost of shuttling small boatloads of debris from remote sites to port, said Chris Pallister, president of the cleanup organi- zation Gulf of Alaska Keeper, which is coordinating the effort. The Anchorage land¿ll also began requiring that ¿shing nets and lines — common de- bris items — to be chopped up, a task called impossible by state tsunami marine debris coordi- nator Janna Stewart. Pallister estimates the cost N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A Contact: Steve Axtell • 360-430-0885 or John Anderson • 360-269-2500 Fre e as Est F ima t t es • Residential • Commercial •Cedar Roof Treatments • Interior & Exterior Over 20 years local experience 503-440-2169 ka is different since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which killed thousands in Japan. Crews plan to do cleanup work in the Gulf of Alaska this summer, which will add to the material that has already been cached in heavy-duty bags above the high-tide line. All this would be loaded onto the barge. The logistics are complicated. Dump trucks are expected to ferry the large white bags of de- bris from the Kodiak storage yard to the barge after it arrives. Tom Pogson with the Island Trails SPECIAL EVENT Network, which worked on the Kodiak-area debris removal, said that will be the easy part. In other locations, the bags will be airlifted by helicopter to the barge, which Pallister expects will be “pretty maxxed out” when the barge, roughly the size of a football ¿eld, is ful- ly loaded. Debris will be sorted for re- cycling in Seattle, with the re- maining debris taken by train for disposal in Oregon, according to the state Department of Envi- ronmental Conservation. Gu ess w hat d ay it is! It’s Hump’s Day!!! AT HUMP’S RESTAURANT EV ERY W ED N ESD AY 5 -8 PM 14 OUN CE N EW Y ORK STEAK & BAK ED POTATO M ust present coupon to server. N ot va lid w ith other offers. Z All You Can Eat Chicken & Dumplings $6.95 Every Thursday 5-8 pm No reservations, please $9.95 Video Just 15 m in. from the Lew is & Cla rk Bridge on H w y. 30 Hump’s Restaurant 50 W. Columbia River Highway Clatskanie, OR. 503.728.2626 a t Fort Stevens Sta te Pa rk H istoric Site Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Jeff Hale, Contractor Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation/AP Debris litters the shore on Montague Island, Alaska. WORLD WAR II & 1940 ’ s Days W A NTED ll Ca ime yt n A of the barge project at up to $1.3 million, with the state contrib- uting $900,000 from its share of the $5 million that Japan provided for parts of the U.S. affected by tsunami debris. Many of the project sites are remote and rugged. Crews working at sites like Kayak and Montague islands in Prince William Sound, for example, get there by boat and sleep onboard. The need to keep moving down the shoreline as cleanup progresses, combined with terrain littered with boul- ders and logs, makes it tough to set up a camp, Pallister said. There’s also the issue of bears. Alaska has more coast- line than any other state. And Alaska cleanup operations often are expensive and dan- gerous, said Nikolai Maxi- menko, a senior researcher at the Hawaii-based International Paci¿c Research Center. “Even without the tsunami, Alaska is well-known for being polluted with all these buoys and other stuff from ¿sheries activity and from other human activities,” he said. It can be hard to de¿nitively distinguish tsunami debris from the run-of-the-mill rubbish that has long fouled shorelines un- less there are identi¿able mark- ings. But Pallister and others say the type and volume of de- bris that has washed up in Alas- LICENSED BONDED INSURED CCB#179131 W EEK EN D O F JULY 1 8 TH & 1 9 TH Sa turd a y 10a m -4 p m | Sun d a y 10a m -2p m • In vitin g E VE RY O N E to pa rticipa te in 1930’s-1940’s h om e-fron t or civilia n dress • Idea s for h om e-fron t costum es: Civil defen se, loca l police or sh eriff officers, fire w a rden s, en em y a ircra ft spotters, Rosy th e Riveter, etc. N O W E APO N S PL E ASE ! • Add to th e a uth en ticity of th e W orld W a r II livin g- h istory m ilita ry groups th a t w ill be presen t. • Civilia n a n d h om e-fron t pa rticipa n ts m a y represen t n a tion s, such a s th e U n ited Sta tes, Grea t B rita in , F ra n ce a n d Russia . • P a rticipa n ts a re even en coura ged to brin g out a n old-fa sh ion ed picn ic lun ch ! 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