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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2015)
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2015 Visit the garden ello fellow Astorians: In case you missed my gar- den tour last Sunday, July 12, you will have another chance this Sunday, July 19, at 656 11th St. I was so disappointed in the turnout, I called “Home and Garden” to see if they would cover it. Maybe. It is really a unique gar- den — kind of like an English garden. So this Sunday, bring your smiles and cameras for another chance. Beverages and snacks will be provided. See you there. T o the people of Clatsop County: We were appalled to witness the num- ber of people repeatedly released early from the county jail due to overcrowd- LQJ:HIHHOMXVWL¿HGWRVSHDNWRWKLVLV- VXH¿UVWKDQGDVRXUQDPHVZHUHGUDZQ randomly and we were instructed that it was our turn to do our civic duty for two months and serve on the Clatsop County Grand Jury. Most of us were strangers, but a few of us were acquainted through our var- ious levels of community involvement, where we lived, or by name. The grand jury convenes in secret, meets biweek- ly and hears evidence provided by the prosecutors from the district attorney’s RI¿FH DERXW SHRSOH ZKR KDYH EHHQ DU- rested for theft, burglary, sex abuse, as- sault, and drug crimes (to name a few). We were instructed that it was our charge to determine, as required by the law in the state of Oregon, if there was enough substantial evidence presented against an alleged defendant(s) to war- rant a felony charge. Each session we heard in-person tes- WLPRQ\IURPSROLFHRI¿FHUVIURPDURXQG the county, and we also heard testimo- ny from witnesses and victims of the alleged crimes. The district attorney’s prosecuting team did a remarkable job HGXFDWLQJXVRQWKHYDULRXVGH¿QLWLRQV and degrees of charges. The number of cases presented to us each day was from three to eight and we received, from many individual police RI¿FHUV DQ LQGHSWK HGXFDWLRQ RQ GLI- ferent drugs, associated paraphernalia and how drugs are ingested. We learned that heroin and meth are now the two most commonly used drugs being used together by addicts in Clatsop County; get high (meth) and then come down (heroin). During our service, we like most grand juries, were taken on a tour of the jail to familiarize us in case testimony came up concerning a case before us. We all agreed that Clatsop County is fortunate to have jail staff who appeared to care about people, and seemed to work hard to treat everyone fairly. In addition, it quickly became appar- BOB BOHNKE Astoria A wonderful play A Straw is a hazard I t’s amazing that a trans- plant from Southern Cali- fornia would not realize what a hazard nine tons of straw sitting unguarded on a slope is (“Woman, city still at odds over straw,” The Daily Astori- an, July 7). Jean Reitman is undoubt- edly a nice person, but obvi- ously utterly ignorant where ¿UHLVFRQFHUQHG'RHVQ¶WVKH read the papers or watch the news? Isn’t she aware of the Eugene Civic Stadium that ZHQW XS LQ ÀDPHV UHFHQWO\ caused by four young boys with time on their hands and a lighter in them? Or that this was a very dry winter? And this is only early July. August, September, and no doubt October, are waiting WRDGGWKHLUFRQÀDJUDWLRQV Of course, she probably hasn’t heard what happened to Bandon — which was prac- tically obliterated in 1936 because of beautiful golden gorse brought to this country for landscaping purposes by Lord Bennett from Ireland. Or that my own father’s UDQFK EUXVK ¿UH DOPRVW JRW the town of Myrtle Point the same year Bandon burned. If it hadn’t been for every able-bodied man turning out WR¿JKWWKDW¿UH0\UWOH3RLQW would have been toast. 'DGZDVPRUWL¿HGWRWKLQN he might have been the cause of burning down the town. I well remember the heavy smoke in the halls of the el- ementary school, and every other building, as well. Actually, Astoria’s Fire Chief Ted Ames’ offer to keep her straw bales safe and return them in reasonable numbers sounds like a very kind and caring sort of attitude, and Reitman’s comment that re- moving her property “doesn’t make sense” —under the circumstances — makes no 5A Larger jail needed for ‘criminal addicts’ H side from the breath- taking natural beauty of this special place, there is an abundance of local talent ex- pressed through art, music and literature. The Peninsula Association of Performing Artists (PAPA) is a small com- munity theater troupe putting on professional caliber, fam- ily-friendly musicals every summer. We attended opening night of their new production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” recently. The former ordnance de- pot at Fort Columbia, Wash., is transformed into a magical place where, indeed, a pump- kin can become a golden car- ULDJH$ÀLFNRIWKHIDLU\JRG- mother’s wand (and a little help from a clever costumer) turns a plain dress into a ball gown and Cinderella into a princess. The “wicked” step- mother and sisters are delight- fully goofy, even as they’re bossing around our poor her- oine. My favorite line is spoken by the prince when he hits the town incognito, and acciden- tally bumps into Cinderella: “Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and re- spect.” So true. Come and lift your spirits with this classic tale, where love makes the impossible possible. If you have any lit- tle girls in your life — bring them along. They may even get their own invitation to the prince’s ball. Don’t let the clock strike midnight without catching this charming production, playing Friday and Saturday nights at 7 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Aug. 10. Information and tickets are at www.papatheater.com MARK SCARBOROUGH Long Beach, Wash. FRIDAY EXCHANGE sense whatever. Let’s hope she comes to her senses soon. PAT GUERIN Astoria Review is pointless I n the July 9 edition of The Daily Astorian, Sen. Ron Wyden said that Peter Han- sen, the Oregon LNG spokes- person, had overstepped re- ality when he said that local land use reviews of LNG were meaningless (“Where does Sen. Wyden stand on Oregon LNG?”). Wyden stated that in Or- egon, LNG reviews should be conducted to achieve projects that can meet both local and national needs. In reality, as has been pointed out by numerous experts, the proposed Warrenton site is not environmentally suitable for an LNG facility because it is deeply embedded in the tsunami inundation zone and will simply be destroyed by an event that undoubtedly will occur. Oregon has no natural gas and 95 percent of its modern (non-coal) electrical gener- ation facilities require natu- ral gas. In the next 40 to 50 years, with better technology, electrical generation may not require natural gas, but for the next few decades Oregon will need to import increas- ing amounts of natural gas. Oregon’s natural gas util- ities are using customer dol- lars to develop fracked natu- ral gas in the Rockies, which must be shipped by new pipe- lines, since existing pipelines are at capacity. Clatsop Or- egonians hate pipelines, and most hate fracked gas, so they elect representatives who will take any steps necessary to reject these types of projects. Clatsop representatives have no interest in developing in- formed opinions or improving projects; they must kill proj- ects or they will be tarred and feathered by Clatsop voters. While politicians like Wyden can strive for a ratio- nal approach, anyone who is half awake in Clatsop County could assure him that land use reviews of energy projects in Clatsop County will continue to be totally devoid of a ra- tional approach by informed local decision makers. Hansen is clearly off base in his statement, because local land use reviews do matter to state and federal decision makers. It is also true that Clatsop County LNG land use review has been made dys- Daily Astorian File Corrections officers Daniel Thompson and Cory Ortega monitor the camer- as throughout the Clatsop County Jail. ent that most theft/burglary charges are linked to drug addiction, whereby sto- len goods are used to buy/trade/barter for much needed drugs. All seven of us were shocked at the rate of crime/drug abuse problem in Clatsop County. During our two-month service, only one case that came before us was from people vacationing — the rest were lo- cal residents of Clatsop County. Even- tually we came to the collective reali- zation that these offenders are released from jail because of overcrowding, and go right back out to rob from innocent people/businesses so they can get drugs, return to jail to be released and rob again. Our collective opinion was that “criminal addicts” have learned the in- carceration system in this county and many use the jail as a place to get a meal, shower, and a bed to rest up, to go back out and violate innocent people over and over again. If a person is arrested for a crime and found to have drugs in their possession it takes about six months for the lab results to be returned so many of the cases presented to us had occurred six or more months prior. However, in a two-month period, we saw the same names repeatedly, and a number of names came in front of us as many as four times for robbery/drug charges. As reported recently in The Daily Astorian, Clatsop County had 432 functional. While local review may not be legally “meaning- less,” the process being used makes the result “meaning- less.” JOHN DUNZER Seaside Keep Seaside clean I will start this letter to let people know I love my small town of Seaside. We moved here from the valley two years ago, and we do not regret the decision. What is bothering me is the litter that happens in this town. Cigarette butts every- where — dog doo on side- walks, and garbage on the beach. I am not going to blame the tourists for all of it. This happens in the winter months, too. I will see my neighbors throw their cig- arette butts down and their dogs poop in front of my house. I don’t know what to do to help this situation but I hope that some people will read this and do their part to help keep this wonderful town clean. Thank you for reading this. Let’s all strive to keep Seaside clean. LISA LAWSON Seaside felony indictments in 2014, compared to 239 in Columbia County, and 198 in Tillamook County (“Clatsop County had 432 felony indictments,” June 17). The cost of detaining, processing, housing, and caring for these repeat of- fenders by law enforcement agencies, WKH MDLO WKH GLVWULFW DWWRUQH\¶V RI¿FH insurance companies and the feeling of safety for innocent victims must be enormous. Our experience, of serving as grand jurors, has been extremely eye opening and we felt that it was important to raise community awareness about the severity of the problem in an effort to keep Clat- sop County a safe place to live, work, and play. We believe there is a need for in- creased jail space here in our area. No one asked for or prompted us to write this letter. We are a cross repre- sentation of the community, from many different life experiences and of varied ages. Please remember, as you read this letter that we cannot and will not talk DERXWVSHFL¿FFDVHVDQGWKDWZHKHDUG reports about criminal activities in our community that would, we believe, shock you too. Because we collectively agreed to felony charges on many, many addict- ed people, we asked the editor of the newspaper to forgo the need to print our names and/or date of service. A PAST GRAND JURY privilege it is to sing under her. Run, don’t walk to the nearest ticket outlet (Okie’s Thriftway in Ocean Park, Wash., or www.papatheater. com) to get your tickets. I as- sure you, you will be enchant- ed beyond belief. ROCKY KEEL Long Beach, Wash. Fireworks are on! T he Astoria Regatta Fes- tival Fireworks are on, thanks to the generosity of many businesses and individ- uals in the community. The $5,000 needed was raised. The Astoria Regatta Association would like to thank everyone who con- tributed. Key contributors include Astoria Downtown Historic District Associ- ation member businesses Arc Arcade, Baked Alas- ka, Frite and Scoop, Old Town Framing, Purple Cow Toys, Vintage Hardware and Whole Brain Creative. Other key contributor busi- nesses include City Lumber of Astoria, Kennell Elec- tronics of Seaside, and Pier 39 of Astoria. Individuals to be thanked at this level include John and MJ En- glund, Jim Carruthers and Mitch Mitchum, plus others who contributed. The outpouring of sup- port was inspiring, and our entire region can enjoy the Astoria Regatta Festival fireworks with family and friends on Saturday, Aug. 8, at dusk, from the East End Mooring Basin in As- toria. The Astoria Regatta Fes- tival will be held from Aug. 5-9, with the theme “Rock- in’ on the River.” For more information, look for post- ers and information cards throughout Clatsop Coun- ty chambers of commerce and businesses, go to the official Regatta website at www.astoriaregatta.com, or go to the Regatta Facebook page at “Astoria Regatta” for photos and updated in- formation, and “like” the page. Email any questions to astoriaregattaassociation@ gmail.com KEVIN LEAHY Co-president, 2015 Astoria Regatta Festival Astoria Don’t block river L et me yell loud and clear: Have a city- wide vote on blocking any more of our river. Look what happened to Hawaii’s beaches. A 40-foot-wide slot between buildings is poor. Keep this up, and goodbye to tourists’ money and quality of life here. Maybe our future view of the Columbia will be from the Astoria Column only. DICK DARBY Astoria Enchanting show T he Peninsula Association of Performing Artists (PAPA) has done it again. My wife and I had the distinct pleasure of attending a Sun- day Matinee of “Cinderella” at Fort Columbia Theater in Washington. This group of local actors and actresses brought this enchanted tale to life — the entire cast, everyone from the fairy godmother (Jane Schussman) to the two step- sisters (Grace Scarborough and Zoey Powers — what a hoot) to Cinderella herself (Hope Bellinger), did an out- standing job. Shows like this are not easy to pull off, and the leadership, cast and crew from PAPA did so with style. We are so fortu- nate to have such a profession- al group on the Peninsula to bring us such well presented theater. Cindy Flood and the whole PAPA organization deserve kudos for a job well done. As always, Barba- ra Poulshock is a Peninsula WUHDVXUH DQG VKH FRQ¿UPV LW once again — I know what a Our people make The Planetree Difference Congratulations Spirit of Caring Award Winner Macaroni & Laura Lattig! The Spirit of Caring Awards honor individuals who personalize, humanize and demystify the healthcare experience. “Seeing Mac is always sure to put a smile on everyone’s face... Mac and Laura are as sweet as they come.” – Award nomination for Macaroni Lattig &YDIBOHF4U"TUPSJB0SFHPOt XXXDPMVNCJBNFNPSJBMPSHt"1MBOFUSFF%FTJHOBUFE)PTQJUBM