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-
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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
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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-
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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
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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
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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
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read the papers or watch the
news? Isn’t she aware of the
Eugene Civic Stadium that
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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
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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
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the town of Myrtle Point the
same year Bandon burned.
If it hadn’t been for every
able-bodied man turning out
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would have been toast.
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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-
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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