Seaweed, we love
you like bacon
Fishermen split
last home stand
NORTH COAST • 3A
SPORTS • 7A
143rd YEAR, No. 14
MONDAY, JULY 20, 2015
ONE DOLLAR
Ferries a
colorful
slice of
Astoria’s
history
Tribute to the
Columbia River
features past,
present, future
By McKINLEY SMITH
The Daily Astorian
City of Portland
Parklets in Portland can help make streets feel more vital and vibrant and draw more business activity.
Parklets, a seat along the street
Astoria might allow 2 tiny parks during a two-year pilot
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
A
trendy slice of urban street
design could be coming to
Astoria.
Cities such as Portland, Seattle
and San Francisco have embraced
parklets, tiny curbside sanctuar-
ies where people can eat, drink or
relax. The parklets are often part-
nerships with coffeehouses, restau-
rants or retail shops that want to
give customers comfortable places
to linger outside.
Dulcye Taylor, the owner of
Old Town Framing Co. and the
president of the Astoria Down-
town Historic District Associa-
tion, pitched the idea to have par-
klets in Astoria after seeing one in
Portland.
Taylor said potential spots could
be old or underused loading zones
downtown. “Why not take those
and make some kind of street pub-
lic space — to just make it cooler?”
she said.
Pilot project
The City Council Monday night
will consider a pilot program that
would allow two parklets over the
next two years. The parklets would
essentially be sidewalk extensions
or decks on the street near busi-
nesses — about the size of a park-
ing space — with landscaping and
seating.
The parklets would be on the
interior of side streets, like 11th
Street, not corners or on thor-
oughfares such as Marine Drive or
Commercial, Duane or Exchange
streets.
The mini-parks would have to
be open to the public all day.
Property owners who want to
experiment with a parklet would
have to seek feedback from near-
Joe Leahy can remember standing
in the out¿eld and looking out over
the Columbia River at the ships. As
a child growing up in Astoria, that
was about the extent of his maritime
involvement. While his friends got
jobs on the river, he worked other
jobs, like retail.
It was only later that Leahy
sought a maritime connection with
his hometown. He did historical re-
search delving into the past of the
Astoria ferry business.
That past is colored by engineer-
ing mistakes, military commandeer-
ing and rivalries, all of it carried out
on the backdrop of one of the might-
iest rivers in the world.
See FERRIES, Page 10A
River pilot
plies the
dangerous
Columbia
Eric Risberg/AP Photo
In this 2010 photo, Josie Mattson of San Francisco, left, enjoys the sunshine while sitting at the Di-
visadero Parklet in San Francisco.
by businesses and come before the
City Council for approval.
“Frankly, we as a city have
some bigger fish to fry — sup-
porting job creation plus hous-
ing Astorians can afford — but
I respect the downtown associ-
ation and its desire to pilot this
program,” City Councilor Zetty
Nemlowill, the marketing direc-
tor for the Astoria Co-op Grocery
and former operator of Coffee
Girl, said in a text.
Creative designs
In Portland, the city’s Street
Seats program grew out of a pilot
project in 2012 and now has 15 in-
stallations. Most of the parklets are
private and reserved for customers
of partnering businesses, but three
are public, including one designed
by Portland State University ar-
chitecture students that opened on
Fourth Avenue near downtown in
June.
To spark creativity, the city has
invited architects and designers to
compete to design parklets.
“One of the goals of the pro-
gram is to make streets feel more
vital, more vibrant, to draw more
business activity to them,” said Ga-
briel Graff, the active transporta-
tion operations and safety manager
at the Portland Bureau of Transpor-
tation. “With that, we wanted to
sort of raise the bar and make the
From Astoria
to Portland and
back, pilots are
vital for safety
platforms themselves look more
interesting and engaging.”
By McKINLEY SMITH
The Daily Astorian
Loss of parking
Attendees of Clatsop Community
College’s “A Tribute to the Colum-
bia River” got a snapshot of the life
of a Columbia River pilot.
Saturday morning, Mark Paulson
spoke about what it is like to be a riv-
er pilot on the Columbia.
“I don’t work for the ship own-
er. I don’t work for anybody, I work
for you,” Paulson told the audience
during his presentation. “My only
obligation is safety.”
As a river pilot, Paulson boards
ships traveling up and down the
Columbia from Astoria to Portland,
Like in other cities, the parklets
in Portland have mostly been greet-
ed as cool urban additions but also
criticized by some for soaking up
parking spaces. The city has an
agreement with the Downtown Re-
tail Council not to allow parklets in
the downtown core.
Permits for the parklets must
be renewed each year, and the city
requires documentation of contin-
ued neighborhood support, a check
against abuses.
See PARKLETS, Page 10A
See PILOT, Page 10A
Interns bring culture to local national park
Outreach brings
in children of
migrant workers
T
wo interns at Lewis and
Clark National Historical
Park are spearheading various
educational and cultural pro-
grams that have never been
done before at the park.
Nancy Fernandez and Sal-
vador Ornelas, both Hispanic
and bilingual, have worked on
several community outreach
projects, including recruiting
children of migrant workers to
summer camps and leading bi-
lingual kayak tours and hikes.
Fernandez is an intern
through the Student Conser-
vation Association, which
places 100 interns each year
in national parks across the
country.
Ornelas is a Latino heri-
tage intern through the En-
vironment for the Americas,
which places 20 interns in na-
tional parks.
Scott Tucker, Lewis and
Clark National Historical Park
superintendent, said he had to
submit two applications to the
National Park Service of¿ces
sponsoring the two intern-
ships. Both applications fo-
cused on Hispanic outreach,
bilingual program creation
and health and wellness.
With more than 400 na-
tional parks in the United
States, Tucker said, it was a
competitive process to secure
the two interns.
“So far this summer, I am
beyond happy,” Tucker said.
“The experience, creativity
and passion these two interns
have brought to the NPS fami-
ly will be felt for years here in
the park and the community.”
Representation
of diversity
Fernandez has been busy
translating Àiers and other
information for the Span-
ish-speaking community in
See INTERNS, Page 10A
Salvador
Ornelas
and Nancy
Fernandez
are interns
at Lewis
and Clark
National
Historical
Park.
Kyle Spurr
The Daily
Astorian