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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 NORTH COAST 3A Dedicated to the birds Wildlife Center of the North Coast honors late founder, Sharnelle Fee The Daily Astorian Sharnelle Fee, a former paralegal who founded the Wildlife Center of the North Coast and dedicated much of her life to helping ani- mals, especially seabirds, passed away Monday. She was 68. The wildlife center an- nounced earlier this week that Josh Saranpaa, Fee’s understudy for nearly eight years and assistant director for the last year and a half, would take over as director. “I spent the last eight years learning from her,” Saranpaa, 23, said of Fee, adding he thought of her like family. For the last five years, Saranpaa said, he’s been the only other licensed animal rehabilitator. Fee trained him as if he was taking over, he said, but the expectation was he’d leave and go to col- lege. But life took a different turn, Saranpaa said, and he’s happy to be doing what he loves at the wildlife center. The center will soon an- nounce a celebration of life for Fee, who is survived by a brother in Dayton. A change of life After spending a quar- ter century as a paralegal at Davis Wright Tremaine in Portland, Fee took a sab- batical in 1991. She started volunteering with the owl rehabilitation program at the Oregon Zoo, which Fee said sparked her interest in wildlife. For the next eight years, Fee balanced her career and volunteer work with the Audubon Society of Port- land, a turtle rehabilitation program in Beaverton and even weekends at the Avi- an Medical Center in Lake Oswego, where she learned surgical skills. Fee eventually became licensed by the state and federal governments to re- habilitate animals out of her home, and applied for non- profit status to start a wild- life center. After a divorce, the death of her father and hip replacement, Fee sold her house in Portland, left her job and made her way to Olney, where she had pur- chased 105 acres. Coming to the coast In a 2008 interview, Fee said she moved to the North Coast to help seabirds. “They’re challenging because most of them live way out in the ocean,” she said. “If they’re in on land, they’re not only out of their element, but they’re in bad shape and so it’s difficult to get them back into condi- tion, treating their wounds.” Her pet project at the wildlife center has grown to handle between 2,000 and 3,000 animals a year, Daily Astorian/File Photo Sharnelle Fee, longtime director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, died this week. mostly birds. Saranpaa said the center has more than 100 murres, a penguin-like bird of the cooler northern oceans found all along the West Coast, that have been washing up on beaches. The wildlife center’s specula- tion is that the murres are having a harder time finding food in warm ocean tem- peratures. The center has more room for birds, he said, but they are asking people to bring the birds to the center, which is short on staff and volunteers. The center receives no direct government funding, other than a small grant it applies for from Cannon Beach. It depends largely on donations and volunteers, with only Saranpaa and an- other part-time staffer. Flat minimum wage invigorates Oregon students shaky on Common Core, but exceed low expectations drive for economic security Pressure for wage Àoor hike expected to increase in Oregon By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Bureau SALEM — Oregon’s minimum wage won’t rise in 2016, which is expected to save money for farms and other businesses but also invigorate advocates of a higher rate. Due to stagnant inflation, as measured by the federal consumer price index for ur- ban areas, the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries will keep the minimum wage at $9.25 per hour next year. Both supporters and op- ponents of a higher wage floor believe the flat rate will be used as an argument in favor of a substantial in- crease. “It’s a mixed blessing, politically,” said Jenny Dresler, state public poli- cy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau. While it should be good news for low-income work- ers that prices aren’t rising sharply, the unchanged min- imum wage will likely spur political action, said Steve Buckstein, senior policy an- alyst for the Cascade Policy Institute, a free market think tank. “It probably will in- crease pressure in the Leg- islature, or through a ballot initiative, to raise the min- imum wage next year,” he said. “Both efforts will be bolstered politically by the fact the minimum wage is staying flat.” Some want $15 an hour Proponents say the un- changed rate is based on a nationwide measurement of inflation and doesn’t reflect unique factors, such as in- creased housing costs, seen in Portland and elsewhere in Oregon. “To bring people out of poverty, we need at least $15 and in places like Port- land, more than that,” said Jamie Patridge, chief peti- tioner for a 2016 ballot ini- tiative to raise the minimum wage. Patridge said he was dis- appointed by the flat rate but acknowledged that it will likely convince peo- ple that the current infla- tion-based system is inade- quate and persuade them to take action at the ballot box. “It’s probably positive for our campaign but nega- tive for low-wage workers,” he said. “Workers should not be living in poverty. Ev- ery worker should be paid a living wage.” The Oregon Center for Public Policy, a nonprof- it that supports increasing the minimum wage, said the rate would be $19 per hour if it had tracked work- er productivity for the past half-century. “We’re seeing growing support for some action,” said Tyler Mac Innis, a poli- cy analyst for the center. Economic security To achieve economic security in Oregon, a sin- gle adult with a child needs to earn roughly $45,000- $51,000 per year, depending on the region, according to the group. With the current minimum wage, a worker earns $19,240 per year. “It’s certainly not good news that it’s staying flat. It highlights the fact mini- mum wage workers need a significant increase in the minimum wage,” said Mac Innis. Dresler, of the Oregon Farm Bureau, counters that farmers in the state compete against others in the U.S. and internationally, so a higher minimum wage puts them at a disadvantage. Oregon already has the second highest minimum wage in the nation behind Washington state, she said. “That keeps us less com- petitive than it does our neighbors” in the Midwest and South, Dresler said. Farms in Oregon are cur- rently highly diverse, but a major hike in the minimum wage would likely convince growers to transition to crops that are less labor in- tensive. “That would be one of the reactions to that sort of increase,” she said. Other types of companies will have to raise prices, lay off workers or reduce ben- efits to cope with a higher minimum wage — or they’ll simply go out of business, said Buckstein of the Cas- cade Policy Institute. “There are always unin- tended consequences,” he said. “There’s no magic pot of money that businesses have to pay more wages.” The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. Associated Press PORTLAND — State education of¿cials warned that Smarter Balanced exams would be more dif¿cult, and they were right. The new tests, taken by nearly 300,000 Oregon stu- dents this spring, were de- signed to show how well schools helped students meet the rigorous Common Core standards for reading, writing and math. Based on a trial run at some schools last year, of¿- cials projected 30 to 40 per- cent of students would pass. Scores released Thursday show students performed a bit better than that, with 54 percent meeting the standards for English and 40 percent meeting the standards for math. “I am encouraged that our students exceeded initial projections,” Oregon schools chief Salam Noor said in a statement. The new standards are meant to reÀect college and career readiness. Fewer stu- dents met the standards on Smarter Balanced compared to the old test, but that’s the point. These are tougher stan- dards and students are being asked to master concepts ear- lier. Beyond ¿ll-in-the-bubble questions, Smarter Balanced requires students to provide rationales and do multi-step analyses in addition to getting the answers right. In English, the primary focus is having students read challenging passages and articles, then construct arguments about the material. The scores revealed a di- vide in Oregon schools, even if they’re allotted similar dol- lars per student. Research has shown that family income and parent education levels have a large effect on student achievement. Schools that serve low-income students must deliver more in- struction to get similar results as schools in afÀuent areas. Schools that draw students from wealthy neighborhoods in Beaverton, Lake Oswe- go and Portland’s west side performed very well, The Oregonian reported. At oth- er schools, barely 10 percent of students have the writing and math skills that experts say are essential. Examples include the lone school on the Warm Springs reservation and many elementary schools in poor neighborhoods of Sa- lem and east Portland. But some schools bucked the trend. Clackamas High, for ex- ample, equipped more than 80 percent of its low-income juniors to read and write at a college-ready level. And a pair of Ashland elementa- ry schools got 75 percent of their low-income students pro¿cient in reading and writ- ing, twice the state average for low-income elementary pupils. More than 90 percent of Oregon students took the ex- ams despite parental concerns that schools overemphasize testing. State of¿cials have warned that schools risk los- ing $344 million in federal money if too many parents have their kids opt-out. Salamanders may qualify for protection Associated Press PORTLAND — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says two salamanders in Or- egon and Washington state may qualify for Endangered Species Act protection. The ¿ndings on Tuesday about the Cascade torrent sal- amander and Columbia tor- rent salamander mean the agency will initiate full sta- tus reviews for the species to see if they warrant protection. The ¿ndings come in re- sponse to a petition by the Center for Biological Diver- sity. The Center ¿rst asked for protection for the sala- manders in 2012. The peti- tion said they are increas- ingly rare because of habitat loss due primarily to logging and road building. The four-inch brown salamanders live in forest streams and are found only in a small stretch of the Cas- cades and Coast range. Biologists say their health is an indicator of the overall health of streams. A nnual B luegrass C arnival F undraiser S ATUR D AY • S EP T . 19 • 11 AM - 3 P M TH W A NTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber 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 Lighthouse Christian Church A Lighthouse of Hope 88786 Dellmoor Loop Warrenton, OR • 503.738.5182 www.LighthouseChristianChurchOregon.com FOOD • B B Q • LIVE M US IC • D UNK TANK S LID ES • OB S TACLE COURS ES • B OUNCERS P RIZES • GAM ES • B INGO • B AK E S ALE B ring the F am ily! Portion of the proceeds w ill benef it S HS Robotics Olney Grange BEEF B AR-B-QUE Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015 • 12:30 - 5:00 p.m. Adults $ 1 2 00 • Children under 11 $ 7 00 Meat at the pit $ 8.50 /lb. 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