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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 2015)
143rd YEAR, No. 68 ONE DOLLAR FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2015 • WEEKEND EDITION ‘WE BEGAN TO RUN’ Students describe horror in college shooting in Roseburg, where nine were killed some students with multiple gun- shots. One witness said the attacker demanded to know students’ religion before shooting them. Students in a classroom next door ROSEBURG — Armed with multiple guns, a 26-year-old man heard several shots, one right after walked into a morning writing class the next, and their teacher told them at a community college in this rural to leave. “We began to run,” student Han- 2UHJRQWRZQDQGRSHQHG¿UHKLWWLQJ By JEFF BARNARD and GOSIA WOZNIACKA Associated Press nah Miles said. “A lot of my class- mates were going every which way. We started to run to the center of cam- pus. And I turned around, and I saw students pouring out of the building.” At least nine people were killed and 9 others wounded Thursday, the fourth day of classes at Umpqua Community College in this former timber town 180 miles south of Port- land. The worst mass shooting in recent Oregon history was raising questions about security at the col- lege with about 3,000 students. “I suspect this is going to start a discussion across the country about how community colleges prepare themselves for events like this,” former college president Joe Olson said. Gerald Hamilton, interim presi- dent of Clatsop Community College, said the college will review its se- curity plan starting with a forum at noon today. See SHOOTING, Page 8A High times North Coast experiences heady ¿UVWGD\RIOHJDO recreational pot sales FLY, BE FREE! By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian After a divorce, the death of her father and hip replacement, Fee sold her house in Portland, left her job and moved to Olney, where she had purchased a home and 105 DFUHV WR VSHFL¿FDOO\ KHOS ZLOGOLIH but focus on seabirds, which she said are challenging to rehabilitate and release. Without stress or secrecy, Tom and Charlotte Gniazdowski entered The Farmacy, a medical marijuana dispensary in Astoria, Thursday and purchased four strains of pot. Be- cause they wanted to. Because they could. And because they legally could buy pot purely for recreational use in Oregon. “I never thought this day would dawn,” said Charlotte Gniazdowski, who lives just outside Astoria with her husband. The Gniazdowskis, who have smoked pot since the 1960s, felt they were witnessing and sharing in one of their state’s historic moments: Under state law, Oregon’s medical marijuana dispensaries may now sell up to a quarter ounce of dried mari- MXDQDOHDYHVDQGÀRZHUVWRDGXOWV and older who don’t possess medical marijuana cards. Now in their 70s, the Gniazdows- kis won’t miss the days when they had to worry about getting caught with the drug or, worse, accidental- ly getting their friends in trouble for selling it to them. ³,¶P UHDOO\ JODG WKLV KDV ¿QDOO\ happened,” she said. “I hate being treated like a criminal for just smok- ing pot.” The Farmacy, one of three regis- tered dispensaries in Astoria, opened at midnight, and “it was a stampede for about an hour and a half,” said Omar Guerrero, who owns the busi- ness with Nick Palazzo. When they reopened at 9 a.m., they faced “an- other stampede,” Palazzo said. The Gniazdowskis strolled in during an afternoon lull and left with small amounts of Maui Wowie, Buddha Tahoe, Raspberry Kush and Blue Dynamite. Tom Gniazdowski, an occasional user, said “it’s fun to get a little bit high and go out for a walk, or what- ever, in the woods.” And, after hit- ting the Maui Wowie that afternoon, the couple hit the hiking trails near Lewis & Clark National Historical Park. See WILDLIFE, Page 8A See HIGH TIMES, Page 7A Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian From left: Laurel Berblinger, Karen Beck, and Josh Saranpaa, all with the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, watch as a Western gull is released near the Maritime Memorial Monday. Wildlife center soldiers on after death of founder By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian T he doors on the animal totes at the Maritime Memori- al underneath the Astoria Bridge popped open on a sunny afternoon Monday, but the seagulls were hesitant to leave. Raised since chicks by the Wildlife Center for the North Coast, the gulls had nev- er ventured into the urban wilds. With some light prodding and tipping of the containers, the gulls eventually spilled out onto the lawn underneath the bridge, fol- lowed shortly thereafter by 12 ju- YHQLOHPXUUHVÀRDWLQJRXWLQWRWKH river from the park’s beach and three cormorants, two leisurely ÀRDWLQJ RXW ZKLOH RQH WDNHV ÀLJKW and makes a beeline for the middle of the Columbia River. ,W ZDV WKH ¿UVW ELUG UHOHDVH IRU the wildlife center since founder Sharnelle Fee died two weeks ago, after being hospitalized with a lung infection. 6HHLQJWKRVHELUGVÀ\DZD\LQWR the wild is the end goal for vol- unteers and Josh Saranpaa, who started volunteering with Fee as a teenager, and at age 23, was recent- ly named the center’s new director. “This is the best part of working here,” said Karen Beck, president of the wildlife center’s board or di- rectors, watching the birds slowly readjust to being wild. Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Volunteer Coralie Crayne, left, tries to feed an injured seagull, with the help of Ami Kreider at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast. A refuge in the woods A gravel road cuts off of Or- egon Highway 202 and tunnels nearly a half mile through the dense foliage before opening up RQWKHPRGHVWRI¿FHVRIWKHZLOG- life center. Inside on a recent Friday, Saran- paa helps arrange the pickup of an injured bird from Manzanita. The center uses a sort of pony express system, volunteers taking birds as far north or south toward the center as they can. “We don’t ask people to save birds from other birds,” Saranpaa said. The center focuses on un- natural injuries to birds, he said, although it’s hard to differentiate sometimes between natural and un- natural causes. Cages line the main room in WKHRI¿FHV¿OOHGZLWKWKHFHQWHU¶V patients — mainly seabirds found drenched in oil, hit by cars, entan- JOHG LQ ¿VKLQJ OLQH KDUDVVHG E\ beach walkers, washed up emaciat- ed on the beach or otherwise affect- ed by human causes. %HKLQG WKH RI¿FH LV D PHDGRZ dotted with 16 covered enclosures holding anything from seagulls to a kestrel falcon, the smallest falcon in North America. Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Volunteers at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast have to care- fully handle and feed injured birds like this western grebe, which has stitches on its stom- ach and back. Vandals spill paint on Astoria Column $1 million restoration was almost complete By DERRICK DePLEDGE The Daily Astorian Vandals broke into the Asto- ria Column and knocked over white primer that spilled on the top portion of the landmark, causing damage just days before a $1 million restoration project was expected to be completed. The restoration crew sus- pects the incident happened late Wednesday or early Thursday. Trespassers would have had to get through a locked fence and climb scaffolding to reach the top of the Column near the ob- servation deck. The primer was in sealed cans. “We were very lucky, is all I can say,” said Marie Laibinis, a Portland conservator leading the restoration project, who was thankful the distinctive murals were not damaged. Small cigar butts were found on the Column grounds. A cold SDFNIURPD¿UVWDLGNLWZDVDOVR discovered. Astoria Police are investi- gating the vandalism and are looking into video from a sur- veillance camera at the Column gift shop. Angela Cosby, the director of the Astoria Parks and Recre- ation Department, estimated the damage at between $1,000 to $5,000. Painting for the restoration Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Spilled paint primer is seen near the top of the Astoria Column Thursday. The primer did not leave a significant impact on the murals, but will need to be scraped off and painted over. was scheduled to be complet- ed by Friday. Scaffolding is expected to come down early next week. Workers on the res- toration crew may have to work extra hours to remove the spilled primer and repaint. The Column, which has been closed over the summer, could reopen to public tours by next weekend. “Thank you to the resto- ration crew for being willing to work additional hours to keep the project on schedule,” Cos- by said. “And to the police de- partment for investigating it so quickly. “I’d also like to ask the com- munity, if they know anything about it, to contact the police department.” The 125-foot-tall Column, erected in 1926 to celebrate the region’s early history, attracts an estimated 400,000 visitors a \HDU7KHODVWVLJQL¿FDQWUHQRYD- tion was in 1995. “I never will understand acts of vandalism,” Mayor Arline LaMear said in a statement. “It seems so crazy to mar or de- stroy something that others have worked so hard to build or re- store.”
