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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2016)
10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2016 Plants: The park is asking people to watch 10 plant species Continued from Page 1A monitors, Fernandez showed how the start of spring has been coming earlier across the country than in centuries before. “All of this is problemat- ic because it’s causing mis- matches between pollinators, plants, insects,” she said. Lewis and Clark Nation- al Historical Park has part- nered with San Juan Island National Historical Park to study the impacts of climate change. At San Juan Island, Fer- nandez and others are study- ing the endangered island marble butterÀy. 2nly about of the butterÀies are left on the island. Researchers are ¿nding that when the butter- Ày larYa comes out of its egg, it is expecting to eat a certain Àower. HoweYer, the Àower is blooming earlier than be- fore, making it dif¿cult for the butterÀies to eat. “How many are we losing that could potentially sur- YiYe"” Fernandez said. Project Budburst Lewis and Clark Nation- al Historical Park is inYiting the public to help monitor and report plant actiYity at the park and around Clat- sop County. Data collected will help the park learn how plants are responding to changes in the enYironment. Specifically, the park is asking people to keep watch on 10 plant species. The spe- cies include red alder, 2re- gon crabapple, Sitka spruce, edible thistle, salal, eYer- green huckleberry, salmon- berry, wapato, Pacific silYer- weed and skunk cabbage. Carla Cole, natural re- source program manager at the park, said the 10 plants are culturally and naturally significant to the park. Lew- is and Clark described and journaled about the same plants two centuries ago. Tracking plants at the park is part of a national effort called Project Bud- Burst. The project encourag- es people to get outside and obserYe how plants change with the seasons. 2bserYa- tions can be shared online at www.budburst.org, where the data will become a part of an ecological record. “Project Budburst is a wonderful way to carry on the tradition of scientific obserYation and discoYery handed down to us by Amer- ica’s first great naturalists, Lewis and Clark,” Cole said. “It is exciting that we will be obserYing the same plants they recorded for the first time here oYer 00 years ago in their elkskin journals, but we will be using smart- phones and the Internet.” Bioblitz 2016 Later this spring, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park plans to, again, call on citizen scientists for BioBlitz 01, a national eYent where Yolunteers at Yarious national parks work together to iden- tify as many species of plants and animals as possible. 2Yer two days on 0ay 0 and 0ay 1, local Yol- unteers and students will go out around Netul Landing and identify eYery liYing thing they come across, with a focus on pollinators such as birds, bats, insects and plants. Lewis and Clark Na- tional Historical Park preYi- ously hosted a BioBlitz eYent in 01 out in the Clatsop Plains. A Jumbotron will be set up at the National 0all in Washington, D.C., during the two-day BioBlitz to show- case each national park’s findings. What is found in Astoria may be broadcast on the Jumbotron at the nation’s capital. Collecting the data of plants and other species is an initial step in understand- ing the long-term changes to the enYironment. It’s a piece of the puzzle to know how climate change is occurring, Cole said. Another goal of the Proj- ect Budburst and Bioblitz is simply to get people outside and in their national parks. “The mission is to get people outdoors,” Fernandez said. “We want to connect you to a place. It doesn’t matter if it’s a national park or if it’s a park down the street or in your backyard.” Fergus: ‘It’s just kind of fun to be someone I’m not’ Continued from Page 1A Northwest News Network Former commercial fisherman and current Harvard medical student Matthew Tarabochia on vacation in New York City in 2015. He and his brother won a case against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for an illegal traffic stop in 2007. Lawsuit: Department of Fish and Wildlife denies it targeted the Tarabochia family Continued from Page 1A old twins Alex and Bryan. 2utside the truck were seYer- al of¿cers from the state De- partment of Fish and Wild- life. They demanded that the Tarabochias get out of the Ye- hicle. The family refused to budge until the county sheriff or undersheriff showed up. This roadside standoff followed a morning of ¿sh- ing on the Columbia. The Tarabochias had a load of salmon the department want- ed to inspect. The family had led of¿cers on a slow-speed chase before they were ¿nal- ly boxed in. /egal ¿sK illegal stop These of¿cers and the Tarabochias knew each other well. There was a lot of his- tory and bad blood between them. Now, it was coming to a head. The standoff lasted more than 13 minutes. At one point in the Yideo, a Fish and Wildlife captain is seen pulling out a collapsible ba- ton. He said he’d break the window if they didn’t get out. It ended when the under- sheriff arriYed ² someone the Tarabochias trusted. They unlocked the doors to the truck and the of¿cers quickly detained the family. DriYer 0atthew Tarabo- chia and his father, Joe, were jailed for resisting arrest and obstruction. Those charges were later dismissed. The ¿sh the Tarabochias were ‘It is common knowledge amongst commercial fishermen that they’re going to be inspected.’ Steve Crown current chief of The Department of Fish and Wildlife’s law enforcement division transporting that day were all legal. In 010, the Tarabochias ¿led a federal lawsuit chal- lenging the constitutionality of the traf¿c stop. The family argued the Fish and Wildlife of¿cers had no right to pull them oYer to do a ¿sh check without reason to belieYe a crime had been committed. They lost in U.S. District Court, but successfully ap- pealed to the 9th U.S. Cir- cuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. 0atthew Tarabochia said the appellate decision on their Fourth Amendment claim was Yindicating espe- cially after what the family calls a “campaign of harass- ment” by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. “No one belieYes you when you say the police did something unfair to you,” Tarabochia said. “When you say that, people automati- cally assume you that did something wrong and you’re just trying to coYer it up.” µ7Ke\¶re going to be inspected¶ The Department of Fish and Wildlife denies it tar- geted the Tarabochias. SteYe Crown, the current chief of the agency’s law enforce- ment diYision, said regular contact with ¿sh police is part and parcel of being a commercial ¿sherman. “It is common knowledge amongst commercial ¿sher- men that they’re going to be inspected,” Crown said. “There’s high dollars, high stakes. When you’re en- gaged in commercial ¿shing practices you can haYe huge impacts on a particular spe- cies of ¿sh and they know that.” But Crown said as a re- sult of this case, his of¿cers haYe ended a longstanding practice of pulling Yehicles oYer on the road for ¿sh checks. “We’Ye told our of¿cers, ‘Hey, don’t make those kinds of traf¿c stops unless you haYe reasonable suspi- cion to do so,’” Crown said. 2f¿cers can still do those checks on the water and at the landing area. The Tarab- ochias recently settled their lawsuit against the agency for $130,000. In addition to the payment, Fish and Wild- life agreed to acknowledge it Yiolated 0atthew and Alex Tarabochia’s rights ² for technical reasons they were the only family members named in the appeal to the 9th Circuit. µ0\ famil\¶s name is Nind of tarnisKed¶ 0any years haYe passed since that roadside standoff in Wahkiakum County. The Fish and Wildlife captain in the Yideo is now a dep- uty chief. The Tarabochia family is no longer in the ¿shing business. The boys moYed away. Alex Tarab- ochia doesn’t think he’ll come back. “I’m not sure I would go home,” he said. “I feel to some extent like my name and my family’s name is kind of tarnished and sort of like there’s a stigma around it to where I’m not sure that I would eYer haYe kind of an eYen playing ¿eld.” (Yen though he would be coming home as a doctor. Alex Tarabochia is attending medical school at Dartmouth in New Hampshire as a ru- ral health scholar. 0atthew Tarabochia also is in med school ² at HarYard. Alex Tarabochia said he always knew he would go into medicine. But 0atthew Tarabochia said what hap- pened between his family and the authorities on the Columbia RiYer influenced his decision to leaYe the fishing business behind. regular in the North Coast the- ater scene, most recently ap- pearing in “2nce Upon a 0at- tress” at the Coaster Theatre in Cannon Beach, in which her son was in the ensemble. Fergus, 13, has appeared at the Coaster and with the 0issoula Children’s The- ater, making his debut as Lit- tle Jake in “Annie Get Your Gun,” then playing Tiny Tim in “Scrooge, The 0usical” and Chip in “Disney’s Beau- ty and the Beast,” which his mother directed. “I’Ye neYer pushed him to be in a show,” said Lisa Fer- gus. “He chooses whether to be inYolYed and prepares on his own for auditions. “And I try to instill in him the classic, ‘no small parts, only small actors,’ and that the way he acts with his cast and crew is just as important as the performance he giYes on stage.” Fergus recalls his debut with fondness. “When they did ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ my mom asked me if I wanted to be in it. I said 2.,” he said. “I just kind of checked in and figured out a passion. I loYe acting. It’s just kind of fun to be someone I’m not.” He’s eloquent about why he does it, too. “Applause ² that’s reward enough,” he said. “If I got paid, it would be a dream job.” His ability to memorize lines continues to surprise his mother. “He does not haYe to study them ² lines come naturally, Yery early on in the rehearsal process,” she said. “He doesn’t usual- ly write anything down, but simply commits eYerything to memory.” Fergus shrugs off his ability. “It just comes to me. I don’t know how,” he said. “I just remember the line.” “Waiting for Godot,” which spawned the “theater of the absurd” moYement, was famously described by a newspaper critic as a play in which “nothing happens ² twice.” It was written by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and first staged in Paris in 1953 as mainland Europe rebuilt after World War II. The director, .aren Bain, studied the script at the Di- rectors Lab West, an inYi- tational workshop in Los Angeles last spring. For the Astoria production, which opens Friday, she cast famil- iar North Coast actors Wil- liam Ham and Slab Slabinski as the tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, with Bill Honl as a strange Yisitor, Pozzo. Submitted Photo Parker Fergus IF YOU GO Partners for the PAC will stage a new Astoria pro- duction of Samuel Beck- ett’s tragi-comedy “Waiting for Godot” at the Clatsop Community College Per- forming Arts Center at 16th Street and Franklin Avenue in Astoria 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, and 7 p.m. Feb. 5 and 6. Tickets are $15, available at the door. “I was looking for a young boy to play the two boys in the play, who are traditionally played by one actor,” she said. “Parker was recommend- ed to me by seYeral peo- ple,” Bain added, noting the youngster’s experience act- ing at the Coaster Theatre. “From the beginning, Parker was treated as an equal member of the ensem- ble, with the same expecta- tions and respect. His ideas during the exploration of the script were excellent.” When older, Fergus would like to sing the role of JaYert, the Yillain, in “Les 0iserables.” For Christmas, his parents gaYe him “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.” “I am working my way through it,” he said, with a grin, noting that “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet” and “0acbeth” are his faYorites … with his eye on the male lead roles. Bain, the director, is impressed with his talent. “Parker is a young man I would be happy to work with again,” she said. “Waiting for Godot” is funded, in part, by a grant from the 2regon Cultural Trust, distributed through the Clatsop County Cultural Coalition. — Patrick Webb Managing Editor’s note: The writer will appear in the mute role of “Lucky” in the Astoria production of “Wait- ing for Godot.” Balzer: He is asking for more than $55,000 in damages and his reinstatement Continued from Page 1A Balzer, who alleges breach of contract, wrongful dis- charge and defamation, is ask- ing for more than $55,000 in damages and his reinstate- ment as ¿re chief. An attorney representing the ¿re district’s board could not be reached for comment about the lawsuit, which was ¿led in Clatsop County Cir- cuit Court in December. Balzer’s firing has caused an uproar in Cannon Beach. Residents haYe defended the former chief and com- plained about the way Balzer was treated by ¿re district di- rectors, who locked him out of his of¿ce the morning after his dismissal. Garry Smith, a board di- rector, described the ¿ring as “strictly business, not person- al,” and other directors ques- tioned Balzer’s administratiYe skills. Susan Neuwirth, a Cannon Beach resident, has ¿led a re- call petition to remoYe three of the board’s ¿Ye directors Pres- ident Sharon Clyde, Smith and Linda Beck-Sweeney. Jim Stearns, of Hermiston, is serYing as interim ¿re chief. The ¿re district board hopes to hire a new chief by June. According to Balzer’s law- suit, board directors conduct- ed a performance eYaluation in the ¿rst quarter of last year that was Yery critical of Bal- zer’s work. Balzer claimed directors, in particular, chastised him for allowing his wife to criticize board directors on social me- dia and other comments. Balzer said the board set goals for him to accomplish by NoYember that were “impossi- ble to obtain” within that time frame and then “intentionally created a hostile work enYiron- ment” before his ¿ring. Balzer said he has “suf- fered irreparable injury to his business and personal repu- tation, and will haYe serious dif¿culty ¿nding substitute employment, particularly in the small coastal community in which he resides.”
