10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2016
Cemetery: ‘People are angry’
Continued from Page 1A
are angry and are increasingly
rejecting the city’s explana-
tions about budget constraints as
unacceptable.
“It’s appalling. It’s a disgrace.
And it’s embarrassing,” said
Cathie Courtwright, a retired
waitress and housekeeper in
Warrenton who has family bur-
ied at Ocean View and who vis-
ited on Mother’s Day.
Courtwright said there is
an expectation among people
who purchased plots from the
city that the cemetery would be
taken care of forever. “It’s a lie,”
she said. “You lied to all these
people.”
Angela Cosby, the city’s
parks director, said maintenance
crews are mowing at Ocean
View and should have the grass
cut and weeds removed by this
weekend.
But in a candid email to the
Parks and Recreation Board and
other city leaders, Cosby warned
that complaints about the ceme-
tery and other parks will likely
continue without additional staff
and resources.
The city’s maintenance pri-
ority at parks is public safety,
Cosby explained, such as mak-
ing sure equipment and facilities
do not pose dangers to residents.
After public safety, she said,
decisions on where to deploy
crews are based on usage.
Mowing the overgrown
grass at baseball and softball
ields with higher usage has
been identiied as a priority over
Ocean View on the maintenance
list.
The city has also been unable
to ill seasonal maintenance
jobs, which pay $10 to $10.75
an hour, because of market com-
petition given the low unem-
ployment rate. The city now
has 1 1/2 seasonal maintenance
workers on the job, according to
Cosby, compared to six workers
at this time last year.
“Ultimately, a change
needs to be made. We know
it’s not working,” Cosby said
of the maintenance challenge
at Ocean View. “And we rely
on our policymakers to make
those changes and to give us
those directions.”
Cosby empathizes with fam-
ilies who have complained
about the condition of the ceme-
tery, but has no easy answer.
“I’m upset about it, too,” she
said. “Really am. I hate oversee-
ing facilities that we can’t take
proper care of.”
Spending priorities
Budget cuts over the years
stripped Ocean View of dedi-
cated staff. Burial and crema-
tion fees, along with interest
from a fund to provide perpet-
ual care, do not cover expenses,
forcing the city to subsidize the
cemetery.
The Astoria City Coun-
cil elevated improvements at
Ocean View to a city goal and
included about $70,000 for
weed eradication and reseeding
in this year’s budget. The coun-
cil has also raised fees.
But the City Council decided
not to release the extra money
for improvements because of
doubts about whether parks staff
had the ability to maintain the
cemetery.
The city’s budget commit-
tee has recommended using
hotel-room tax money next is-
cal year to pay for the private
mowing and maintenance on the
Astoria Riverwalk, the Smith
Point roundabout and several
other small parks and triangles
downtown.
The hope is that parks staff
will have more time to maintain
traditional parks and, possibly,
Ocean View.
Perpetual care
The cemetery — established
in 1897, and home to more than
16,000 plots — was not ranked
by the public as a high priority
in a new parks master plan. Yet,
unlike other city parks, the city
has a contractual obligation to
plot owners to provide perpet-
ual care.
City Councilor Russ Warr,
like Cosby, has been hearing
from families who are frus-
trated. “It’s not a matter of
money. It’s a matter of priority,”
said Warr, who owns Astoria
Granite Works, which makes
grave markers for the cemetery.
The city’s cemetery rules
and regulations describe perpet-
ual care as cutting the grass at
reasonable intervals, raking and
cleaning, and pruning shrubs
and trees. While the city does
not promise perfection, ceme-
tery grounds are supposed to be
reasonably cared for forever.
“So people are angry.
They’re very angry,” Warr said.
“And they’re angry with real
justiication.”
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Larry Cary has had to change the name of his Astoria distillery twice because of
trademark challenges.
Library: ‘This is a serious issue’ Distiller: Business is doing all
right despite its name changes
Continued from Page 1A
The problem may not be
solved in the upcoming iscal
year, he said in an interview.
“It’s something we need to
take care of and we need to be
focused on,” he said. “I’m not
panicking yet, but I do know
this is a serious issue. At least
on the surface, it looks like it’s
cost-prohibitive to make repairs
to the building for long-term
use.”
A ‘shotgun shack’
The library board has sus-
pected for some time that the
building — the former Ham-
mond Town Hall — may not
be worth spending great sums
of money to ix, according to
Judy Sivley, a library board
member.
Though the board has dis-
cussed adding on to the structure
— which was cobbled together
in the irst half of the 20th cen-
tury — a feasible plan never
came together.
The library is “iconic, and
it’s sweet,” Calog said. “We’re
kind of a community center and
a library and a job-hunting cen-
ter — and a crabby grandma’s
house, let’s not forget that.”
She dislikes the idea of tear-
ing it down, but doesn’t see an
alternative.
“In a perfect world, we could
keep this building as a branch
and have a new building in War-
renton. But it isn’t a perfect
world,” she said.
Currently funded by a ive-
year tax levy that expires in
2017, the library opened in the
1990s and caters to local and
seasonal visitors.
“We really appreciate the
work that (the board) has done
with a very small budget,”
Mayor Mark Kujala said, “and
we know the library is appreci-
ated by both people who live in
Warrenton and others that visit
Fort Stevens throughout the
summer, so we want to make
sure it’s a vital and active asset
to the community.”
Calog knows that the library
needs more room to maintain
current levels of service, let
alone expand. “It’s a shotgun
shack,” she said.
Even if the building wasn’t
deteriorating, it would still be
too narrow and crowded, and
require more parking, she said.
“I love this little building,
and I’d just hate having any-
thing happen to it,” she said.
“But you can feel the loor shak-
ing when 12-year-olds walk by.
It’s just crazy.”
Continued from Page 1A
Cary said he’ll have to
spend another $10,000 to
$15,000 changing the name on
all his products and properties
to Pilot House Distillery, add-
ing that every time he names
his business or products, he
checks trademarks.
“What I’ve learned is even
if you do everything right and
you trademark it … if some-
one has bigger pockets than
you, they can do whatever
they want,” he said.
Lawyers for House Spir-
its Distilling did not immedi-
ately respond to requests for
comment.
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in an email response earlier this
week to the Holmes and Studi-
narz lawsuit, said: “It is our pol-
icy not to litigate in the press. We
vigorously oppose any claims
or allegations made against our
agency.”
Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care, Clatsop County’s men-
tal health contractor, is ield-
ing pointed questions about
the quality of care while deal-
ing with what appears to be
a revolt among key staff.
The agency is the subject
of an internal investigation and
a review by the Oregon Health
Authority. The labor union that
represents staff cast a “no con-
idence” vote against Michele
Crump-Hart, the clinical direc-
tor, and several high-proile
staffers have resigned.
Varese, who was hired in
May 2013, claims in her law-
suit that she had sought to disci-
pline or counsel case managers
for poor performance and inap-
propriate talk about sex at work
but was rebuffed by Watkins,
who Varese says was friends
with the case managers.
The lawsuit from Holmes
and Studinarz also alleges that
top administrators at the agency
failed to take action against a
case manager with a history
of making homophobic and
other inappropriate comments
because she was a “local girl”
who came from a “good family”
and went to school with one of
the administrators.
Varese, who attorneys say
has depression, claims discrim-
ination and retaliation for her
disability and for seeking med-
ical leave. She also claims whis-
tleblower retaliation.
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Continued from Page 1A
Cary said that despite the
two name changes, his busi-
ness is doing all right. He has
opened a tasting room in Sea-
side and said he is looking to
expand farther south. Pilot
House Distilling is allowed
up to ive locations in Oregon
under Oregon Liquor Control
Commission rules.
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