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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016
Warrenton budget meetings wrap up
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — The
city’s
budget
committee
approved spending plans Thurs-
day for the city and the War-
renton Urban Renewal Agency
— and explored how both enti-
ties can help relocate and rein-
vent the Warrenton Community
Library.
Along with the city’s pro-
posed $32.3 million budget —
up from $29.3 million this year
— the committee proceeded
with a plan to raise water rates
7 percent and sewer rates 6 per-
cent. The hikes are meant to sta-
bilize funding for city infrastruc-
ture after years of low rates.
The committee transferred
$5,000 from the Warrenton
Business Association’s contin-
gency fund to a new line item in
the association’s budget: a grant
match for a strategic plan study
of the Astoria Regional Airport
environs and the North Coast
Business Park. Clatsop County
and the Port of Astoria will also
contribute.
The
proposed
Urban
Renewal Agency budget of $4.2
million — down from $4.4 mil-
lion this year — includes fund-
ing for major improvements
at the Warrenton Marina (such
as the full replacement of the
commercial dock) and smaller
improvements in the city’s
urban core.
The City Commission will
vote next month on whether to
adopt the pair of budgets for the
iscal year that starts in July.
Library long term
While reviewing the library
fund, the committee discussed
moving the library from its cur-
rent operation in the former
Hammond Town Hall building
to a more central spot — and
possibly using urban renewal
dollars to do it.
A recent memo from City
Manager Kurt Fritsch detailed
the condition of the city-owned
building and painted an unpretty
picture.
“Besides the structural issues
with the facility, we’ve out-
grown it,” Fritsch told the bud-
get committee. “There’s just not
the room in there for any ofices,
or even storage.”
Since the new location
would draw more families to
downtown, urban renewal funds
could come into play, he said.
“That would be the way to
achieve it,” Mayor Mark Kujala
said.
Kujala said a number of peo-
ple have told him that having a
library in downtown Warrenton,
closer to City Hall, would com-
plement other city services.
Library Site Manager Net-
tie-Lee Calog noted that the
Hammond site isn’t very
accessible for most people in
Warrenton.
“We have a lot of foot trafic
in Hammond, and a lot of peo-
ple are very attached to that lit-
tle building,” she said. “But, if it
was downtown, here, you could
get kids from the high school
and from the grade school, and
there are lots of elderly people
in the area that could get there
easier.”
Calog said someone sug-
gested to her that the old build-
ing could become an object of
historic preservation.
Fritsch acknowledged that
some people in town would
rather not see the building demol-
ished. However, “the open-mind-
edness has been very pleasant to
come across,” he said.
‘A community’s soul’
The library is funded largely
through a ive-year tax levy that
expires next iscal year but will
require more funds during a
relocation and upgrade.
City Commissioner Henry
Balensifer loated the idea of
establishing a new taxing dis-
trict as a more sustainable fund-
ing solution than an ongoing
series of levies.
If the city wants to go that
route, it should make vot-
ers aware of the library’s need
irst, said Paul Mitchell, a mem-
ber of the budget committee
and the Warrenton Business
Association.
He suggested that business
association-hosted events could
donate a portion of the proceeds
— from, for example, a beer
garden — to the new library,
creating a funding source and a
way to raise that awareness.
“This is the type of thing that
a community can rally around,”
he said. “It’s the type of thing
that businesses could rally
around.”
Fritsch said the city must
ind a way to grow the library
into something greater. For
people without a computer or
access to the Internet and social
media, a library is a lifeline, a
place to do research and look for
employment.
“We are a reading library,
and libraries are becom-
ing so much more than that,”
he said. “We could capture
so many more people in this
community.”
A library, Fritsch said, is
an amenity — on par with
parks — that expresses a
city’s priorities and sense of
self: “It is an identiier of a
community’s soul and who
you are.”
Superdelegates choose between Sanders and Clinton in Oregon
Astoria’s
Taylor sides
with Sanders
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
Alex Pajunas/The Daily Astorian
Larry Taylor, who leads Clatsop County Democrats and is
a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention,
has backed U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
If all three undeclared
superdelegates go for Clinton,
the result would be 37-35, a
squeaker for Sanders. That is, if
the superdelegates don’t change
their minds, which they are all
entitled to do.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio,
D-Oregon, is unhappy with this
system. DeFazio, a superdele-
gate by virtue of his position as
a congressman, is staying out of
the fray for now.
“Generally, I do not weigh in
on contested primaries, and as
long as the race for the Demo-
cratic nomination continues, I
have no plans to do otherwise,”
DeFazio said in a statement.
He was blunt about his feel-
ings about the superdelegate
system, implemented by the
Democratic National Commit-
tee before the 1984 election to
prevent candidates with little
chance of winning the presiden-
tial election from being chosen
as the party’s nominee.
“I ind the role of superdel-
egates undemocratic and they
“We are charged with
supporting the candidate
that we feel is best prepared
and best qualiied to win
the presidency in Novem-
ber and run the country,” she
added. “There’s no question
in my mind that she ills that
description far better than her
opponent.”
Superdelegate
Lupita
Maurer came out for Sanders
after his win on Tuesday, and
was delighted to do so.
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SALEM — After Bernie
Sanders won Oregon’s Dem-
ocratic primary this week, two
superdelegates
announced
they’ll back the Vermont sena-
tor and one declared support for
Hillary Clinton, amid increased
discomfort with a system
viewed as undemocratic, even
among some of the superdele-
gates themselves.
The issue is particularly criti-
cal in this election, because even
though Sanders beat Clinton by
nearly 10 percentage points in
the primary, the former secretary
of state could still amass about
the same number of the Oregon
delegates if a certain share of the
13 superdelegates, a nickname
for unpledged delegates, swing
her way.
“Every Democrat I have
talked to inds the unpledged
delegate system offensive,”
superdelegate Larry Taylor,
chairman of the Clatsop County
Democrats, said in a telephone
interview with The Associated
Press. He became a superdele-
gate because of his position in
the Democratic Party in Oregon,
but that doesn’t mean he agrees
with the system.
After
Tuesday’s
pri-
mary results came in, Tay-
lor announced he would sup-
port Sanders, one of only three
superdelegates to do so, with
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley having
endorsed Sanders before the
primary. Seven have declared
they back Clinton. Three remain
undeclared.
“I don’t think my vote ...
should invalidate the vote of
thousands of voters,” said Tay-
lor, who ran unsuccessfully for
Astoria mayor in 2014. Each
delegate vote on the loor of the
Democratic convention in July
will represent about 8,500 Dem-
ocrats who voted in the Ore-
gon primary, he noted. He was
speaking to AP from Philadel-
phia, where he and other party
oficials from Oregon were vis-
iting the convention facilities.
The breakdown of the Ore-
gon primary gives Sanders 34
pledged delegates and Clinton
25, with two pledged delegates
still unallocated amid close
returns.
Adding the declared super-
delegates gives Sanders a total
of 37 and Clinton 32.
should not be a part of the nom-
inating system,” DeFazio said.
“Instead, I would prefer to let
the voters determine the results
of presidential primary.”
But superdelegate Karen
Packer, who said she came out
for Clinton Tuesday night at her
campaign headquarters in Port-
land, makes no bones about her
choice.
“I’ve been a Hillary sup-
porter all along,” Packer told the
AP from Philadelphia. “I was
an Obama delegate in 2008 and
2012. In my mind its Hillary’s
turn.”
She said the system adds
value and aims to unify the party
behind the best candidate.