143RD YEAR, NO. 247
ONE DOLLAR
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2016
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FRIDAY EXTRA • 1C
Death penalty case goes to trial
Judge says no to excluding grisly evidence in Seaside toddler murder
By KYLE SPURR
The Daily Astorian
An effort to dismiss one of the
worst child-abuse cases in Clatsop
County was denied this week by a
Circuit Court judge.
Judge Paula Brownhill ruled
against the defense lawyers for Randy
Roden, the live-in boyfriend accused
of murdering his girlfriend’s 2-year-
old daughter and abusing her two
sons in their Seaside apartment.
During a two-day hearing in April,
defense lawyers Thomas Huseby and
Robert Axford argued for the case to
be dismissed, or at least to have evi-
dence excluded, such as the adult-
sized bite marks found on the three
children, the blood spatter in the
apartment and the use of the term
“torture.”
Judge Brownhill denied the
defense lawyers’ requests this week
FREE TO LEARN
Young inmates step up to earn their diplomas
in a written opinion. She did defer her
ruling on the bite mark evidence and
asked for a private hearing before tes-
timony is given at trial.
Overall, Chief Deputy Dis-
trict Attorney Ron Brown said he
is pleased with the judge’s ruling to
See RODEN, Page 10A
Putting
parks in
their place
Citizen advisory group
recommends new master
plan to City Council
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Greg Slate of Klamath Falls, center left, shares a laugh with his fellow graduates after making a speech during the South Jetty
High School graduation ceremony Thursday at the North Coast Youth Correctional Facility in Warrenton.
Thankful
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
W
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Corey Johnson-Fleishman smiles at his family in the crowd
during the South Jetty High School graduation ceremony on
Thursday in Warrenton.
ARRENTON — On
graduation day at South
Jetty High School, 10 stu-
dents proudly received their diplo-
mas, joining two others who had
graduated earlier and another who
passed his GED exam Thursday.
The milestone meant a quarter of
the inmate population inside the
North Coast Youth Correctional
Facility had fi nished high school .
The graduations were a feather
in the cap for Warrenton-Ham-
mond School District, which has
administered the educational ser-
vices at South Jetty since the 2000s
and built a strong reputation for
student completion. Citing funding
and programmatic concerns, the
district announced earlier it would
not continue staffi ng South Jetty
beyond this year.
Corey Johnson-Fleishman, a
graduate Thursday, said he wishes
he could have started high school
at a place like South Jetty, free of
the distractions that got him into
trouble.
Locked up as a sophomore
with seven credits, he said, he
earned 17 more while in custody.
Standing with his siblings, girl-
friend and stepdaughter Thurs-
day, he felt optimistic about get-
ting out later this month and going
to college.
“It feels so good,” he said. “I
almost feel like a new person.”
His mother, Beth, said it was a
great reward to see him graduate
after such a long, hard road. She
and her son also credited his parole
offi cer, Miguel Herrera, for stick-
ing with him.
A fi nal draft master plan for the Astoria
Parks and Recreation Department calls for a
system wide maintenance plan, refl ecting pub-
lic disappointment with conditions and upkeep
at sites under the department’s care.
“Many comments collected during surveys
and public meetings identifi ed maintenance of
existing park and facilities as a top priority, and
that acceptable maintenance levels should be
achieved before planning for any new develop-
ment,” the master plan reads.
The citizen advisory committee that over-
saw the planning process voted Thursday to
recommend the fi nal draft to the City Coun-
cil, which made the creation of a parks’ master
plan a goal for the current fi scal year.
“I think we have packaged something that
gives us a foundation, out which to pull some
thinking to some of the major issues that the
city faces, and that we, as citizens, are con-
stantly going before the government (about)
and saying, ‘We’re frustrated by this,’” said Jan
Nybakke, a committee volunteer, adding that
one of the virtues of the plan is that it contains
steps to become “unfrustrated” by addressing
parks-related issues.
The document — which is posted on the
department website and lays out the depart-
ment’s vision, objectives and priorities for the
next decade — incorporates feedback gath-
ered from several public meetings, stakeholder
focus groups and an online survey.
The draft will come before the Parks Advi-
sory Board and the Planning Commission
before it reaches the City Council, which will
vote next month on whether to incorporate the
master plan into the city’s comprehensive plan.
Time and money
The parks department has long argued
that it doesn’t have enough revenue and full-
time staff members to adequately maintain the
roughly 300 acres of land, nine miles of trails
and 12 indoor facilities under its management.
“As the parks system has grown, staff posi-
tions across all divisions of the department
have been reduced or eliminated to compen-
sate for rising operational costs, resulting in
fewer employees responsible for a greater
amount of work,” the master plan says.
See GRADS, Page 10A
See PARKS, Page 8A
ODOT asks for moratorium on Gorge oil trains
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion has asked the federal
government to put a mora-
torium on oil trains in the
Columbia Gorge and certain
other parts of the state over
concerns about inadequate
inspections.
The request follows the
oil train derailment in Mosier
June 3, which sparked a fi re,
forced the evacuation of 100
people and spilled oil into the
ground and the city’s sewer
system.
Union Pacifi c offi cials have
concluded that the metal fas-
tener system that connects the
railroad tie to the rail failed,
causing the railway to break
apart and derailing 16 oil
tanker cars. The federal rail-
road administration is con-
ducting its own investigation
into the cause.
Inspections and tests by
the state and Union Pacifi c
in the days leading up to the
derailment failed to reveal the
defects.
“Until the underlying cause
of the bolt failures is under-
stood and, a means of detect-
ing this defect is developed,
we request a moratorium on
running unit oil trains over
sections of track that contain
track fasteners of this material
within the state of Oregon,”
Hal Gard, administrator of the
state’s Rail and Public Tran-
sit Division, wrote in a June 8
letter to the Federal Railroad
Administration.
Despite hiring four addi-
tional inspectors last year, the
state has no effective way to
inspect and test the integrity
of those bolts. State inspec-
tors conduct only visual
inspections, and defects in the
kind of bolts used along the
Columbia Gorge are not visi-
ble when looking from above,
said Matthew Garrett, direc-
tor of the state transportation
department.
See ODOT, Page 10A
Tank cars
carrying oil are
derailed near
Mosier on June
3. The Oregon
Department of
Transportation
has asked for a
moratorium on
oil trains over
concerns about
inadequate track
inspections.
Silas Bleakley
via Associated Press