OLD-SCHOOL SUMMER FUN ON THE COAST INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2016
143RD YEAR, NO. 251
FREE FOOD, FUN
AND FRIENDSHIP
ONE DOLLAR
Port chief
proposes
a levee
solution
Knight’s idea could
save money, fi sh
habitat in Warrenton
By EDWARD STRATTON
and ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Samuel Bacon, 5, serves himself fruit alongside other pre school summer program kids on Tuesday at Warrenton Grade School.
The students eat at the Warrenton free summer lunch program.
Federally funded program offers
kids one good meal each day
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
ARRENTON — School’s out, but Stephanie Davis
and her staff of two were hard at work Tuesday
packing at least 70 servings of tangy chicken and
brown rice for lunch. Just before noon , their diners started
trickling in. A mixture of pre schoolers to high schoolers
come in, accompanied by peers, parents and, in one case, a
preschool teacher leading her class.
Through the federally funded Summer Food Service
Program, Davis and her staff are able to feed all the kids
fi ve days a week at no charge and with no questions asked.
“I feel like they at least have some type of a meal that is
free to them,” said Davis, who starts the week after school
ends and runs up to a week before it opens.
W
The Summer Food Service Program served more
than 1,150 students a day last summer in Clatsop
County, where more than half of all students are eli-
gible for free and reduced-price lunches because of
their income.
This year, the program includes nine feed-
ing sites spread throughout Clatsop County. War-
renton’s three sites and Seaside’s two opened this
week, while Astoria’s open July 5.
Lunch club
At face value, the lunch program appears more
like a social club than a make-or-break endeavor
for most children. Kids meet at the lunch sites daily
See LUNCHES, Page 10A
MEAL SITES
In Warrenton, free lunches are served from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Monday through Friday, June 20 to Aug. 26, at
the Clatsop Community Action Regional Food Bank, 2010 SE Chokeberry Ave.; Warrenton Grade School; 820
S.W. Cedar Ave.; and at the Warrenton Community Library (except Fridays), 861 Pacific Drive.
Lunch sites in Seaside are open 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Monday through Friday through Aug. 26 at Broadway Mid-
dle School, 1120 Broadway, and Seaside Heights Elementary School, 2000 Spruce Drive.
Astoria has five lunch sites open Monday through Friday, July 5 to Aug. 26:
• From noon to 12:30 p.m. at the Astoria Aquatic Center, 1997 Marine Drive.
• From 11:30 a.m. to noon at the Astoria Parks and Recreation Day Camp at 1555 W. Marine Drive.
• From 11:30 a.m. to noon in Peter Pan Park at the corner of Sixth Street and Niagara Avenue.
• From 11:30 a.m. to noon in Tapiola Park, 900 W. Marine Drive.
• From 11:30 a.m. to noon in the Emerald Heights Apartments, 1 Emerald Drive.
• From 11:30 a.m. to noon at Lewis and Clark Elementary School, 97219 Lewis and Clark Road. This site will only
be open Monday through Thursday , June 27 through Aug. 4.
Local offi cials are hopeful the federal
Bonneville Power Administration can help
solve Warrenton’s levee problem.
Jim Knight, the director of the Port of
Astoria, has proposed a plan to build new,
higher levees farther inland from the exist-
ing barriers. The levees are uncertifi ed by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — and, there-
fore, uncertifi ed by the
Federal Emergency
Management Agency
— for not being large
enough to prevent
inundation.
Based on anecdotal
reports, the uncerti-
fi ed levees are cost-
ing property owners in
Warrenton thousands
of dollars in fl ood
Jim
insurance and limiting
Knight
the ability to develop.
They also affect the Port, which owns and
operates the Astoria Regional Airport in
Warrenton and other low-lying properties on
the Skipanon Peninsula.
See LEVEE, Page 10A
Seaside, Arch
Cape wish
Godspeed to
Father Nick
Beloved pastor returns to
his Tanzania homeland
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — Father Nicholas Nilema —
Father Nick to all — is preparing to leave Sea-
side at the end of July, and his “family” here is
already missing him.
“I will miss them here too,” Nilema said.
“It’s really a family, my family. For us as mis-
sionaries, everywhere we go or are sent, we
make a family.”
During his 18 years in Seaside as priest at
Our Lady of Victory and St. Peter the Fish-
erman Parish Hall in Arch Cape, Nilema
counted as his accomplishments the rebuild-
ing of the church, outreach to the homeless
and partnerships within the community.
“It’s a loving, caring community,” Nilema
See FATHER NICK, Page 10A
Sales could make pot Oregon’s top crop
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Sales and tax fi g-
ures collected by state agencies
may fi nally solve one of Oregon’s
long-running farm crop ques-
tions: whether marijuana is indeed
the state’s most valuable crop, as
cannabis advocates have always
maintained.
Tight controls and report-
ing requirements by the Oregon
Department of Revenue and Oregon
Liquor Control Commission should
result in accurate information about
pot, said Bruce Pokarney, spokes-
man for the state Department of
Agriculture. The department com-
piles an annual list of the state’s
most valuable crops.
The sale of rec-
tistics Service, or NASS.
reational
marijuana
Although it’s now legal
became legal in Oregon
in several states, the feds
last October, in addition
still classify marijuana
to medical use, which
as an illegal drug. Dave
was already legal. The
Losh, Oregon state stat-
state revenue department
istician for NASS, said
collects a 25 percent tax
the agency won’t include
on recreational pot pur-
marijuana in its annual
chases, while the OLCC
crop statistics due to fed-
licenses producers, pro-
eral policy.
Bruce
cessors, retailers, whole-
For the same reason,
Pokarney
salers and labs. The
people can’t use water
department said it has processed from federal projects to irrigate
$14.9 million in marijuana tax pay- marijuana, he said, and such things
ments through May.
as Natural Resources Conservation
The information, however, Service programs can’t be applied
poses another head-scratcher. Most to pot crops.
agricultural statistics published by
Pokarney, of ODA, joked the
the ag department come from the
See POT, Page 6A
USDA’s National Agricultural Sta-
Danny Miller/ The Daily Astorian
Father Nicholas Nilema poses for a por-
trait after delivering morning services in
Seaside. After 18 years with the church,
Nilema will be leaving for Tanzania.