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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 30, 2016)
12A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016 Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Items sit on display during the Museum of Whimsy grand opening Saturday in Astoria. An old antique door from the 1930s sits on display Satur- day at he Museum of Whimsy in Astoria. A werewolf mask from a 1930s French theater sits on dis- play Saturday at he Museum of Whimsy in Astoria. Museum: ‘It’s something interesting. It’s something different’ Continued from Page 1A a “The War of the Worlds” alien tripod painted into a cor- ner; and a wealth of exqui- sitely crafted artwork that is often amusing, captivating and haunting as hell. In other words, Trish hasn’t founded just another stuffy museum. “What I want you to leave with — more than what you come in to see — is (to understand) just the amount of dedication that people had — even dating back to the 1850s had — when it came to making art pieces, or even just souvenirs,” she said. ‘Over-the-top’ The iconic 1920s-era building, which won the city’s Dr. Edward Harvey Award for historic preserva- tion in 2007, is an attraction in itself. The architectural relic was a bank for half a century until the last bank to use it left in the 1970s. For a time, it was occupied by a video arcade and a spa. But the bank went largely unused and neglected. When Trish, a former stockbroker, and her hus- band, Walter — creator of the D Programming Language and the wargame “Empire” — purchased it in 2005, there was wood rot, water damage and ferns growing through the walls, she said. “It was moldy mess. There was condensation every- where,” she recalled. But upstairs, “the plaster was still intact, and it was beautiful. So we bought it.” After renovating the building, the couple used it as an event space and cup- cake parlor. Ready to tackle a different project, they listed the bank for sale a couple of years ago. “Then, after we put it on the market, I thought, ‘Oh, why do we want to sell it? We’re never going to ind another building like it,’” she recalled. “So I said, ‘Let’s just keep it.’” Converting the place into a museum accomplishes two things: The doors remain open to the public, and Trish now has a space to store and display her prodigious stock- pile of fanciful objects. Trish has also opened a candy counter on the irst loor. A gift shop and an upstairs wine bar are in the works. “The building was so grand, that it really needed everything to be done over- the-top,” she said. “It just looked like it needed some- thing excessive inside. If it wasn’t going to be a bank, it had to be something as domi- nant as a bank.” ‘It’s Trish’ Chester Trabucco, oper- ator of the Riverwalk Inn, witnessed the Brights restor- ing the Bank of Astoria some years back, while he devel- oped the Hotel Elliott across the street. He attended the museum’s grand opening. “The thing that is so mar- velous about this is that it’s done in a town of 10,000 people,” he said. “One of the draws to Astoria is that there are very talented, artistic people that put their — not only their money and their resources — but their pas- sion for bringing something to life that you don’t see just anywhere.” Terence Edgar, an artist who painted “roses and cas- tles”-style decorative pan- els for a reproduction of an English canal narrowboat’s prow, lew from England with his wife, Christina. He said he wouldn’t call his work a “whimsy” but an “oddity,” especially since narrowboats are unfamiliar to many Americans. “It’s something interest- ing. It’s something different. If this was back in the U.K., it would be traditional bog standard. Everybody would know it,” he said. “People don’t know it here; that’s the good thing about it.” The Museum of Whimsy will continue to evolve; Trish said she plans to switch out some pieces and bring in new ones, to keep the expe- rience fresh for returning visitors. “It’s more a labor of love than wanting to make a kill- ing as a museum,” she said. MacAndrew Burns, exec- utive director of the Clat- sop County Historical Soci- ety, remarked as he strode through the Banker’s Suite on Saturday. “I love it. It’s whimsical — it’s Trish.” Dulcye Taylor, left, owner at Old Town Framing, assists Museum of Whimsy owner Trish Bright, right, in carrying a cus- tom-made frame for a large painting into the Museum of Whimsy on Wednesday. Antique dolls sit on display in the Museum of Whimsy on Saturday during the grand opening in Astoria. Items on display in the Museum of Whimsy are seen here on Saturday. Andre Lynch from Beaverton takes a look at items on dis- play during the grand opening of the Museum of Whimsy on Saturday. Iroquois raised beadwork sits on display Saturda at the Museum of Whimsy in Astoria. Wage: In Clatsop County, the wage will increase to $13.50 by 2022 Continued from Page 1A At least 203,000 Orego- nians will receive a raise from the new law Friday, according to the Oregon Employment Department. Wages climb from $9.25 to $9.75 in most parts of the state, including Clatsop County, and to $9.50 in rural counties. “I think it’s a great thing,” said Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, chairman of the Senate Workforce Committee, which irst proposed the law. “It starts small, but that is the beauty of the way we have crafted this. It is spread out over a number of years. Workers are still going to get immediate relief from the inancial pressure they’re under because of housing and other costs they face.” The irst-of-its-kind law customizes wages by cost- of-living and income level in three different regions of the state and sets a ive- year schedule for increases. The law stemmed from con- cerns about the state’s housing shortage and rising expenses in a state with relatively low wages. The Oregon Ofice of Economic Analysis has ranked Portland’s affordability below Seattle’s because of a dispar- ity between wages and living expenses. The actual number of employees who beneit from the pay bump is unknown, said Nick Beleiciks, state econ- omist with the Employment Department. Minimum-wage workers who receive tips may not on paper appear to be min- imum-wage workers because of that extra income, Beleiciks said. But those costs still mate- rialize for employers. Tips in Oregon don’t count toward the wages owed to an employee, but employees are required to report any money they receive on the job as income for tax purposes. Most of the 250 Deschutes employees who will receive a raise from the minimum wage law also make tips at the com- pany’s pubs in Portland and Bend. “The people who receive minimum wage in our com- pany receive tips, and that’s the lion’s share of their earn- ings, plus we provide health care, even for food and bever- age staff,” said founder Fish. “We know these are our high- est-paid employees getting a raise because those are our tipped employees.” Photo courtesy of Yoshida Food International Junki Yoshida of Portland-based Yoshida Food Interna- tional said he will cut many temporary positions in his company to offset the cost of the wage increases. The additional cost comes at a time when employers also are adjusting to new paid sick- leave requirements and facing the potential of a corporate tax increase under Initiative Petition 28, which voters will consider in the November general election. Junki Yoshida of Port- land-based Yoshida Food International said he will cut many temporary positions in his company to offset the cost of the wage increases. He said he also is looking at ways to pare down beneits. “It is hurting those people,” Yoshida said of the people who would lose jobs. In lieu of the temporary workers, he is ask- ing his better-paid staff to increase production. Fish of Deschutes Brew- ery said despite the burden of having to pay higher wages, he doesn’t view the law as a bad thing. “There are some employ- ers who are not treating their employees as well that are making it harder on those of us who are,” Fish said. “With that being said, the Legislature doesn’t seem to value business and risk and all of those kinds of things as much as maybe they could.” “We have terriic people we get to work with, and this is not about them,” he added. The new law has some complications for employers who have itinerant employees working in multiple regions. Generally, employers have to pay employees the regional rate in which an employee works more than 50 per- cent of the time, but if an employee works in more than two regions, the employer has to track that employee’s time spent in each region and pay different wages according to the amount of time spent in each region. The Bureau of Labor and Industries has scheduled a series of seminars to help employers comply with the new law. Enforcement of the law will be mostly complaint based, said Charlie Burr, a spokes- man for Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian. The minimum wage gradu- ally climbs to $14.75 by 2022 in the Portland urban-growth boundary, which includes parts of Multnomah, Wash- ington and Clackamas coun- ties. It will rise to $13.50 in Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Deschutes, Hood River, Jack- son, Josephine, Lane, Lin- coln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, Wasco and Yam- hill counties, and parts of Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties out- side Portland’s urban-growth boundary. In rural areas, the wage increases to $12.50. Those areas include Malheur, Lake, Harney, Wheeler, Sherman, Gilliam, Wallowa, Grant, Jef- ferson, Baker, Union, Crook, Klamath, Douglas, Coos, Curry, Umatilla and Morrow counties.