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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.