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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2016)
8A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2016 Boatworks: Focus is on creating a seamless transition for employees Continued from Page 1A “There were some lean times,” Hill said. “We survived by working like crazy when there was work.” Jacques, a well-known con- struction manager for local proj- ects, such as CMH Field, left the company in 1980 and returned for several years in the late 1980s. Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Just a few tenants remain at Pier 38 RV Park on Thurs- day in Astoria. The park is closing down as the owner, who also owns the Hampton Inn & Suites to the right, plans for other uses for the land. A hidden gem In 2010, Hill leased part of a former seaplane hangar and became one of the Port’s irst new tenants at North Tongue Point, needing indoor work- space to lengthen and widen Haggren’s Deiant. The project ended up adding a whole new sector to J&H’s business. “We immediately followed up every year with a widening project,” Hill said. While there’s been a momentary downturn in activ- ity because of warm El Niño waters hurting ishing, Hill said he expects the aging ishing leet to provide plenty of work for boat workers into the future. Hill employs 10 to 15 people at North Tongue Point, similar ig- ures to his next-door neighbor, boat-building business WCT Marine & Construction Inc. The two companies, which partner on some projects, are part of a shrinking cadre of ship-work- ing companies, with Astoria Marine facing closure amid a $2 million cleanup of World War II-era pollution, and Columbia Paciic Marine Works, Inc., hav- ing already packed up. Hill, along with Carol and Willie Toristoja, who branched out from their family’s boat-working business in Van- couver, Washington, less than three years ago to start WCT Marine, say Tongue Point has the right attributes to be a irst- Photo courtesy of J&H Boatworks Inc. Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian WCT Marine & Construction employee Charles Appling welds part of a boat. class boat-working center, with ramps to take out large vessels without a crane, and the han- gars providing the largest indoor workspace in the region. All it takes, they say, are improve- ments in the buildings, utilities and tarmac. “It’s not in perfect condi- tion, but at least it’s not a sand dune,” Hill said, referencing the Port’s idea to co-locate a brand- new boatyard and ship-working facility on dredge spoil land the agency owns on the Skipanon Peninsula in Warrenton. Bigger ideas “We could turn Tongue Point into a shipyard, but it has deep- water and rail access, so it would be a better location for a ship- ping terminal than a boatyard,” said Port Executive Director Jim Knight. North Tongue Point’s 30 acres of tarmac, lodged between a Portland & Western short-line rail spur and a deepwater chan- nel of the Columbia River, has for more than half a century drawn interest as a marine ter- minal for handling bulk cargo, be it scrap, cars, agricultural commodities, forest products or fuel. The feds sold the land in 1980 to the state. In 2000, Missoula, Montana, based Washington Develop- ment Co. acquired the property. The company in 2009 leased North Tongue Point to the Port, which has ielded several gran- diose proposals, but mostly lost money or treaded water on the facility. The Port Commission voted recently to try and buy the prop- erty before the agency’s lease expires in 2019. In the most recent devel- opment proposal for the site, the Port is negotiating a con- tract with entrepreneur Rece Bly for compensation if he can bring in an as-yet unspeciied cargo. Knight said negotiations are on hold until Port Commis- sioner Bill Hunsinger returns from ishing in Alaska later this month. Knight said there is also continued interest in Tongue Point from a public-private part- nership based in South Korea. Knight said he’s willing to sit down with the tenants of Tongue Point about what improvements they’d like to see. But “every day we get closer to the drop- dead date (on the Port’s lease), The Milky Way was the first fishing vessel launched by J&H Boatworks after it started in 1976. Continued from Page 1A Photo courtesy of J&H Boatworks Inc. For its second project, J&H Boatworks built the fishing vessel Defiant for Mike Hag- gren, launching it in 1980. so it’s hard to make those com- mitments until we know our plan with Tongue Point,” he said. Tim and Debi Hill are focused on creating a seam- less transition for their employ- ees, who they call their great- est asset. But Tim Hill said it’s unlikely his company would be able to ind another suitable boat-working space like North Tongue Point if forced to move. “For us and for Willie out there with WCT Marine, the question we have is, ‘What does it mean for us?’” Hill said. “And there are no concrete answers, so we just keep going the direc- tion we’re going right now: work. That’s all we can do.” Divided: ‘Brother, I want to get home, too’ Continued from Page 1A While Perry gives cops their due, he keeps his distance. Two years ago, within walking dis- tance of this spot, a black man named Eric Garner died in a confrontation with police ofi- cers. Garner was suspected of selling loose cigarettes; an ofi- cer wrestled him to the ground by his neck. His last words — “I can’t breathe” — were cap- tured on cellphone video that rocketed across the internet. “I know those oficers did not mean to kill Eric,” says Perry, a 37-year-old father of two who knew Garner. But, “you need to look an oficer in the eye who doesn’t understand and go, ‘Brother, I want to get home, too.’ They’re defending these communities that they don’t know.” A step ahead As Americans struggle with the deaths of black men in encounters with police across the country, and now the kill- ing of ive Dallas oficers, Perry and his fellow Staten Islanders have the dubious distinction of being a step ahead. Since Gar- ner’s death in July 2014, they have confronted a measure of the anger and pain the nation now shares. A nationwide poll last sum- mer by the Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs found that 81 percent of black Americans said police are too quick to use deadly force, compared with 33 percent of whites. But the voices of Staten Islanders speak to attitudes and experiences that are often more complicated than poll numbers. About 3,000 police oficers live there, many in the heav- ily white neighborhoods on the southern two-thirds of the Island. In those neighborhoods, protests that followed Garner’s death in July 2014 were met with “God Bless the NYPD” yard signs and pro-police ral- lies. The tensions intensiied after a grand jury decided not to indict the oficer for Garner’s death. Two weeks later, a man claiming vengeance killed two oficers in Brooklyn. On an island of 475,000 that is 75 percent white and mostly suburban, the North Shore’s comparatively dense neighborhoods are home to nearly all of the borough’s African-Americans. Leroy Downs, 41, has lived on Staten Island since he was 5 and works as a drug treatment counselor. But tonight he talks about, just maybe, becoming a cop, though as a black man he has been stopped repeatedly by police — without cause, he says. Downs testiied against the NYPD when a legal advocacy group sued and won a 2013 ruling that sweeping stop-and- frisks violate the constitutional rights of minority New Yorkers. He sees little change in the relationship between cops and minorities despite the verdict. But he hasn’t given up hoping. “I can’t imagine the world without police,” he says. “It’d be anarchy.” Some progress The city says it has made some progress. Last year, it began assigning pairs of ofi- cers to speciic neighborhoods, rather than having them rush from call to call across pre- cincts. They are mandated to spend a third of their shift “off-radio,” talking with resi- dents to forge relationships. Jessi D’Ambrosio, 32, and Mary Gillespie, 28, are the new “neighborhood coordinat- ing oficers” for the six-build- ing Richmond Terrace proj- ect where Garner once lived. When the two oficers, both white and longtime Staten Islanders, walk through the grounds, residents readily return their greetings. “They’re such homeboy, homegirl,” tenants association president Eunice Love says of the two oficers. “They know how to get along with people and relate and we love that.” D’Ambrosio measures progress in everyday experi- ence. When one resident called to report a teen wanted for breaking into nearby houses, he took it as a sign of trust. “It’s small steps,” he says. “You know you can’t just wake up tomorrow and think the world is going to change. Barn: Smith plans to bring barn up to code Continued from Page 1A “My property has been listed recently in legal notices, due in part, to personal impacts upon me and … most of all through political ill-will,” Shannon Smith said at a July Gearhart City Council meeting. “I am in conversation with prospective investors and co-partners who share my goal of preserving this unique historic resource for all of Gearhart to use and enjoy for many years to come.” On Thursday, she said the loan is in modiication consider- ation by the lender, which could end the sale proceeding. “Fore- closures are more common than people know,” she said. “They often get to this level May, Smith said she and they get resolved. plans to bring the I’m extremely building up to code. optimistic.” If Smith violates Smith said she the court order, she became an “under- would receive a $500 water property ine for a zone code owner” in 2007, violation. This would within months of her be in addition to purchase of the barn, more than $30,000 in when she was hard- administrative ines Shannon hit by the economic racked up by Smith, Smith downturn. “I have an amount reduced held on despite the land use and to $15,000 by the Gearhart City zoning approaches taken by the Council in December. city’s oficials in their interpreta- Clatsop County Circuit tion of the allowed use of one’s Court Judge Philip Nelson property.” extended an order keeping the A court order has suspended former livery stable off-limits use of the barn until Smith meets for parties and special events, at conditions of city approval. In least until October. RV park: ‘There is no deinitive answer of what they’re doing’ But they seem, still, to have accepted us.” Gwen Carr, Eric Garner’s mother, wants more. She stands in the small park across the street from the spot where he fell and cringes as a man who appears to be homeless sprawls across a bench, asleep though it’s not yet 1 p.m. And a young woman — “Alcohol Gives You Wings,” tattooed down her left arm — sits on the edge of a dry foun- tain, trying to sell used shoes. “How much good did they do?” Carr says of police. “Where are they when you need them?” If her son’s death means something, Carr says, oficials can clean up this block where regulars say drinking and drugs have increased since Garner’s death. She wants New York to turn the park into a play- ground, reserved for children and guardians. Doug Brinson, who sells T-shirts from sidewalk tables, rails against police for Garner’s death. But ighting and drink- ing on this block makes clear the need for police, he said. “You’ve got to coexist with the guys on the beat. You’ve got to,” he says. “It’s only fair.” Blair Henningsgaard, an attorney for Pier 38, said he has been asked by the own- ers to draft eviction notices for several remaining tenants. from Staab, but has yet to hear what Pier 38 did illegally. Staab said he is seek- ing compensation for his cli- ents and will ile a lawsuit if necessary. Questionable tactics Change in owners Floyd Holcom bought the RV park in 2006. He said there was a lot of prostitution and drug activity that he cleaned up as owner. He later sold his interest in the park and hotel property to Patel, but said he remains a partner in the RV park property. He said the park was never meant for long-term stays, but rather an RV park for visitors, although multiple residents say they have lived there several months to more than two years. Holcom said he was asked recently to come over and help deal with drug problems and residents who had not been following the rules, had not kept their registration or insur- ance up to date and had cre- ated a liability issue for the RV park. Residents got used to not following the rules, he said, and got upset when someone came in to lay the rules down. Holcom owns the nearby Pier 39 commercial build- ing, along with lots over the Columbia River in front of Pier 38, around Pier 39 and to the east. Cease and desist Portland attorney Scott Staab is representing Pier 38 tenant Josh Redburn and Michelle Charlton, who said she had paid her rent in advance but was not allowed to park the trailer she had towed from Portland. Staab said he delivered a cease and desist letter recently ordering the company to follow land- lord-tenant laws in its evic- tions of residents. Tenants of an RV park are allowed at least a 30-day eviction notice, but Staab said some have been receiving verbal 24-hour notices. He claimed the land- lords have also been inter- mittently shutting off water and power, threatening to tow away trailers and using police contact as a way to evict tenants. “They’re essentially trying just to strong-arm their long- term residents, saying they have no rights,” he said. Henningsgaard, who also serves as the city attorney, said he has seen the accusations Charlton and Redburn both called the police on Pier 38 July 5, claiming they had been confronted by management and verbally harassed by Hol- com when Charlton arrived in Astoria after having her trailer towed from Portland. Charlton said the park paid for her trailer to be towed back to Portland and is now staying with Red- burn, who said the park has subsequently tried to kick him out. He said he refuses to leave without a written 30-day evic- tion notice. Jeremy Fischer, a for- mer resident of the park for more than two years, said he recently left his trailer and moved in with friends after management would not allow him to pay rent and shut off his utilities. “There is no deinitive answer of what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re just kicking people out.” The park switched man- agers from Chad Copeland to Michael Herbst last month. Holcom, who suggested Herbst, said the previous manager seemed to be taking advantage of people and tak- ing their money, even though when he acquired the park in 2006, he informed the state it was no longer for long-term use. This year, according to the Astoria Police Department, there have been 33 log entries and 19 cases at Pier 38. Those include 12 complaints against Herbst since June 17. Multi- ple log entries show Herbst attempting to make residents leave and being told by ofi- cers he needs to follow the proper eviction process. On June 21, Herbst called to report that a resident, Frank Riley, might have a possi- ble methamphetamine lab in his trailer. Police searched his trailer and found no evidence of a lab. Riley said management came by the last week of June and gave him until the end of the month to move. “They came in and tried to use a bunch of scare tactics and bully tactics,” said Riley, who found a spot for his trailer on the other side of town. 12 th Ave. & hwy. 101 SeASide, Or 503.717.1603 SeASideOutletS.cOm - Open - mon-Sat 10-8 & Sun 10-6 Grand Opening! y l u J nd 22 Suite #328
