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.
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