DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, JULY 18, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 12
ONE DOLLAR
A NEW
TUNE
SEASIDE HOSTS
WOOD BAT TOURNEY
EVERYDAY PEOPLE • 2A
SPORTS • 7A
With Pokemon Go, a search as good as the catch
Craze overtakes
the North Coast
By ELI STILLMAN
The Daily Astorian
A mother and her children rush along
the Astoria Riverwalk with their cellphones
pointed ahead like compasses. “It’s here!”
Kaden Gasser yells as they approach a vir-
tual marker at the end of a pier.
Like millions of players around the
world, the 11-year-old and his family were
searching for a Poke Stop, a supply station
in the free game Pokemon Go.
The popular application uses GPS to
create a world where players need to phys-
ically move around in order to fi nd car-
toon monsters.
While the monsters are fake, the loca-
tions are real.
Players have been popping up around
the Flavel House Museum, the Merry
Time Bar and Grill, First United Method-
ist Church and other stops in Astoria, and
have been shooed away from U.S. Coast
Guard Station Cape Disappointment
in Ilwaco, Washington. There is even a
Pokemon Go Astoria Chapter on Face-
book to share local intel.
Astoria High
School seniors Alex
Burchfield, left, and
Kyle Birge battle
their Pokemon at a
Pokemon gym lo-
cated at First United
Methodist Church
Friday in Astoria.
Danny Miller
The Daily Astorian
See POKEMON GO, Page 10A
Herzig
exit will
create
council
vacancy
BLIND PILOT
SPEAKS THE
LANGUAGE
OF LOSS
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
Astoria City Councilor Drew
Herzig is moving to Massachu-
setts, creating a second open
seat on the City Council for the
November election.
Herzig said he intends to serve
on the council through mid-Sep-
tember. “If all goes well, I will
be leaving town after that, and
the mayor will
appoint someone
to complete the last
few weeks of my
term,” he said in an
email.
Under the city
charter,
vacan-
Drew
cies can be fi lled
Herzig
by appointment
from a majority
of the City Council, or the coun-
cil can adopt a resolution to fi ll
the vacancy at the next available
election.
Herzig, who was elected in
2012 to represent the city’s south
side, is up for re-election this year.
City Councilor Russ Warr,
who is also up for re-election, has
announced he will not run for a
fourth term. Bruce Jones, a former
U.S. Coast Guard commander, is
seeking Warr’s east -side seat.
Candidates have until Aug. 30
to fi le at City Hall.
Israel Nebeker talks songwriting,
infl uences and his father’s death
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
T
he songs in Blind
Pilot’s latest album,
“And Then Like
Lions,” are strung
together by themes of loss
and courage.
But, according to Israel
Nebeker — the band’s front-
man and songwriter who hails
from the North Coast — the
tracks don’t merely medi-
tate on sorrow and grief; they
examine loss from often over-
looked angles — from the way
it can bring families and com-
munities closer together, to the
sudden sense of perspective it
gives to those in mourning.
The album itself — Blind
Pilot’s fi rst in fi ve years —
sprung from loss.
In September 2014,
Nebeker’s father, Royal
Nebeker — an internation-
ally celebrated artist, beloved
teacher and major fi gure in
the local arts community —
died at 69 after battling can-
cer for nearly two years.
Shortly after his father’s
diagnosis, Israel had a falling
out with a group of friends
and experienced the end of a
meaningful relationship — all
within a month, he said.
“I just personally went
through a chapter of my life
where those were the themes
coming to me, where I hadn’t
really experienced loss in that
way before,” he said.
To be sure, Israel had seen
it from the outside. Some
years ago, a high school
friend’s father died of cancer.
“I remember wanting to
console my friend, or give
him what comfort I could,
and really being uncomfort-
able not knowing what the
right thing is to say. And I
realized I had no vocabulary
for it,” he said. “And then I
realized: That’s strange.”
American culture, he said,
lacks the language to grapple
with loss, and with death in
particular.
“It’s not easy for us to
share it, as a community or
even with close friends. It’s a
little bit tricky to know what
to say to people,” he said.
“So I think I wanted to
make an album that was a
conversation about that, and
an invitation into a conversa-
tion about it, from a perspec-
tive that this stuff is not nearly
so hard if we experience it
together.”
Progressive voice
Herzig, a dance instructor who
moved to Astoria from California
in 2009, defeated former Coun-
cilor Peter Roscoe 53 percent to
46 percent in the Ward 2 election
four years ago.
He has been a progressive
voice on the City Council and has
pressed for greater transparency
in city fi nances and operations.
The councilor has also urged the
See NEBEKER, Page 10A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Israel Nebeker, lead singer and songwriter of the
band Blind Pilot, poses for a portrait Friday on a trail
near the house where he grew up in Gearhart.
See HERZIG, Page 10A
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare works toward stability
Crisis respite
center to open
this month
By DERRICK
DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
The new leader at Clat-
sop Behavioral Healthcare is
working to stabilize the strug-
gling mental health agency
and identify the most vulner-
able patients to ensure they
receive quality care.
Amy Baker, the interim
executive director, is trying
to reassemble a crisis team
weakened by staff resignations
Amy Baker
during leadership turmoil over
the past year. The agency is also
hoping to open a crisis respite
center in Warrenton later this
month that could help relieve
pressure on hospital emergency
rooms and the county jail.
“We’re never going to have
the resources to be all things to
all people,” said Baker, who
took over in June after top
administrators left amid pub-
lic and internal criticism of the
agency’s management. “But
our absolute role and neces-
sity is that we know who the
most vulnerable are, and that
includes both adults and kids.”
Clatsop County contracts
with the agency to provide
mental health services. The
agency is part of Greater Ore-
gon Behavioral Health Inc.,
which oversees mental health
in several counties.
Baker, who was the direc-
tor of prevention and trauma
informed systems at Greater
Oregon Behavioral Health,
said her immediate priori-
ties are to ensure client safety,
improve community relations,
open the crisis respite center
and boost employee morale.
Crisis respite center
The crisis respite center was
scheduled to open in April but
was delayed in a dispute over
whether the center would have
secure rooms. Police and city
leaders in Astoria and Warren-
ton wanted secure rooms so
potentially dangerous patients
could not simply walk away.
The partnership behind the
respite center — the county,
Columbia Memorial Hospi-
tal, Providence Seaside Hospi-
tal and Greater Oregon Behav-
ioral Health — agreed that up to
four of the 16 rooms would be
secure.
Baker said Clatsop Behav-
ioral Healthcare, which will
operate the respite center for
the partnership, hopes the facil-
ity can open next week. She said
the agency is still awaiting state
authorization for the four secure
rooms, but licensing could come
after the state makes an assess-
ment in late August.
“Everybody that I’ve talked
to feels like this is going to be
certainly better than what we
have right now,” Baker said.
See CBH, Page 10A