THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2016
FRIDAY EXCHANGE
No to Mo’s
M
any of us make our
home in Astoria because
of this town’s beauty, original
character and unique identity,
and also because of the way
all Astorians work together to
make this community a bet-
ter place. I, and many others
here, are alarmed at the idea
of any kind of generic chain
restaurant on Astoria’s historic
waterfront.
The Mo’s “saltwater taffy”
chain restaurant design in the
space where Vintage Hard-
ware was located does not it
with Astoria’s historic water-
front identity and character. If
you think Mo’s will hurt our
small mom and pop restau-
rants, create terrible trafic
problems on that narrow track
(which is not even a dedicated
“right of way”) and create a
carnival atmosphere in a town
where authenticity is our trade-
mark, please, please come to
the Astoria Planning Commis-
sion meeting on Tuesday at
6:30 p.m. at City Hall.
We need to let our local
leaders know that granting
a conditional use permit for
Mo’s in that location will take
Astoria in a direction most
folks here say they do not want
to go, and set a precedent for
more chains to take over our
valuable spaces.
I am currently research-
ing the city of Astoria’s crite-
ria for a conditional use permit
for Mo’s Restaurant. We need
a large group of engaged and
concerned citizens at the Plan-
ning Commission meeting on
Tuesday. If you have ideas and
thoughts to share about this,
please call me at 503-389-5336.
DANIEL O’DONNELL
Astoria
Terrifying
W
e disapprove of Hil-
lary Clinton’s ties to
corporate money and Amer-
ican imperialism. Nonethe-
less, we recommend to those
who may be considering vot-
ing for Donald Trump, or con-
sidering not voting at all, that
they read Jane Mayer’s arti-
cle about Trump in the July
25 edition of The New Yorker,
“Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter
Tells All.”
In it she describes the expe-
rience of the person hired to
Kids will languish with second-class library
W
hen the City Council voted to
increase the sewer surcharge
to pay for a necessary upgrade to our
sewer system, I grudgingly went along.
After all, it’s part of living in a city with
multiple infrastructure problems.
Now we are being asked to accept a
second-class library to go along with our
irst-class sewer system. Three members
of the City Council (Councilors Cindy
Price, Zetty Nemlowill, and Russ Warr)
bowed earlier this week to a few citi-
zens’ complaints over the issuance of a
bond measure to pay for a new library,
and opted to consider only a bare-bones,
scaled-back renovation of the existing
library — quite possibly at a cost equal
to, or greater than, that of a new state-of-
the-art library at Heritage Square.
Nobody asked me if I would be will-
ing to pay a bit more in property tax to
pay for a new library to help make Asto-
ria the truly great city it deserves to be.
ghostwrite Trump’s book, The
Art of the Deal, and the picture
that emerges of Trump is of a
“sociopath” (deined in Web-
ster’s Collegiate Dictionary
as a psychopath). When one
remembers that our president
has the inal word about using
nuclear weapons, the possibil-
ity that Trump could be elected
is terrifying.
ROBERT and
KERSTIN ADAMS
Astoria
Shame on you
I
was very disappointed in
the City Council meeting
this week. We have a chance
toward making Astoria a bet-
ter city. Libraries are such an
important part of any city, to
be used for reading, research,
computers and enjoyment in
good times and bad. But the
City Council once again shot
themselves in the foot with
indecision, using supposedly
the cheapest way to redo the
library.
Astoria seems to always
just do what’s necessary to
get along instead of actu-
ally accomplishing something
good. They want to continue
in the dark ages instead of
the 21st century. If there was
interest, and that hasn’t been
checked out as yet, we could
I would gladly help pay for a state-of-
the-art library, an art center, a conven-
tion center, a public plaza at Heritage
Square, and, yes, even improvements to
the trolley trestle system. Even though
it might put a strain on my meager
income, as a taxpayer I feel they would
be worth it.
But I didn’t speak up at the last City
Council meeting when the vote was
taken to renovate the existing library. I
didn’t speak up because I am preparing
to leave Astoria, in part for health rea-
sons, but also because I am disappointed
in the political leadership in this city.
Astoria seems to have become a city
of small visions and low expectations.
When I arrived here seven years ago I
was astounded at the vast potential of
the place. Years later, I see that the city
is still grappling with a crumbling infra-
structure resulting from years of neglect
and deferred maintenance, the sorry leg-
ind a way to get the money.
Shame on you council
members Cindy Price, Russ
Warr and Zetty Nemlow-
ill. The only thinking people
wanting to improve the future
of Astoria are Mayor Arline
LaMear and Councilman
Drew Herzig.
SYLVIA DAVIS
Astoria
Clearcut question
F
or years now, I have been
trying to show others why
our native forests are valuable,
how they are composed of an
intricate and interwoven com-
munity of plants and animals
forming a diversity and bal-
ance that is a living forest. I
could understand cutting trees,
but why would anyone want to
kill the whole forest?
It was with a jolt that I
recently discovered how big
timber companies (who own
70 percent of Oregon’s for-
est land) can destroy forests
and leave the scraped hillsides
we see all around us — above
Wheeler, along Oregon High-
way 53 — wherever you live.
The reason is they do not
care. They do not care about
what happens to the earth and
waters, animals and birds,
plants and trees in the area
they manage. Nor do they care
acy of the previous mayor’s long tenure
at the helm.
The current library, in its deplorable
condition and lack of inancial support
from the city, is just one example among
many of serious deiciencies in city
planning. The sewer project is a shining
exception, the result of excellent plan-
ning on the part of an exceptional engi-
neering department.
One would have hoped that the City
Council, the city manager, and the Com-
munity Development Department were
equally up to the task of creating a 21st
century library for the citizens of Asto-
ria, including the children — the ones
who will suffer most from the lack of an
adequate library. This decision, effec-
tively a dumbing down of the commu-
nity, will have disastrous consequences
for generations to come.
CHARLES SCHWEIGERT
Astoria
about what happens to the
adjacent communities. That is
not their purpose. Their pur-
pose is to make money for
their investors. Of course, their
investors do not work or live
in the local community. They
are more likely connected
to inancial centers in Hong
Kong, London, Wall Street or
Panama.
Nor can we say that local
jobs are generated by the log-
ging, since huge machines,
not loggers, are used to bring
down the forest. Nor are other
jobs given to locals, but rather
workers are brought in who
will take the lowest possible
wages. The goal is to gener-
ate as much money as quickly
as possible, and with as little
expense as possible. Hence,
clear cut.
Nor do these big corpora-
tions that use and pollute our
resources contribute to local,
state, or federal taxes. Set up
as a Timber Investment Man-
agement Organization, if they
give 90 percent of their proits
to their investors (who do not
live locally), they are exempt
from federal Income taxes.
In addition, they pay almost
no property tax in support of
county government for local
services.
Let’s see. How does that
add up? Barren hills; no con-
tribution to the community
through jobs, business, or
taxes. Degradation of the land-
scape through clearcutting,
herbicides, burning. Increased
pressure on state managed for-
ests to produce income needed
for local services.
The question is: Why
are we so quietly letting this
happen?
GWENDOLYN
ENDICOTT
Nehalem
Police, irst
I
read the article “LaMear
bears witness to a public
health epidemic” (The Daily
Astorian, July 21). It has to do
with banning assault weapons,
and high-capacity magazines.
I am a widow in my late
70s. My husband had sev-
eral guns, and we used to
go hunting. I have always
been against assault weap-
ons until now. Here is the rea-
son: Many local police depart-
ments throughout our country
now are equipped with com-
bat-ready military hardware.
According to The New York
Times, former tools of com-
bat — M-16 riles, grenade
launchers, silencers and more
— are ending up in local police
departments, often without cit-
izen knowledge (“War Gear
5A
Flows to Police Departments,”
June 8). According to Penta-
gon data, police departments
have received tens of thou-
sands of machine guns; nearly
200,000 ammunition maga-
zines; thousands of pieces of
camoulage and night-vision
equipment; and hundreds of
silencers, armored cars and
aircraft.
Today,
apparently,
police shoot people and don’t
know why. There has been
a lot of that going on lately.
They could easily blow us up
with drones and say “whoops,”
it was a mistake. They could
blow up my walker and then
shoot me while I am lying in
the street facedown, my gray
hair blowing in the wind, with
my hands up. It is conceivable.
When police give up their
military hardware, the citizens
can give up theirs.
DIXIE GAINER
Nehalem
Dam lies
W
hy have Kurt Frisch, the
Columbia River Estu-
ary Study Taskforce (CREST)
and the Skipanon Water Con-
trol District been working so
hard to hide the true impact
of removing the Eighth Street
dam? There are three differ-
ent engineering reports critical
of the applications CREST has
submitted. These reports were
not made available to the com-
mission or the public.
I am very disappointed by
our local media, who continue
to support CREST and the
Skipanon Water Control Dis-
trict while their wrongdoing is
clear. The media has a profes-
sional responsibility to report
the facts.
Questions that need to be
answered:
• What is the extent of
CREST’s corruption?
• Who knew about these
reports, and when?
• Who is involved in hiding
and lying to this commission
and the public?
• Why are whistle blowers
on this issue being attacked?
I look forward to a com-
plete investigation regard-
ing the dam, and to make sure
that all wrongdoers are held
accountable.
PAT O’GRADY
Astoria
S A Y G O O D B Y E
to Steve Forrester
WEL C O M E
David Pero
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