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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 18, 2016)
COAST WEEKEND: THREE DECADES OF CONSERVATION INSIDE 144TH YEAR, NO. 35 DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016 ONE DOLLAR Guilty plea in child murder case Smith faces life in prison but avoids death penalty By KYLE SPURR The Daily Astorian Jessica Smith will face life in prison after she pleaded guilty Wednesday to drowning her toddler daughter and slashing her teenager in a Cannon Beach resort in July 2014. Smith, 42, of Vancouver, Washing- ton, entered Alford pleas to aggravated murder and attempted aggravated mur- der following two days of settlement talks in Circuit Court. An Alford plea is a guilty plea from a defendant who proclaims their innocence, but admits the prosecution has enough evidence to prove they are guilty. Smith remained seated in court, kept her head down and spoke quietly as she answered for her crimes. In a written plea petition, she accepted the evidence against her, “wishing to avoid additional stress and harm” to her surviving daugh- ter, Alana Smith, her family and herself. Last week, Judge Cindee Matyas allowed a video confession to be played at trial. The video was seen as a inal blow to Smith’s defense. Jessica Smith pleaded guilty Wednesday in Clatsop County Circuit Court to aggravated murder and at- tempted aggra- vated murder of her children. Danny Miller The Daily Astorian See SMITH, Page 3A State school board leaders adopt lead testing rule Local districts need a plan by October By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau Photos by Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Christian Saputo, center, and Sam Long made nametags and put the finishing touches on a bench for Saputo’s cat, who Long said is drawn to metallic smells. More photos online at DailyAstorian.com High-school students perfect welding at college By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian O On the last day of class at Clatosp Commu- nity College, Warrenton High School stu- dent Brayden Chase cut out his grandfa- ther’s nickname for him in metal, inserting it into Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. n the last day of class, Sam Long and Christian Saputo put the inish- ing touches on a bench for Saputo’s cat. Brayden Chase inished cutting out his grandfather’s nickname for him, forged from a steel plate and inserted into Albert Ein- stein’s theory of relativity. Patrick McCargish inished fashioning a metal mask modeled from his left hand. Hoping to learn welding skills for the future, 14 Warrenton High School stu- dents on Monday completed an eight-week course at Clatsop Community College’s career-technical campus under Harley Bris- tol, former director of the college’s weld- ing program. See WELDING, Page 10A SILVERTON — The Oregon Board of Education adopted a new rule Wednesday that for the irst time requires school districts to test for lead in water at district-owned build- ings and report those results to the public. The board in June agreed to fast-track adoption of the new rule at the request of Gov. Kate Brown, after widespread media coverage of a scandal in Portland Pub- lic Schools over lead in drinking water that went unreported. The rule requires school districts to sub- mit a preliminary plan for testing for both lead and radon by October, with a inal plan due by January. While the rule gives no spe- ciic deadline for testing for lead, it does require districts to report results to the pub- lic within ive business days and to send out an annual report. “What we like about this plan is that part of what we saw in Portland was the com- munity didn’t have access to information, and in fact, when you have large institutions information can get lost over the years,” said Emily Nazarov, operations policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Education, who headed up the rulemaking. “By creating a plan you have one place that community members and parents can look to ind out how does the school district address radon, how does the school district plan to address water.” The Board of Education pushed ahead with the rule despite protests from school advocates who said the timeline was too tight and expressed worry about where to ind money to address the cost of testing and mitigation. “You are setting up a framework by which we have assurances at the state level that our schools are taking action in a com- prehensive way toward health and safety,” said Oregon Chief Education Oficer Lind- sey Capps. “It’s an imperative that every stu- dent should be entitled to.” Additional costs Warrenton High School students got to play around with plasma cutters Mon- day at Clatsop Community College’s ca- reer-technical campus, after passing an eight-week introductory course. The requirement will entail hun- dreds of millions of dollars in additional costs to schools in the form of testing, See LEAD, Page 7A State, Linn County spar over timber lawsuit State attorneys ight class action claim By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Bureau ALBANY — Linn County shouldn’t be allowed to repre- sent other counties in a law- suit seeking $1.4 billion from Oregon over its forest man- agement practices, according to the state’s attorneys. It’s also impractical for the case to proceed as a class action due to the different forest circumstances in each county, the state’s attorneys claimed during oral argu- ments Wednesday in Albany. The county iled a lawsuit against the state earlier this year, arguing that insuficient logging had cost 15 counties — including Clatsop County — more than $1.4 billion. The complaint claims these counties turned over ownership of forestlands to Oregon in the early 20th cen- tury with the expectation the state would maximize timber revenues, but since 1998, for- est managers have instead pri- oritized wildlife habitat, water quality and recreation values. More than 650,000 acres were donated to Oregon by Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Douglas, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, and Washington counties. Linn County is seeking class action status for the law- suit, permitting it to represent the other counties in the case. Scott Kaplan, an attorney for the state, said the prob- lems in managing the case as a class action would be “enormous.” The counties donated 183 separate parcels of land to the state, each of which contains different slopes, tree types, See TIMBER, Page 7A EO Media Group/File Photo Linn County is suing the state over how it manages Or- egon Forest Trust Lands. The suit, filed on behalf of 15 counties that donated timber land to the state, seeks $1.4 billion in lost revenues.