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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 2016)
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2016 144TH YEAR, NO. 38 ONE DOLLAR Seaside center set to grow Convention Center opens reservation books to 2025 By R.J. MARX The Daily Astorian LAND OF THE GIANTS Photos by David Plechl/EO Media Group Bringing back the Ellsworth Creek watershed’s historic biodiversity and stream health is an ongoing project. “You can’t go out and buy it,” said Dave Rolph, The Nature Conservancy’s director of forest conservation and management. “If you really want an old-growth ecosystem, you have to restore it.” Ellsworth Creek watershed revival breathes life into forest By DAVID PLECHL EO Media Group Agency insists there never was a signed deal By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Dave Ryan is on permanent assignment as The Nature Conservancy’s lead forest- er for the Ellsworth Creek restoration project. “We sort of took the watershed out of its natural trajectory in terms of historic succession,” he said. As a result, species like Sitka spruce, once plentiful in coastal forests, are now mere “remnants.” Watershed renovation Just around the bend from the Willapa Bay Wildlife Refuge, where Ellsworth Slough yawns into the Naselle River, a few dozen weather-worn pilings are all that’s left of a Spruce Division’s local camp, railroad and processing hub. As success- ful as the regiment was at waging war on the giants, it was equally hard on the creek, and its heavy footprint remains stamped across the ecological integrity of the entire watershed. But for the last 15 years or so, The Nature Conservancy has patiently been scooping See GIANTS, Page 10A See SEASIDE CENTER, Page 5A Port pushes hotelier on legal claim W ILLAPA BAY, Wash. — All along Ellsworth Creek, sol- diers were slaying giants. The year was 1918, and the enlisted men were part of the U.S. Army’s Spruce Production Division. Their quarry — the thousand-year-old behemoth trees that once towered in our coastal forests. Cedar and Douglas ir were all knocked down; their enormous timbers would form the backbones and bows of allied ships. But the most prized carcass of all was that of the great Sitka spruce. Beasts that spent eons rooted in rock and earth, in a strange twist of fate, were split, shaped and formed into lightweight frames for World War I ighter planes. An account from just after the war describes the urgency of the massive tim- ber-felling effort in the Paciic Northwest: “No one realized, no one even dreamed that before this single item (aircraft-quality spruce wood) could be produced, an army must be sent to make war in the virgin for- ests, a vast industrial machine must be built up, and a great story of pluck and grit, of daring and patient resourcefulness must be carved out.” SEASIDE — Got a convention in 2025? Now you can book it at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center. The City Council gave the convention center approval to move forward with plans for an expansion and renovation project. “This gives us the ability to open our cal- endars up to 2020-2025 knowing we have the consensus of the council and mayor, if we are successful in the funding process,” said Russ Vandenberg, the center’s general manager. “It means the council supports our recommendation to renovate and add addi- tional space to the center.” Costs are projected at $14.6 million, and could be paid by bonds sold by the city, backed by a 2-percent increase in the city’s room tax. Vandenberg said he not only hopes to recruit larger groups, but to keep current clients. “They’ve grown over the last 25, 30 years and we haven’t added any space in 25 years,” he said. The Nature Conservancy has quilted together multiple parcels of former industrial forestland in the Ellsworth Creek watershed for a restoration project of more than 8,000 acres. Hundreds of those acres are dotted with old-growth stands of cedar, Sitka spruce and Douglas fir. The Port of Astoria is pushing a Portland hotelier suing the agency over a lease on the Astoria Riverwalk Inn to admit there was never a signed deal to operate the property. Luke Reese, an attorney for the Port, is asking Param Hotel Corp., the spurned suitor for the hotel, to acknowledge several key facts before a trial early next year. Param sued the Port in October over claims of local bias shortly after the agency chose Astoria Hospitality Ventures to oper- ate the Riverwalk Inn on a short-term basis. Hospitality Ventures is led by Astoria devel- oper Chester Trabucco and native Astorian William Orr, the head of a seafood proces- sor in Seattle. The Port Commission in June 2015 voted to have staff work out an agreement to operate the hotel with Param, which had been courting Brad Smithart — the hotel’s troubled former operator — since Octo- ber 2014. Reese claims Param canceled contract negotiations before they were completed, while Param alleges the Port wrongfully walked away from a binding agreement. See PORT, Page 5A Diverse millennials are no voting monolith By GILLIAN FLACCUS, TAMARA LUSH and MARTHA IRVINE Associated Press America’s oldest millen- nials — nearing 20 when airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center — can remember the economic pros- perity of the 1990s, and when a different Clinton ran for president. The younger end of the generation — now nearing 20 — can’t recall a time with- out terrorism or economic worry. Now millennials have edged out baby boomers as the largest living generation in U.S. history, and more than 75 million have come of age. With less than three months to Election Day, the values of young Americans are an unpredictable grab bag. What they share is a palpable sense of disillusionment. As part of its Divided America series, The Associ- ated Press interviewed seven millennial voters in ive states where the generation could have an outsized inluence this fall. They are a mosaic, from a black Nevada teen voting for the irst time to a Florida-born son of Latino immigrants to a white Christian couple in Ohio. These voters illustrate how millennials are challenging pollsters’ expectations. “Millennials have been described as apathetic, but they’re absolutely not,” said Diana Downard, a 26-year- old voting for Hillary Clin- ton. “Millennials have a very nuanced understanding of the political world.” America the great Just 5 percent of young adults say that America is “greater than it has ever been,” according to a recent See DIVIDED, Page 5A AP Photo/Lynne Sladky Anibal David Cabrera, 31, stands in front of a mural in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Fla. Ybor City was founded in the 1880’s by cigar manufacturers and was a melting pot for immigrants.
