OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
10 years ago this week — 2006
Wildlife Biologist Kirsten Brennan is familiar with the Leadbetter
Point refuge. She spends a lot of time there, keeping an eye on the prog-
ress of the Western snowy plover, a small brown and white shorebird
listed as endangered in Washington state.
But on Sept. 5, she noticed something she had not seen before — a rare
plant that had not been seen for about 56 years.
To help the recovery of the plover, efforts are under way to restore the
bird’s habitat. Invasive European beach grass has been scraped away and
oyster shells spread over the exposed sand, ideal for the plovers’ nesting
needs and similar to the open windswept sand dunes that once existed.
Brennan was watching for the plovers when she noticed the plant. It
grew low to the ground, gripping the sand. Interspersed among the thick,
waxy green leaves were pink clusters of lowers, like small balls of trum-
pets facing outward, no bigger than a thumb.
“I felt stunned,” she said.
Brennan had found some pink sandverbena. The last time anyone
had seen the plant in Washington was in the early 1940s. In Washington,
pink sandverbena is listed as “extirpated.” Once widespread, it is consid-
ered endangered in Oregon, threatened or endangered in California, and a
“species of concern,” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wind and rain have worn the red off its walls, loosened the
wooden slats that bind it together and left it pockmarked and
sagging like an old barn.
The Red Building is the last structure from the Union Fish-
ermen’s Cooperative Packing Co. still standing on the water-
front. Its patchy red frame sits on the pilings south of the Can-
nery Pier Hotel.
People from the Washington coast to Washington, D.C.. are
lining up to buy space in this building. They are picturing white
tablecloths and ine wine under its slouched roof and ballroom
dancing on its battered wood loors. Young couples are tour-
ing the loft inside, where bird droppings cover the ground, and
reserving the space for their wedding day.
Local entrepreneurs Ryan Davis and Shawn Helligso are
transforming the former cannery maintenance shop into a
shopping square with a banquet hall upstairs and rows of tall
windows overlooking the Columbia River.
50 years ago — 1966
Architect’s sketch of Crown Zellerbach’s mill complex at Wauna
shows how area will look in April 1967, when construction is to
be finished.
Several gillnetters last week found ish that apparently were dying but
showed no visible sign of injury, according to William Puustinen, Colum-
bia River Fishermen’s union oficial.
Puustinen said he caught a salmon which would sink, then struggle to
the surface, lap its gills rapidly, then sink again. He turned it over to Ore-
gon Fish commission laboratory for study.
Japanese ishing boats will drop 200 cider bottles into the
Paciic Ocean off Hawaii next month in an unusual type of mail
service.
The bottles will be empty except for containing letters from
Japanese school children here seeking pen pals from Mexico
and the United States.
The children hope the ocean currents will carry their bot-
tled letters to the West Coast of America and Mexico.
Three boats of the state’s ferry leet will be up for public auction Octo-
ber 12, Oregon Highway Department has reported.
Alaska Development company, which put up down payment on the
boats Tourist 3 and Tourist 2 at an auction sale several weeks ago, has
decided not to complete the deal, forfeited its down payment, and turned
the boats back to the highway department. They will be offered again for
sale.
75 years ago — 1941
In high spirits in more ways than one over the huge run of
salmon in the river, Arthur Michael Lehto, a Saturday night
celebrant, was arrested by city police at Thirty Third Street
and Waterfront for breaking car windows in his own car.
Patrolman B. Mathre was dispatched to the scene where he
found Lehto armed with rocks he was throwing with as delib-
erate aim as he could muster at the windows of a car. Before
Mathre could stop Lehto the back window shattered under the
impact of a well-directed toss.
Police were unable to explain why Lehto was iring at his
own machine. Their only guess was that he didn’t realize it was
his own car. Mathre’s report noted that Lehto was “feeling very
good” and was well provisioned to continue in his happy mood.
He was booked for disorderly conduct and released on $15 bail.
The following information on iring practice from Fort Canby was
released this week by harbor defenses of the Columbia River.
“There will be iring by seacoast artillery from Fort Canby, Washing-
ton on Oct. 3 or as soon thereafter as the weather permits. The target will
be a red pylon about two miles west of channel buoy No. 1 at the mouth
of the Columbia River.
When saying yes
means ‘just say no’
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
I
n Cannon Beach the biggest sur-
prise of the November election is
the sound of silence.
After a City Council meeting this
spring opened the doors licensing
of retail marijuana dispensaries
within city limits, opponents reacted
quickly. “We will do an initiative,”
Cannon Beach resi-
dent Marlene Laws
announced after the
meeting.
Despite the
success of state
Measure 91 allow-
ing recreational sale and possession
of small amounts of marijuana —
approved by 63 percent of Cannon
Beach voters in November 2014
— the city only licenses businesses
which abide by local, state and fed-
eral law, which excludes pot. After
hearing opinions from both sides of
the issue, councilors considered an
array of options, including to opt out
of state law and maintain a ban on
marijuana sales
Sam Chapman of New Economy
Consulting appeared before the
council announcing
his intention to open
a dispensary, but
until the city makes
up its mind one
way or another, he
decided to wait.
“We are waiting
for the Cannon
Sam
Beach City Council
Chapman
to make a decision
to allow medical marijuana dispensa-
ries,” Chapman, who lobbied for the
state’s Measure 91 legalizing recre-
ational cannabis, said in March. “It
sounds like they’re split on the issue.
I hope they decide that they’re bring-
ing new jobs and a new economy …
I’m hoping sooner rather than later
the council will allow dispensaries
to exist.”
In April, with pressure to take
action from the state, councilors were
divided over the range of options:
repeal of the existing ordinance that
prohibits the operation of any mari-
juana facility, declare a ban on sales
or refer the matter back to the voters.
Councilors never actually
approved or denied the licensing of
retail dispensaries; rather, they voted
not to vote. Their action effectively
opened the city’s door to retail dis-
pensaries and recreational sales.
Opt-out initiative
Either way, residents could have
forced an initiative to reverse their
decision, and they did.
Marlene and Gary Laws, Jeremy
Randolph, Nancy Giasson and Molly
Edison formed the committee that
brought the opt-out initiative to the
city.
“I’d ask that you consider the fact
that there is no good place in Cannon
Beach for recreational marijuana
sales,” Randolph said. “I moved to
Cannon Beach for a very speciic
purpose. I wanted to live in a village.
This is not a tourist town; this is a
resort town.”
Their declaration immediately
sent off alarm bells.
Pro-pot and anti-pot yard signs in
Cannon Beach during peak tourist
months? That’s something Cannon
Beach City Councilor George Vetter
said he feared. “It’ll be headlines
in Portland,” Vetter said at a late-
spring Cannon Beach Chamber of
Submitted photo
Lawn signs like this one from NORML have yet to make their appear-
ance in Cannon Beach.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Zach Zappone of Sweet Relief at
the August THC Fair in Astoria.
Cannon Beach cannabis users
may have to be satisfied with
sweet relief outside of their own
city limits.
Commerce coffee meeting. “Not too
many towns are saying no with the
kind of reputation we have. We’re
a very well-known community. We
reach to Vancouver, Seattle. If we
don’t have to go through that, I don’t
want to be the impetus.”
Vetter said he feared the city
would lose out on state and local
sales tax revenue on the sale of can-
nabis— disallow it and get nothing
from the state’s projected annual take
of more than $50 million in cannabis
tax revenue.
“But the main risk of denying
permits for cannabis sales is the
publicity that would be associated
with the decision,” Vetter said.
“This is going to be during our peak
season. We’re going to have all these
marijuana signs, in stores and shops,
signs that would be a distraction.”
In early July, the City Council
voted 4-1 to adopt an ordinance with
time, place and manner restrictions
for medical and recreational mari-
juana businesses, limiting sales down
from Ecola Creek to Washington
Street on the south, midtown from
Harrison Street on the north to Elliot
Way on the south, and Tolovana Park
from Delta Street on the north to the
northern boundary of Sand Castle
Condominiums on the south.
On the ballot
As they had announced,
Randolph and the anti-cannabis
lobby in Cannon Beach gathered
the 155 signatures and iled their
petition. Measure 4-179 prohibits
the sale of recreational marijuana
in Cannon Beach, and asks voters:
“Shall recreational marijuana pro-
ducers, processors, wholesalers, and
retailers be prohibited in Cannon
Beach?”
If voted in, the measure would
prohibit the establishment and
operation of recreational marijuana
producers, processors, wholesalers
and retailers within the city of
Cannon Beach.
If approved, the city would be
ineligible to receive a share of state
marijuana tax revenue and unable to
impose local taxes or fees on its sale.
A separate vote initiated by the
city will ask residents if a 3 percent
tax should be applied to recreational
marijuana sales.
The lawn signs feared? Not so
much. Cannon Beach cannabis advo-
cates are more furtive than a tourist
with a vape pen.
Chapman and possibly others yet
to declare themselves are waiting for
the city’s results.
“We are waiting for the
November vote to occur, then will
move forward with solidifying our
inal location,” potential dispensary
owner Chapman said.
Stalemate
Until then, the city is at a stale-
mate. City Planner Mark Barnes said
the city’s business license require-
ments remain the same as they
were before state residents endorse
Measure 91.
“Since marijuana is still illegal by
federal law, we can not accept any
business license applications at this
time,” Barnes said.
As for the lawn signs and national
publicity?
No one registered an opposition
to the initiative when it was adver-
tised in the paper per Oregon law,
Barnes said. “So I do not know of
any organized opposition to the ini-
tiative to ban recreational marijuana
businesses within the city limits of
Cannon Beach.”
City Manager Brant Kucera said
there has “not been a lot of activity”
on either side, and the city had not
received any licensing requests. “I’ve
had maybe in the last six months two
phone calls — and really nothing. It’s
pretty low-key, apparently.”
“It’s pretty much under the
covers,” Cannon Beach Chamber of
Commerce Executive Director Court
Carrier said this month. “I do hear
that people have so much access in
other communities, it doesn’t seem to
be a pressing issue.”
“I think Trump’s trumping it,”
Kevan Ridgway of the chamber
added.
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and edi-
tor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon
Beach Gazette.