5A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
Security: ‘There is no way we can manage this level of security’
Continued from Page 1A
at the courthouse. Tradition-
ally, the Sheriff’s Ofice is in
charge of courthouse security
with one deputy on-duty each
day. The heightened security
last week required four to ive
deputies.
“We assessed the true fac-
tors surrounding this trial and
came to the conclusion there
is no way we can continue to
manage this level of security
with our current stafing levels
for what could be up to three
months in length,” Bergin
wrote in an email to Brown-
hill and other court and county
oficials Friday.
Bergin said his deputies are
already overworked patrolling
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Security was scaled back at the Clatsop County Courthouse after the sheriff and others
objected to the added manpower and costs.
and covering shifts in the jail,
including inmate transports to
prison, Tillamook jail, medical
and dental appointments and
court appearances. The Sher-
iff’s Ofice does not have the
personnel to move those shifts
to the courthouse, Bergin said.
“I know we have the court
security fund to help pay for
these extra hours but that does
not address the fact we just do
not have the manpower,” Ber-
gin wrote in the email.
Moore said talks are ongo-
ing to ind a permanent solu-
tion to secure the courthouse
following the death pen-
alty trial. Everyone seems to
agree the courthouse needs
tougher security, Moore said,
but various factors need to be
considered.
Moore estimates stafing
enough deputies for a fully
secured courthouse could cost
$300,000 a year, which would
have to be worked into the
county’s budget.
In addition, Moore said, the
various oficials need to deter-
mine how much they want to
inconvenience people enter-
ing a public building. One pro-
posal is to build a separate
security screening entrance for
the public, including people
with disabilities.
“This is the public’s build-
ing. We don’t want to make it
too dificult,” Moore said. “It’s
inding the balance between
appropriate access and appro-
priate security.”
Bergin said he is doing
what he can with the resources
he has to secure the court-
house. He does not want to
create a false sense of secu-
rity. Until a permanent plan is
agreed upon, Bergin will con-
tinue to work with the court
and county oficials.
“I understand your con-
cerns and know this is a differ-
ent world in which we live, but
there also has to be some com-
mon ground,” Bergin wrote in
the email.
Dam: ‘It made a difference knowing that we actually do own it’
Continued from Page 1A
Questions swirl
The City Commission had
twice signed off on a $1.2 mil-
lion agreement to remove the
dam and build a single-lane
bridge so the city could pre-
serve emergency access over
the river. But the commis-
sion declined to renew the
agreement in May as ques-
tions swirled about the poten-
tial consequences of removing
the dam. The water district and
the Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce announced
they would move forward with
the project without a bridge for
the city, but CREST pulled out
after it became clear the city
might make legal claims.
Critics of the dam’s removal
— including Mayor Mark
Kujala’s family, which owns
property near the dam, and the
Nygaard family, which owns
Warrenton Fiber — warned of
the potential for looding if the
dam was taken out.
Privately, critics also
relayed to commissioners that
Kurt Fritsch, the city manager
at the time, did not disclose
a city consultant’s technical
review of the water district’s
engineering plan on the dam.
The technical review ques-
tioned whether the water dis-
trict and CREST had accu-
rately modeled the lood plain.
Fritsch said it would have
been inappropriate to share the
technical review with the City
Commission, which may have
had to hear an appeal once the
Planning Commission decided
whether or not to approve the
dam removal project.
After learning that com-
missioners might place him
on administrative leave pend-
ing an independent investiga-
tion, Fritsch resigned in June,
explaining that he had become
a distraction.
Preliminary indings
The City Commission
assigned Blitz in July to sort
through the issues surround-
ing the dam, particularly
ownership.
In a presentation of his pre-
liminary indings Tuesday
night, Blitz contended that the
city owns the dam and should
take control of the structure,
either for lood control or as
a “priceless” asset that could
one day be removed as wet-
lands mitigation for a develop-
ment priority.
The attorney said it makes
sense for the city to control
the dam because of the uncer-
tainty around evolving federal
lood-control regulations that
could inluence land use and
property insurance.
“I don’t think there can be
any question that we do not
know what the consequence
of a dam removal will be, and
that it could be substantial, and
it’s, at best, dificult to fore-
see,” Blitz said. He said the
structure is “an asset that the
city should hold and main-
tain until such time as the city
chooses to offer to remove it as
offsetting mitigation for devel-
opment priorities that may
arise for the city of Warrenton
effecting wetlands.”
Blitz relies on a 1938 Cir-
cuit Court ruling on the city’s
title claim to land and a 1962
easement for the water district
on the dam.
According to the easement,
the property reverts back to
the city once the water district
ceases to use the easement to
operate the dam.
Blitz argues that the water
district ceased operating the
dam as intended when the
district chose to permanently
leave the tide gates open
in 2012. The water district
removed the tide gates last
year. The district has also bar-
ricaded a gravel road over the
dam.
Ownership tangle
The city and the water dis-
trict have long presumed the
water district owns the Eighth
Street Dam. The U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture helped
build the dam in 1963, along
with two other lood control
structures on the Skipanon
River. The water district, cre-
ated with the support of the
city, had an operation and
maintenance agreement with
the federal government.
In a 2014 letter, after the
dam and the other structures
reached the end of what the
ll
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6 PM
‘Game-changer’
City
commissioners
seemed convinced by Blitz’s
presentation that the city is the
rightful owner of the dam. “It
made a difference knowing
that we actually do own it,”
Commissioner Tom Dyer said.
“That was a game-changer for
me.”
Some who had fought the
dam’s removal interpreted
Blitz’s indings as vindication.
Warrenton Fiber, for exam-
ple, had raised early concerns
about lood control while the
Kujala family and others were
focused on getting a wider
bridge over the river.
Warrenton Fiber has feuded
with the Columbia River Estu-
ary Study Taskforce on land
use issues. CREST was going
to use salmon-restoration
money from the federal Bon-
neville Power Administra-
tion to help the water district
remove the dam.
“I must say, it conirms a lot
of the things that we brought
up,” said John Nygaard, an
attorney whose family owns
Warrenton Fiber, adding “I
told you so.”
Nygaard claimed that
CREST, the water district and
their allies — in coordination
with the local media — inten-
tionally misled the commu-
nity and attempted to defraud
property owners “by hiding
the actual looding and levee
impacts their proposed proj-
ect would cause in order to
improperly secure a $1.2 mil-
lion contract with BPA.”
Fre
e
as
Est F
ima t t
es
Jeff Hale P ainting
Over 20 years local experience
503-440-2169
Jeff Hale,
Contractor
LICENSED
BONDED
INSURED
CCB#179131
LISTINGS
W EDNESDAY E VENING
L
National Inventory of Dams
or the state’s dam safety
database.
• Residential
• Commercial
•Cedar Roof Treatments
• Interior & Exterior
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
A
federal government described
as their 50-year useful lives,
the USDA’s Natural Resources
Conservation Service said the
water district was “free to oper-
ate and maintain the structures
as the owner” or pursue modi-
ications or decommissioning.
Blitz said the federal gov-
ernment’s “sloppily written
letter” did not convey own-
ership rights to the dam.
Scheller, at the water district,
has acknowledged that the dis-
trict has no deed to the prop-
erty, but has had operational
control for 53 years.
Blitz suggested the city con-
duct a new hydrology report to
determine whether the dam is
useful for lood control. The
state Water Resources Depart-
ment, after a 2012 inspection,
had found that the dam may
no longer be capable of lood
control and could probably
increase risk to people near
the dam in a major lood. The
state said an engineering anal-
ysis and options for removal
were warranted, but if the
dam was not removed, further
evaluation and analysis was
necessary.
The dam is not in the
Evening listings
WEDNESDAY
S EPTEMBER 28
A - Charter Astoria/ Seaside - L - Charter Long Beach
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