DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 79
ONE DOLLAR
Port gives up lease tied to LNG project
Agency had leased property on Skipanon Peninsula
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
The Port of Astoria Commission
on Tuesday voted to relinquish the
agency’s lease of more than 90 acres
on the Skipanon Peninsula that was
planned for an LNG project.
The Port had been leasing the
property in Warrenton from the
Department of State Lands since the
mid-2000s. The agency subleased the
property to Oregon LNG, a subsidi-
ary of New York-based holding com-
pany Leucadia National Corp.
Earlier this year, Oregon LNG
abandoned a highly controversial liq-
uefi ed natural gas terminal planned
for the peninsula. A lawyer for the
company sent the Port a letter in April
requesting the Port terminate its sub-
lease. The request said Oregon LNG
was winding up its affairs and had
paid for the sublease on the peninsula
through November.
Jim Knight, the Port’s executive
director, said the agency’s fi rst lease
payment of $129,000 on the prop-
erty would be due Nov. 1. “I have met
with the head of DSL, and they would
be willing to accept a last-minute ter-
mination without penalty,” he said.
Commissioner Bill Hunsinger, the
lone “no” in the 4-1 vote on the motion
to terminate the lease, described the
peninsula as “perfectly good property
that has not been maintained.”
He said the commission has been
asking staff for months to investigate
whether Oregon LNG had allowed
the land to go to seed, violating an
agreement to return it in a similar
condition as when the lease started.
See PORT, Page 11A
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
The Port Commission on Tuesday voted to relinquish its lease of more
than 90 acres on the eastern side of the Skipanon Peninsula from the
Department of State Lands.
Control
‘OVERLOOKED ASTORIA’
of dam
Historian says
preservation a
remains
matter of values
and vigilance
murky
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
storia, the oldest American settle-
ment west of the Rocky Moun-
tains, prides itself on historic
preservation, but it takes considerable
dedication to keep this reputation.
At Tuesday’s Historic Landmarks
Commission meet-
ing, local historian
John Goodenberger
gave a presentation
titled “Overlooked
Astoria ” that high-
lighted the history
embedded in every
corner of town —
and made clear that
the community has
John
much to lose if it
Goodenberger
isn’t careful.
Alongside the
obvious assets worth preserving — such
as Victorian homes and other specimens
of antique architecture — are relics that
even locals fail to notice.
Water district and
Warrenton could meet
A
See ASTORIA, Page 11A
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
Photos by John Goodenberger/For The Daily Astorian
ABOVE: The John Hobson House, built in 1863, on Bond Street was added to the Na-
tional Register of Historic Places in 1978. BELOW: The Union Fishermen’s Coopera-
tive Packing Co. Net Loft (a.k.a. “Big Red”) is a remnant of the Columbia River’s salm-
on fishing and canning industry, and a place of interest for local preservationists.
WARRENTON — The clash over con-
trol of the Eighth Street Dam took another
turn Tuesday when an attorney for Warren-
ton acknowledged the federal government
may have an ownership interest.
Akin Blitz, a Portland attorney hired by
the city to research the dam’s history, had
presented a fact-fi nding report to the City
Commission in September that concluded
the city owned the dam based on a 1938 Cir-
cuit Court ruling on the title of nearby land.
The attorney argued that the Skipanon Water
Control District, which has operated the dam
since it was built on the Skipanon River with
the help of the federal government in 1963,
forfeited a city easement to use the property
by removing the tide gates.
But Blitz said Tuesday that based on
recent correspondence with federal authori-
ties, the dam likely remains a federal asset
tied to the city’s levee system. The riverbed
underneath the dam, he said, is owned by the
Department of State Lands.
See DAM, Page 4A
RODEN TRIAL
Pathologist
asserts that
toddler died
of infection
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — The Cannon Beach
Academy saw its goal of opening
next year move closer Tuesday night
when the Seaside School District
Board of Directors approved the
organization’s charter application
without conditions.
Nearly four years after a group of
residents initiated an effort to create
a charter school in Cannon Beach,
the organization reached a signifi -
cant milestone with the approval of
its charter. With that piece resolved,
Lyra Fontaine/The Daily Astorian
The defense of accused killer Randy
Roden presented a key medical witness Tues-
day as it tries to prove a fl esh-eating bacterial
infection killed 2-year-old Evangelina Wing.
Roden, 28, has been charged with mur-
dering his ex-girlfriend Dorothy Wing’s
daughter and abusing her two sons, now 3
and 7, in a Seaside
apartment the two
shared two years ago.
He faces the death pen-
alty if convicted.
The couple called
911 on Dec. 20, 2014,
after
discovering
Wing’s daughter unre-
sponsive. Her two
sons were also found
Randy
injured and taken into
Roden
protective
custody.
Prosecutors believe
the children were tortured, burned, bitten
and caged in the months before Evangelina
Wing’s death, in one of the worst cases of
child abuse in Clatsop County’s history.
See SCHOOL, Page 4A
Cannon Beach Academy board members Kellye Dewey, Patti Rouse,
Kimm Mount and Barb Knop at a July board meeting.
See TRIAL, Page 11A
Cannon Beach charter school wins board OK
Academy could
open next fall
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For The Daily Astorian