11A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2016
Astoria: City went on demolition binge between 1965 and 1974
Continued from Page 1A
On the city’s north slope,
for example, pedestrians will
encounter dark brass rings set
into concrete curbs. These are
horse rings, once used to tie
the reins of horses.
In some spots, portions of
old brick streets remain.
The 1300 block of Franklin
Avenue, Goodenberger said,
may represent a compromise
between horse-drawn vehicles
and automobiles: The cen-
ter of the street was laid with
brick for the animals, while
the sides were paved for cars.
“We’re talking about
really, really, really small
things,” he said. “But it also
does matter, because our
homes and our cities are alike:
The loss of small parts can
add up quickly.”
Oral history
The value of historic pres-
ervation extends beyond phys-
ical structures. A town’s oral
history and urban legends,
which can reveal a crucial
context for what took place
there, are also important.
Growing up in Astoria,
Goodenberger heard tales of
a Chinese encampment in the
nearby forest. Some folks said
that on a spring day, a hiker
could still smell the herbs and
vegetables growing in a Chi-
nese garden.
Though Chinese immi-
grants settled in Astoria,
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
John Goodenberger delivers his presentation, “Overlooked Astoria,” at the Historic Landmarks Commission meeting.
they were not welcomed
wholeheartedly.
“Back in the 1920s, we
ran many of our Chinese out
of town,” Goodenberger said.
A handful of them led to the
hills above Astoria.
About a decade ago, while
he was working on a document
for the city listing Astoria’s
historic resources, Gooden-
berger decided to track down
the rumored encampment.
He knew the general area
where the camp would have
been situated and, after a
failed attempt to ind it unac-
companied, explored the area
with a city employee.
On their hands and knees,
they crawled through the
underbrush, looking for arti-
facts. Eventually, they found
part of a Chinese tea cup and
other tell-tale objects. (The
Komodo dragon rumored to
roam the area to the present
day was not discovered.)
“We were able — we think
— to locate about where (the
encampment) is,” Gooden-
berger said.
He and the city don’t
make a habit of revealing the
archaeological site’s where-
abouts to the public, lest peo-
ple start raiding it.
Vigilance
This may not seem like a
lesson Astorians would need
to learn. But this is the same
city that went on a demoli-
tion binge between 1965 and
1974.
During this period, the
city of Astoria demolished,
or compelled property owners
to demolish, more than 150
problematic buildings to pre-
vent the struggling commu-
nity from becoming an eye-
sore-ridden ghost town.
Goodenberger,
who
teaches a course in historic
preservation at Clatsop Com-
munity College, said it is
easy to justify demolishing
or removing an old building
when the community’s mind-
set declares: “‘There are so
many others like it,’ ‘It just
doesn’t have any value,’ or
‘No one will miss it when it’s
gone.’”
“We have a choice: We can
be mindful of our homes and
our neighborhoods, maintain
its character and character-de-
ining elements; we can sup-
port and promote codes and
ordinances which protect our
assets; we can vote for candi-
dates who share these values,
but we must be vigilant — or
not,” he said.
“Should we choose to
ignore our historic resources,
so will everyone else,” he con-
tinued. “Potential industry,
investors, small business, new
residents and the next genera-
tion will, as well. And we will
simply be overlooked.”
Port: Knight said Port hadn’t budgeted $129,000 a year for property
Continued from Page 1A
Commissioner
James
Campbell said he has seen
the property do nothing
over the past 50 or so years.
“The property will be there
for another 1,000 years, and
probably nothing will be
developed on it,” he said.
Although he voted “yes,”
Commissioner Stephen Ful-
ton said Oregon LNG should
still be paying its lease and
supporting the Common
School Fund, a statewide
educational fund supported
by the state’s land leases.
He said the Port should have
investigated assigning the
lease back to the state and
letting them handle Oregon
LNG.
“I think staff has got
something up their sleeve
regarding this property that
they’re not telling us,” he
said.
Fulton referenced an arti-
cle in The Daily Astorian in
which Knight discussed the
possibility of Bonneville
Power Administration pay-
ing to build higher, federally
certiied levees farther inland
in Warrenton, creating more
off-stream salmon habitat
to offset the impacts of the
agency’s hydroelectric dam
system. The BPA inances
such restoration projects,
many of them overseen by
the Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce.
Knight has said he irst
learned of the idea from
Fulton, who works on wet-
lands issues for Warrenton
Fiber Co. Fulton is one of the
Port’s representatives on the
task force’s council of gov-
ernments. But he has clashed
with the group, whose chair-
man, Scott Lee, has ques-
Trial: ‘You have to look at it scientiically.’
Continued from Page 1A
Wing,
who
pleaded
guilty in January to irst-de-
gree manslaughter and two
counts of irst-degree crim-
inal mistreatment, testiied
last week. In exchange for
testifying against Roden, she
will receive a plea deal that
brings her prison sentence
down from a life sentence to
approximately 15 years.
An autopsy found the tod-
dler died of battered child syn-
drome with blunt force trauma
to her head. But Roden’s attor-
ney, Conor Huseby, argues
that Dorothy Wing caused
her daughter’s death through
abuse, along with compli-
cations from the lesh-eat-
ing virus methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus infec-
tion, which was found on the
children. Huseby has sought
to have the case dismissed
because signs of the infection
were never investigated.
On Tuesday, Huseby called
Dr. Janice Ophoven, a Minne-
sota-based pediatric forensic
pathologist hired by defense
attorneys to provide expert
testimony. Ophoven argued
that while Evangelina Wing
sustained abuse and neglect,
she ultimately succumbed to
septicemia, in which a bacte-
rial infection enters the blood
stream.
Taskforce. Commissioners
Fulton and Hunsinger have
been critical of the group.
During public comment
Tuesday, local business-
man Pat O’Grady pointed to
a report by the city of War-
renton’s lawyer Akin Blitz
that raised questions about
the task force’s work on the
Eighth Street Dam.
• The commission voted
3-2 in a largely decorative
motion to ratify Knight’s
recent decision to accept
$390,000 from Bornstein
Seafoods in exchange for
collateral the agency held in
the company’s former ish
cannery, now Buoy Beer Co.
The commission approved
the swap in September 2013,
but Bornstein Seafoods had
not delivered the money until
May. The collateral was to
help cover a $10.5 million
loan the Port took out from
the state in the mid-2000s
to help Bornstein build a
new ish plant on the cen-
tral waterfront. Hunsinger
and Fulton, who called for
the motion, claim Knight
sidestepped the commission
in his decision to accept the
money.
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AP Photo/Ross William Hamilton
Dr. Janice Ophoven, speaks to the jury at Clackamas
County Circuit Court in Oregon City in 2009.
lesions and the heart mus-
cles, on which abscesses were
found.
CMH Imaging Services at
503-338-7525 to schedule
your next mammogram.
Is this trauma?
Burns or lesions?
Ophoven disagreed with
the state’s autopsy, argu-
ing that some of the marks
on Evangelina Wing and her
brothers identiied as burns
were actually lesions from
impetigo, a highly contagious
skin infection that causes red
sores.
“In my opinion, these chil-
dren were literally covered
with these open sores that
were infected with bacteria,”
she said.
If bacteria enters the blood
stream from such sores, she
said, the toxins they create
can inhibit the body’s ability
to maintain blood pressure.
tioned whether Fulton serves
the Port or Warrenton Fiber.
Knight said there was
nothing up his sleeves, and
that the Port had not bud-
geted for the $129,000 a year
for the Skipanon property. He
has also previously said the
Port has no legitimate argu-
ment against Oregon LNG in
a lawsuit, which the agency
risked by refusing to termi-
nate the lease.
In other business:
• The commission could
decide at a Nov. 1 workshop
whether to leave the Colum-
bia River Estuary Study
Evangelina Wing
“Children will eventually
get to a condition known as
irreversible shock,” Ophoven
said.
The shock causes the body
to lose consciousness, she
said, and stops circulation to
the brain. “Once you enter
irreversible shock, you’re
probably going to be gone
within a couple hours or so.”
Ophoven said the autopsy
should have considered infec-
tious causes of death, tak-
ing more samples from the
Under questioning by Dep-
uty District Attorney Ron
Brown, who is leading the
prosecution, Ophoven said
her last autopsy was in 2009.
She said her last autopsy in
a suspected child homicide
was in the 1990s. Brown also
pointed to an autopsy per-
formed by Ophoven in the
1980s in which she concluded
a child died of natural causes,
before the mother later admit-
ted that her boyfriend suffo-
cated the child.
Brown led Ophoven
through a series of photos
showing the marks on the
bodies of Evangelina Wing
and her two brothers, ask-
ing her if it looked like signs
of trauma. Ophoven said she
agreed there was child abuse,
and that trauma played a part
in Evangelina Wing’s injuries
and death. But she maintained
that the toxic bacteria entering
the blood stream and leading
to irreversible shock caused
her death.
There should have been an
infectious autopsy performed,
she said, looking at things
under a microscope instead of
with the naked eye. “You have
to look at it scientiically. We
(forensic pathologists) are not
supposed to speculate.”
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