9A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2016
Candidates: Housing scarcity poses unique problem
tor, she said, needs educated
workers, such as engineers,
and will provide portable,
well-paying jobs.
Boone, the legislative lead
on the Oregon Resilience Plan,
added the state will need these
skilled workers to prepare for
the Cascadia Subduction Zone
earthquake, which is likely to
take down transmission lines,
possibly for years.
Bobek said Oregon needs
angel investors to enter the
state and promote small busi-
nesses. The state, he added,
should embrace new technol-
ogies, as well.
Jones said the most excit-
ing thing happening in Asto-
ria right now is the city’s eco-
nomic development strategy,
“Advance Astoria.”
“I think there’s a great
potential to attract small firms
— white-collar and blue-col-
lar firms — to Astoria, (work)
together holistically with all
those different partners that
are on the economic develop-
ment team, and to bring liv-
ing-wage jobs to our commu-
nity that would also help the
city’s taxes.”
Brownson agreed that
“Advance Astoria” is a good
start. One of the strategy’s
goals is to diversify local
industry.
He said it is tempting to ride
the wave of tourism “because
here it is.” But, in his view, the
city should try to attract busi-
nesses that will continue to
thrive if tourism drops.
Continued from Page 1A
Can’t please everyone
Jones, a retired U.S. Coast
Guard commander, has can-
vassed door-to-door on the
east side. Housing, he said, is
the most critical issue identi-
fied by the residents he spoke
with.
But, in Astoria, the housing
scarcity poses a unique prob-
lem for politicians:
“There’s not a single option
you can think of to address
this issue which isn’t going
to upset a constituency. Not a
single one,” he said.
Therefore, he continued,
“you have to decide: Do we
either just say we’re not going
to do anything about it, or do
we accept the fact we’re going
to make a few people unhappy
and just try to mitigate that as
best as possible? I’m in favor
of that approach.”
Jones said he supports
exploring the recommenda-
tions, laid out last year in Asto-
ria’s housing study, that could
put a dent in the problem.
These include setting up an
ad hoc housing task force that
could identify locations for
affordable housing and reg-
ulatory changes to stimulate
affordable housing.
Jones does not believe
the shortage can be seriously
dealt with unless the city
looks at high-density housing,
whether in abandoned down-
town buildings or on the scant
parcels of developable land
Bruce
Bobek
Astoria has left.
“This is a huge problem,
it’s not going away, and we
have to do something about
it,” he said. “And I think the
idea that we should freeze
Astoria in time and not allow
for any new construction is
crazy. Astoria has evolved for
over 200 years and will con-
tinue to evolve.”
‘A very tough situation’
Pederson, a music teacher
and symphony conductor,
acknowledged that, with tour-
ists passing through and so
many properties used as vaca-
tion rentals, “it’s a very tough
— a very tough — situation to
handle.”
He wondered why some
vacant downtown structures
have not been rehabilitated
for housing purposes. He also
believes the historic character
of Astoria must be preserved.
“You’ve got a community
where you want to keep the
architecture,” he said. “You
want to keep the style. You
want to keep the originality of
Deborah
Boone
Tom
Brownson
it. That’s apparent. You must
keep that — that’s what’s so
charming about Astoria.”
Brownson, a retired con-
tractor, said that “10 years
ago, this didn’t seem like it
was going to be a problem,”
he said. “And it has just blos-
somed into a serious problem.”
It is difficult, he said, to
offer specific solutions to the
housing crisis, but, as a city
councilor, he can work to
encourage development that
fits the town.
“Astoria may not be where
all the housing takes place,” he
said, “but we need to really sit
down and get a good, strong
vision of what we want Asto-
ria to look like.”
Brownson said the city
should reach out to hous-
ing development corpora-
tions that can help sort out the
challenges to building new
housing.
‘A group effort’
Bobek, a physician and
president of the medical staff
at Columbia Memorial Hos-
Bruce
Jones
pital, said the lack of housing
is a statewide issue. He noted
that several coastal communi-
ties have made the creation of
more housing units a goal.
When it comes to policies
related to zoning and housing
density, communities looking
to increase the housing stock
need to “be a little bit flex-
ible,” said Bobek, a former
Warrenton city commissioner.
“Where we have land, we
should build (housing),” he
said, adding: “This is going to
be a group effort.”
Boone, who has served
as the District 32 represen-
tative since 2004, suggested
turning to Oregon Solutions,
whose mission is “to develop
sustainable solutions to com-
munity-based problems that
support economic, environ-
mental, and community objec-
tives and are built through the
collaborative efforts of busi-
nesses, government, and non-
profit organizations.” (Flood
mitigation in the Tillamook
Basin, for example, was one
such problem.)
Cory
Pederson
A group of stakehold-
ers, convened by the gover-
nor, would meet to discuss
how best to resolve the issue.
Boone, whose background is
in construction and oceanog-
raphy, has worked with Ore-
gon Solutions.
In addition, state agen-
cies that deal with land use
and development would make
good partners in the effort to
create more housing, she said.
“There’s a lot of opportuni-
ties out there,” she said.
Jobs
Garner asked the panel
what they can do to help bring
sustainable industry to the
area, and provide living wages
to residents.
Boone said her go-to sector
is renewable energy. The state
is working to ensure its largest
utilities provide 50 percent of
their electricity through certi-
fied renewable resources by
2040.
“It’s just the way of the
future, I think,” she said.
The renewable energy sec-
Seafood: Per capita consumption
in US went up by nearly a pound
Continued from Page 1A
Landings and the value of
the seafood landed were pos-
itive, Merrick said, and recre-
ational fisheries on both sides
of the country remained strong.
Pollock, menhaden and
salmon topped the list for vol-
ume of landings, while lob-
sters, crab and shrimp were
the most valuable of landings.
Alaska, of course, led all the
states in both value of landings
—$1.8 billion — and in quan-
tity of commercial landings.
Per capita consumption of
seafood by Americans went
up by nearly a whole pound
and U.S. commercial fisher-
men landed 9.7 billion pounds
in ports scattered across the
nation for a value of $244 mil-
lion, an increase in landings
but a decrease in value as com-
pared to 2014.
West Coast landings
Zoom in on the West
Coast, however, and the story
becomes more nuanced.
Astoria overtook Newport
as the top West Coast port for
commercial fishing. Astoria
recorded 92 million pounds
of commercial fish, the 13th
highest mark in the nation. The
catch was down from 122 mil-
lion pounds in 2014, when the
city was the 12th highest.
The value of Astoria’s com-
mercial catch was $38 mil-
lion, down from $43 million
in 2014.
Newport had 65 million
pounds of commercial fish —
21st — down from 124 million
pounds in 2014. Newport’s
catch also declined in value,
dropping to $33 million, down
from $53 million in 2014.
Westport,
Washington,
recorded 84 million pounds of
commercial fish, down from
100 million pounds in 2014.
The value of the commercial
catch in Westport increased to
$65 million, up from $64 mil-
lion in 2014.
Ilwaco-Chinook, Washing-
ton, had 15 million pounds of
commercial fish, down from
27 million in 2014.
Fishermen on the Pacific
saw strong halibut and salmon
seasons. Commercial land-
ings of salmon, in particular,
were up by 345 million pounds
across the West Coast, though
for both Oregon and Washing-
ton state there was a decrease
in salmon landed. On the rec-
reational side of things, anglers
took 4 million trips and caught
over 14 million fish in Cali-
fornia, Oregon and Washing-
ton state. The bulk of these
trips — roughly 92 percent —
occurred in California.
Still, the NOAA study
Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian
Joseph Tanner, center, survived a shark attack while surfing on the Oregon Coast
earlier this month. With him were West Woodworth, who helped pull Tanner from the
ocean; Roye Ely, Tanner’s mother; and Stephen Tanner, father.
Surfer: Shark missed bone, key nerves
Continued from Page 1A
Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond was the first to
apply the 1950s movie monster name “The Blob” to a dis-
ruptive zone of warm water off the Pacific Northwest coast.
records declines in landings for
many fisheries here while the
Pacific sardine fishery closed
entirely, as did the Dungeness
crab fishery for a time.
Year of the Blob
For fishermen based on
Oregon’s North Coast and in
southwest Washington at the
mouth of the Columbia River,
2015 was the year of the Blob,
a persistent expanse of warm
water that began in the Gulf
of Alaska in 2013 and moved
south in 2014. It brought trop-
ical and subtropical strang-
ers to Oregon and Washing-
ton’s chilly waters: moonfish,
swordfish and even several
very hypothermic Olive Rid-
ley turtles.
The Blob, a name coined by
Washington state climatologist
Nick Bond, persisted off the
Oregon and Washington coasts
throughout 2015, helped out
by the arrival of El Niño con-
ditions. For sockeye and sum-
mer-run Chinook migrating
back to the Columbia River
that summer, it proved deadly.
Drought, believed to be
related to the unusually warm
water off the coast, meant
low-flowing, uncomfortably
warm rivers and streams for
the returning salmon. Coho
returns to the Columbia River
that fall were the lowest in 25
years, according to NOAA,
while the impacts on young
salmon that migrated to the
ocean that spring and summer
will not be known for several
more years.
And then there was the
largest and most wide-
spread harmful algal bloom
NOAA believes has ever been
recorded.
Fisheries biologists noted
high levels of the naturally-oc-
curring marine toxin domoic
acid in razor clams and, ulti-
mately, shut down popular
razor clam digs in both Oregon
and Washington. When the
toxin was later seen in Dunge-
ness crab at unsafely high lev-
els, fishery managers closed or
severely limited the lucrative
crab fisheries in California,
Oregon and Washington.
Fishermen and fishing com-
munities in all three states are
still feeling the effects. Domoic
acid levels continued to fluctu-
ate into 2016, delaying the start
of the Dungeness crab season
this year in Oregon and Wash-
ington. And razor clam digs in
both states were closed again
recently because of high levels
of the toxin.
But in fishing, an activ-
ity always at the mercy of a
host of constantly shifting fac-
tors, there’s usually some good
mixed in with the uncertain:
One big persistent problem
that plagued 2015 could be
finally going away.
As recent storms have swept
through the area, churning up
the ocean, the Blob “appears to
be breaking down,” said Toby
Garfield, director of environ-
mental research at NOAA’s
Southwest Fisheries Science
Center.
And, as the Pacific North-
west leaves El Niño behind
and enters La Niña conditions,
strong upwelling and the more
frequent storms associated
with La Niña conditions could
help keep large algal blooms
and domoic acid scares at bay.
Such blooms are depen-
dent on weather conditions,
Garfield said, and it looks like
the West Coast is returning to
“more normal conditions. But,
he added, “We won’t know
until farther into the spring.”
“I just paddled my life
away. That was probably the
scariest moment, trying to get
back to the shore and leaving a
trail of blood,” Tanner said. “I
couldn’t lift up my arms any-
more and I just rolled off my
board in six inches of water and
people came from all over.”
Directing care
Tanner, a critical care nurse
at Legacy Emmanuel Hospi-
tal’s intensive care unit, imme-
diately began telling his rescu-
ers what to do.
He directed them to make
a tourniquet from a T-shirt
and, when that wasn’t tight
enough, he told them to make
another out of the leash from
his board.
Six people used a surf-
board like a backboard and
carried him up a steep slope
and over rocky ground to the
parking lot above.
While they waited for
help, Tanner had them call the
ambulance and provide his
blood type in case he needed
a transfusion.
He also told them to cut
off his wetsuit so paramedics
could start an IV when they
arrived.
All the while, Tanner could
feel himself getting weaker, he
recalled.
“I started getting light-
headed and that freaked me
out because I know that’s the
first sign of shock,” Tanner
said.
When paramedics arrived,
Tanner insisted that the rescue
helicopter fly him to Legacy
Emmanuel, where he knows
the trauma staff.
“I remember being in the
trauma bay and two of my
co-workers were on either side
of me. They were in drapes
and lights and they literally
looked angelic. It was like a
breath of relief to see these
familiar faces,” Tanner said.
He required three surgeries
and will need physical ther-
apy, but the shark missed his
bone and key nerves.
No one got a good look at
the shark, but Tanner said he’s
been told by several experts
that it was likely a great white,
based on the jaw mark on his
leg.
As he recovers, Tanner
hopes other surfers can learn
from his experience.
All surfers should know
how to tie a tourniquet and
know their blood type — and
a thick wetsuit doesn’t hurt, he
added.
“I wore the thickest wetsuit
that they sell,” he said. “That
wetsuit quite possibly saved
my life.”
PAM ACKLEY
Experience and
Community Involvement
Committed to
Warrenton’s Future
Warrenton Commission Position 1
Thorough investigation on development rights of the public
Work to solve housing issues & living wage jobs
Support building, fi shing & forestry industries
Work to solve juvenile substance abuse in our community
Endorsed By:
• Clatsop Association of Realtors
• David Hoggard, Owner REMAX River
& Sea
•
•
•
•
Trina Hoggard, Owner Seaside Temps, LLC
Chris & Jeanette Hayward
Robert & Cheryl Fulton
Doris Warren
• Darlene Warren & Family
• Greg Peterson & Sydney
Van Dusen
• Charlie & Rinda Shea
• Dale Barrett
• Frank & Jodi Orrell
• Diane Collier
ackleycompaign@gmail.com
C OMMUNITY I NVOLVEMENT
Warrenton City Commission
Position 1
• Co-Director: Warrenton-Hammond
Healthy Kids, Inc.
• Windermere Foundation:
Representative 2010 to current
• Way to Wellville: City Representative -
Economic Development
• Liaison for the City: Hammond Marina
Task Force
503-717-3796