OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 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
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2006
Two Clatsop County communities apparently heeded Clatsop Com-
munity College’s call for a new $60 million campus.
A majority of voters in Arch Cape and Cannon Beach favored the col-
lege’s $25 million bond measure to help fund the project in the Nov. 7
election, according to a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the county’s
votes.
But most ballots cast in the county’s other 31 precincts — including all
eight in Astoria — opposed the measure. The proposal was defeated 61
percent to 39 percent overall.
Alan Johansson would have marked his eighth anniversary
as Warrenton’s city engineer and public works director next
month.
Instead, Johannson got a call from City Manager Ed Mad-
ere after Tuesday night’s City Commission meeting informing
him that commissioners had voted to eliminate his position, and
the entire engineering department — effective immediately.
Although the item was not on the agenda, Commissioner
Terry Ferguson made a surprise motion at the end of the
meeting.
The phone call came as a surprised to Johannson, who had
been at the meeting but had left early. “It was after I left. I
didn’t have any idea,” he said this morning.
Fire destroyed the Ilwaco Volunteer Fire Department building Thurs-
day night, along with just about everything inside.
No one knows for sure how the fire started, but Chief Tom Williams
said he suspects it was an electrical fire in the old building’s wiring that
sparked the blaze and set of the fire alarm.
50 years ago — 1966
Astoria merchants kicked
off the Christmas shopping
season last weekend with
lighted streets and decorated
Astoria Column, stores open
until 9 Friday night, and a
parade Saturday that drew
more children than such
events have ever done before.
First steps to organize a local
chapter of the national Coast
Guard league took place at a
meeting of about 25 local busi-
ness men, Coast Guard officers
and retired Coast Guardsmen in
J.J. Astor Hotel Monday evening.
Russians estimate they
have caught about 22 mil-
lion pounds of Pacific Ocean
perch and hake off the U.S.
West Coast this year. They
also believe hake stocks are
good enough to permit indef-
inite fishing.
Applicants for navy shore sta-
tion service had an opportunity
to see the U.S.S. Amber, former
personal yacht of John Barry-
more, when it was berthed at
the naval section base here. The
craft has a gun forward and is fit-
ted out for regular patrol duties.
The State Sanitary Authority Wednesday was warned that the Colum-
bia River could suffer the same fate as other streams in the country if pro-
posed recommendations for lowering pollution standards were adopted.
But SSA spokesman Ken Spies said no testimony presented at
Wednesday’s hearing here “gave any justification for changing the
recommendation.”
Spies, state sanitary engineer, has recommended adoption of standards
for the Columbia that would allow four times the number of coliform
bacteria in the river below the Vancouver Interstate bridge that is allowed
upstream from that point.
75 years ago — 1941
Martin Johnson, 93, believed to be Astoria’s oldest resident,
died Monday.
Mr. Johnson was last surviving member of the original 30
men who organized the old Union cannery that was forerunner
of the present Union Fishermen’s Cooperative cannery.
This group acquired a tract which was later divided up to
form what became known as Uniontown, colloquial term for
Astoria’s west end. Site of the old union cannery is now occu-
pied by the Elmore cannery.
The war drums are really beating around the shores of the Pacific
Ocean these days. The Japanese envoys are getting nowhere with their
Washington conversations and the Japanese spokesmen back in Tokyo
are sounding off as belligerently as ever. The United States, Britain and
the Netherlands Indies are busy with war preparations on the biggest scale
so far, and no wonder. They have little faith in Japan’s peace protesta-
tions any more and suspect that any peace talk Japan now puts up is just
a method of stalling for time.
The Japanese are now definitely in a place where they must put up
or shut up. The powers aligned against them have adopted the most firm
attitude shown to date. If the Japanese really want peace, they must do
more than say so – they must accompany peace gestures with some real
concessions toward the demands of these nations which have denounced
aggression.
There is strong opinion that, if we must ultimately fight Japan, we
might as well do it now when Japan has no chance of help from her axis
allies.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Holiday giving comes
in many different forms
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
S
EASIDE — The sound of
coins rattling in a washing
machine slot and the spinning
of a dryer are hardly what you think
of when it comes to charity.
In Seaside, however, volunteers
and supporters of Laundry Love are
helping provide those in need with
clean bedding, clothes and outer-
wear. And once a month, they head
down to the Sea-
side Laundromat,
where donations
provide up to two
loads of laundry
free per family —
no strings attached.
The event earlier this month was
described by organizer Shirley Yates
as the largest one in the four years of
the program’s existence.
“We ended up using all our fund-
ing within two hours,” Yates said. “It
was so huge there was a line of peo-
ple waiting to do their laundry an
hour early. We usually go from 11
to 2. We had to shut it down at noon
because we had used up all our fund-
ing at that point.”
Two seniors from Seaside High
School, Marysol Alcantar and Chan-
nene Prendergast, helped with the
clothing drive as part of their Pacifica
Project. Friends and supporters —
including Victoria Daniels, Adrienne
Alexander, Nevaeh Hazen and Carl
Yates — found themselves busy fill-
ing and refilling the coin slots, hand-
ing out hot dogs and coffee and col-
oring pages to the kids.
Jeremy Mills of State Farm Insur-
ance in Seaside donated the use of
his garage to store and sort clothes.
More than 30 families partici-
pated in the event, receiving two
loads of laundry per family, including
detergent and dryer sheets.
“They are so thankful, so recep-
tive,” Yates said. “We feel so
blessed. You guys have been so
amazing in giving to people in our
community.”
Laundry Love takes place the sec-
ond Saturday of every month at 1223
South Roosevelt Drive; the next
event is 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 10.
Holiday treasures
Before I went over to the Holi-
day Treasures Boutique last Thurs-
day, PEO education chairwoman
Diane Somers told me the event
would exceed my expectations. She
was right.
I wasn’t prepared for the line that
greeted the Holiday Treasures event
of the Seaside PEO organization, the
stacks of cakes, cookies and hand-
crafted gifts.
It took the PEO a couple of years
to find the right type of occasion
to share their fundraising mission,
Somers said.
First they tried a strawberry short-
cake affair, then a garage sale during
the annual Hood to Coast relay
weekend. That was the year of the
big storms and a power outage.
In the aftermath, PEO changed
course and conceived Holiday Trea-
sures. Several PEO chapter members
are also members of the Sou’Wester
Garden Club, which maintains the
cottage gardens through the spring
plant sale fundraiser and hiring land-
scaping services to supplement mem-
bers’ “hands-and-knees” gardening
efforts.
Using Butterfield Cottage for a
holiday fundraiser made sense.
“It is not the typical craft sale
venue and presentation, Somers said.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Gayle Spear and Marcia Hartill at the PEO Holiday Treasures event.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Shirley Yates shares the mes-
sage of Laundry Love at Sea-
side’s Chamber of Commerce
breakfast Nov. 18.
“Butterfield Cottage is a special place
to us. It was such a success we didn’t
need to reinvent the wheel, and strug-
gle out to figure out a new idea each
year.”
At the event, Marcia Hartill and
Gayle Spear greeted guests in their
most becoming holiday garb: garish
Christmas sweater and reindeer ant-
lers. Marion Benke — described by
Somers as “finance chair, visionary
and chair of the fundraiser” — pre-
sided over new arrivals.
Benke told me she retired to Sea-
side after “living all over” and man-
aging a retail business in Beaverton.
She’s been with PEO since 2006 and
with the fundraiser for the past two
years.
“We support ladies who really
need to go back to college,” Benke
said. “Some are adults, some are not
quite adults yet.”
On a mission
Education is their mission —
PEO, with chapters in the U.S., Can-
ada and England — stands for Phil-
anthropic Education Organization.
Scholarships are awarded to grad-
uating seniors college students and
women re-entering the workforce.
Local PEO organizations sub-
mit candidates to the state chapter,
which awards the scholarship funds
annually.
“We always we look for goals and
if they have focus in what they want
to do,” PEO’s chapter president and
former education chairwoman Jan
Kenny said.
“Most of the women who are
returning are very committed and
dedicated to getting their degrees
and to doing really good commu-
nity things,” she said. “They have a
good future and are generally very
successful.”
Scholarship recipients study for
degrees at all levels, and “lots getting
their Ph.D.’s,” she added. “All our
girls are success stories.”
The Cannon Beach Chapter spon-
sors two local women through schol-
arships or low-interest loans: Alanna
Kieffer, a junior majoring in biology
and marine sciences and Raedetta
Castle, manager of the Seaside High
Start Program. Castle was selected to
receive a low-interest loan, enabling
her to pursue her MBA through
Marylhurst University in Portland.
“It’s a very rigorous process, so if
you get a scholarship from us, you’re
very deserving,” Kenny said. “I think
it’s wonderful.”
Holiday cheer
Meanwhile, outside Butterfield
Cottage at 10:55 the morning of
Antique Treasures, the line was three
deep and filled the parking lot. Holi-
day cheer was just five minutes away.
“This was successful, we really
enjoyed putting it together,” Somers
said. “It’s fun for us to see people
come and enjoy what we do. I love
working on events because you really
get to know the people you’re work-
ing with.”
While this year’s Holiday Trea-
sures was a one-day affair, guests
will still have time to visit Butterfield
Cottage for the Gingerbread Tea. The
Butterfield Cottage will be decorated
in Victorian holiday style and open
from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, Dec.
3, 10 and 17.
The museum and cottage are
located at 570 Necanicum Drive
in Seaside, four blocks north of
the Seaside Civic and Convention
Center.
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and edi-
tor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon
Beach Gazette.