ASTORIA HOOPS TEAMS WIN HOME TOURNEY GAMES SPORTS • PAGE 10A
DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 129
ONE DOLLAR
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Children play near the Peter Iredale
shipwreck at sunset earlier this month.
Beyond
Oregon’s
Beach Bill
Local naturalist
explores history, future
of public beaches
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Life Flight Pilot Dan Leary performs a preflight inspection of the helicopter on Monday in Warrenton. Life Flight’s base and
hangar are currently in separate areas of the Astoria Regional Airport. A new proposed space at the airport would combine the
hangar and base into one centralized location. The new hangar would be about 80 by 90 feet.
Every minute counts
LIFE FLIGHT EXPANSION BRINGS OPPORTUNITY — AT A PRICE
By LYRA FONTAINE
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH — The public has
enjoyed access to state beaches since the
Oregon Beach Bill passed almost 50 years
ago. Although beaches are now celebrated,
public access was once challenged by a Can-
non Beach hotel owner, and the bill almost
died before citizens brought it back to life.
Local naturalist Neal Maine delved into
the history of the landmark legislation and
discussed future opportunities for public
education at a Cannon Beach Library lecture
this month sponsored by Friends of Hay-
stack Rock.
See BEYOND, Page 7A
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
W
ARRENTON — A new
hangar for Life Flight
Network at the Asto-
ria Regional Airport brings both
opportunity and a steep price tag.
The nonprofit medevac flight
service, which opened its first
coastal base in Warrenton last
spring, received $665,000 from
the state Department of Trans-
portation’s ConnectOregon infra-
structure grant program and is
investing another $285,000 to
build a new hangar next year.
Life Flight is in talks with the
Port of Astoria on the best location
at the airport, with one spot ready
and another more attractive site
needing an additional $1 million
in groundwork.
Every minute counts
Life Flight’s pilots, nurses,
paramedics and mechanics are
now based in a portable office and
living space just north of Lektro,
the electric tug manufacturer.
Jacob Dalstra, a spokesman
for Life Flight, said the crew can
launch after a call within seven to
10 minutes, day or night, when the
helicopter is parked outside in fair
weather. But the response time can
double when Life Flight’s helicop-
ter is stored in a rented executive
hangar on the south end of the air-
port’s tarmac, a quarter mile away
from the crew quarters.
“When somebody’s bleeding
or having a heart attack or stroke,
that’s precious time,” Dalstra said
to the Port Commission last week
during a presentation about the
hangar.
Dalstra said the new hangar,
about 80 by 90 feet, would put
all of Life Flight’s crew and heli-
copter under one roof at all times.
Construction should be smooth,
he said, because the hangar is the
same as the flight service has built
in Pendleton and Lewiston, Idaho.
When icing levels reach the
same as cruising altitude, Dalstra
said, Life Flight’s helicopters can-
not fly. Dalstra said the new han-
gar would help Life Flight bring
in a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop plane
for flying in colder conditions.
Direct access
Henry Balensifer, a spokes-
man for Lektro who also serves
as a Warrenton city commissioner
and a member of the Port’s Airport
Advisory Committee, reported to
the Port Commission last week
that the advisory committee came
up with two tenable locations for
Life Flight’s new hangar.
One option is to build on Life
Flight’s location north of Lektro, a
site ready to build and acceptable
to the nonprofit.
The advisory committee’s pre-
ferred option is an undeveloped
section of field at the southern tip
of the airport, wedged between
Airport Lane, the Port’s existing
small aircraft hangars and a taxi-
way to Runway 13-31. While
See LIFE FLIGHT, Page 7A
YEAR IN REVIEW
Wildlife refuge
takeover tops
Oregon stories
Dan Travers, a pilot and customer service manager for Life
Flight Network, points to one of the proposed locations for the
service’s new hangar in the southeastern portion of the Asto-
ria Regional Airport Monday. Currently, Life Flight’s base and
hangar are about 1/4 mile apart.
Measure 97 fails,
oil train derails,
higher wage prevails
By STEVEN DUBOIS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — It was truly a story for
all of 2016. Ammon Bundy and his followers
seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
on the day after New Year’s and remained in
the headlines through December. Unsurpris-
ingly, the armed takeover and its aftermath
was overwhelmingly selected Oregon’s story
of the year in the annual vote conducted by
The Associated Press.
Every editor or news director who sub-
mitted a ballot of 10 top stories included
the takeover on his or her ballot, and nearly
everyone had it No. 1.
After that, it was a jumble. The gap
between Bundy and the second-biggest story
— the defeat of Measure 97, the corporate
tax — was larger than the gap between the
No. 2 story and the 10th-place finisher.
Life Flight Network Pilot Dan Leary performs a preflight in-
spection of the service’s helicopter Monday in Warrenton.
See 2016, Page 4A
The Roses are building a new life in Little San Francisco
Couple moves
north, buys a
stake in Astoria
OUR NEW
NEIGHBORS
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
HIGHLIGHTING PEOPLE WHO ARE NEW TO THE COMMUNITY
all it habit.
Miriam and Wil-
liam Rose owned a building
in downtown San Francisco.
Retired and seeking respite
from the big city, the couple
sold their California holdings
and moved north to Astoria —
dubbed Little San Francisco
by some — slightly more than
a year ago.
Now the two once again
own their own slice of down-
town real estate, with the
recent purchase of the Hobson
Building from Sean and Steph-
anie Tichenor.
C
‘Someplace different’
“We wanted someplace dif-
ferent,” said Miriam, a retired
corporate banker who was
born and raised in the Bay
Area. “We looked at Port-
land, but they had just as much
traffic.”
William, retired after 40
years in construction, said he
had visited the North Coast on
hunting and fishing trips. He
taught stone sculpture in Oak-
land, California, and said the
art scene of the North Coast is
part of what drew him in.
See THE ROSES, Page 7A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Miriam and William Rose, the new owners of the Hobson
Building in downtown Astoria, can be seen walking their
3-year-old Irish wolfhound, Ena.