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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2017)
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017 144TH YEAR, NO. 153 ONE DOLLAR LADY WARRIORS EARN THIRD-STRAIGHT WIN SPORTS • 12A Tyla Little, the team’s leading scorer with 17 points. DETOX LACK OF LOCAL OPTIONS AN OBSTACLE TO RECOVERY ODOT culture lacks vision $1 million audit fi nds lack of accountability By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian A single room awaits a new patient at Bridge to Pathways detox center in St. Helens. By DERRICK DePLEDGE The Daily Astorian D Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Amy Baker is the executive director at Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare. “The difficulty with addiction and substance abuse is that people have windows of readiness to be willing to seek treat- ment,” she said. “And if it’s really hard to get them into the services that they need, then you often lose that window of opportunity.” octors and nurses at Columbia Memo- rial Hospital can treat acute condi- tions and symptoms of chronic drug or alcohol abuse, but patients who need to go through the painful withdrawal of detoxifi ca- tion get a card with a list of local rehabilita- tion facilities. The closest medical detox center on the list is in St. Helens, 66 miles away in Colum- bia County. The lack of local detox options can be an obstacle to recovery, a gap in the health care network that can keep people — especially those on public insurance and the uninsured — trapped in addiction. At a Clatsop County Board of Commis- sioners meeting in December, Commis- sioner Lianne Thompson asked Amy Baker, the executive director of Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, to describe an unmet need. Bak- er’s thought was detox. “Outpatient services for substance abuse can be really effective, but if somebody’s got dependency, they’ve got to get clean and sober fi rst in order for those services to really work,” she said in an interview. Baker suspects a fair number of people end up doing detox in jail or at hospitals, but that is not the same as medically supervised withdrawal with specialists who understand the process. “It is pretty much St. Helens, pro- grams in Portland, or people end up doing it on their own,” she said. See DETOX, Page 11A ‘We’re specialized in detoxing them’ St. Helens center is a resource for Clatsop County By DERRICK DePLEDGE The Daily Astorian ST. HELENS — The base- ment rooms of a medical detox cen- ter may seem like a universe away from the world of Harry Potter and Harvard. The message on the bulle- tin board Monday afternoon, drawn in red marker, brought them closer together: “Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life.” SALEM — A long-awaited performance audit of the Oregon Department of Transpor- tation found the agency has a familial culture that is lacking in dissent and accountability and needs a clearer and more coordinated strategic vision for its future. “There is no uniform clarity at the senior level, or with governing bodies, on priorities and the metrics to track achieving them,” the consultants with New York-based McKinsey & Co. wrote in a report on their fi ndings. Yet, overall, the consultants ranked ODOT’s organizational health as better than average, compared with other Western states. The audit is intended to ensure the depart- ment is prepared to effectively manage a potential transportation package that state legislators could approve later this year. See ODOT, Page 4A Burn victim sues butane hash oil producers October explosion rocked Astoria building By NOELLE CROMBIE The Oregonian Nurses at Bridge to Pathways often write inspirational notes for patients going through the agony of withdrawal. The quote from author J.K. Rowling’s commencement address at Harvard in 2008 is about the fringe benefi ts of failure, a use- ful lesson that can apply to struggling novelists as well as the addicted. Bridge to Pathways, a nine-bed facility that opened in St. Helens in 2015, is the closest medical detox option for people in Clatsop County. The detox center mostly serves patients on the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s version of Medicaid, and concentrates on withdrawal from Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian A construction worker who spent a month in a Portland burn unit after being injured in a butane-fueled explosion in Astoria last fall has fi led a lawsuit against the company that made the cannabis extract, the property owner and the company that sold the fl am- mable gas used to make the product. Jacob Magley, 34, of Portland is suing 11 businesses and three people for violations of workplace safety laws. He fi led the suit in Multnomah County and is seeking $8.9 mil- lion in damages. Magley was working as a contractor in the building when it exploded. The suit claims the company making the extract failed to keep butane from fi lling the room. See CENTER, Page 7A Nurses at Bridge to Pathways in St. Helens often write in- spirational notes for patients going through withdrawal. See LAWSUIT, Page 7A Cannon Beach Academy locks in school site Charter school hopes to open By R.J. MARX The Daily Astorian CANNON BEACH — The Cannon Beach Academy char- ter school locked in its pro- posed location at 171 Sun- set Boulevard for at least one more year. The request for a per- mit renewal, presented at the Planning Commission Thurs- day, provides the academy an opportunity to operate a public charter school in a portion of the site’s commercial building. The proposal calls for kinder- garten, fi rst and second grades next fall , growing to kinder- garten through fi fth grade by fall 2020. Maximum enroll- ment would be 75 students the fi rst year, rising to 150 students by 2020. Maximum staffi ng would start at six, reaching a maximum of 10 by 2020. “This proposal is similar to one you approved a year ago that has since expired,” City Planner Mark Barnes told commissioners. “Your con- ditional use permits are good for a year unless acted on. This was not acted on and it died from inaction, so they are starting the process again with a new conditional use permit.” Revised plans for the char- ter school were approved by the Design Review Board last spring. Board mem- bers had hoped to open this school year , but the applica- tion was delayed when issues with Seaside School District arose. “Those issues have been resolved,” Phil Simmons, the director of startup operations, said. “We’re ready to open this fall. We’re ready to get the per- mits and open the school.” He said it was the same request with some slight mod- ifi cations to the fl oor plan. “Everything signifi cant about the last request is contained in this request.” See ACADEMY, Page 4A R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian Phil Simmons, director of start up operations; Kellye Dewey, president; and Barb Knop, treasurer of the Cannon Beach Academy, at the Thursday Planning Commission meeting.
