DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 157
ONE DOLLAR
Winter wonderland blankets North Coast
Some braved the elements, area schools affected
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Sharon Collyer, a server at Bridge-
water Bistro, could have driven her
truck to work Sunday. Instead, she
chose to walk the entire mile-and-
a-half distance in the freshly fallen
snow — and, in Astoria, enjoy a cli-
matological rarity.
“That’s how awesome this is to
me,” Collyer said.
On her way, she stopped beneath
the eaves of the Arc Arcade at 10th
Snow falls on
the Peter Iredale
shipwreck at Fort
Stevens State Park
Sunday.
and Commercial streets and chatted
with two friends, Amy Denny and
Jesse Bateman.
Denny, of Astoria, said she also
decided to venture outside on foot so
Samantha Hollo
Submitted Photo
See SNOW, Page 7A
A look at
county’s
timber
decision
Clatsop only county
out of 15 to opt out
of class-action suit
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Dave and Kerry Strickland hold a photograph of their son, Jordan, on Wednesday in their home in Knappa. Jordan died
in Los Angeles in July 2015 from a heroin overdose.
Knappa mom looks
to help others after
son’s overdose death
Clatsop County contains nearly one-quar-
ter of state-run forestlands involved in a law-
suit brought by Linn County against the state
over timber revenue. But Clatsop was the
only one of the 15 counties covered by class
action to opt out .
Linn County’s lawsuit claims the state
violated a contract to maximize sustainable
harvests on land deeded by counties in the
1930s and ’40s. The lawsuit claims state
polices from emphasizing recreation and
conservation have cost the counties a total of
$35 million a year in timber revenue since
2000. It also seeks future payments of $35
million a year to account for the lost revenue.
Deemed a class action by a Linn County
Circuit Court j udge, the lawsuit grew to
include 15 counties and approximately 130
taxing districts, all of which stood to gain siz-
able settlements were the lawsuit successful.
The governing bodies of the affected
counties and taxing districts had until Jan.
25 to let the court know if they wanted out.
Most did nothing, by default staying in the
lawsuit.
An outlier
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
ntering his senior year at Knappa High
School in 2007, Jordan Strickland had a goal in
mind.
A multi sport athlete, he had earned awards as a
running back on the football team as a junior . For
his fi nal season with the Loggers, he was aiming
for a Player of the Year honor. But during
the fi rst game , he dislocated his elbow, side- HELP OR
lining him for most of the season and end-
GET HELP
ing any hope of more awards.
“He lived and breathed sports, so the jordanshope.org
injury was devastating,” Kerry Strickland, provides informa-
tion about recovery
his mother, said.
With sports no longer consuming as and is accepting
much of his time, Jordan attended a party donations.
later that same school year, where he was
introduced to prescription drugs like O xyC ontin. As he devel-
oped an addiction , he soon began using the drug that would kill
him six years later: heroin.
Kerry Strickland Photo
See JORDAN’S HOPE, Page 7A
Jordan Strickland was a multisport athlete at Knappa
High School.
According to a fi ling last week by law-
yers for Linn County, fi ve of the nine tax-
ing districts that opted out were in Clatsop
County.
Four — County Rural Law Enforce-
ment, Road District No. 1, the county affi l-
iate of Oregon State University’s 4-H and
Extension Service programs and the Clatsop
County Fair — were automatically removed
as plaintiffs by the county Board of Commis-
sioners’ decision. The board of directors for
Sunset Empire Parks and Recreation District
voted last month to opt out.
Michael Hinton, chairman of Sunset
Empire’s board, said the group didn’t agree
with the change in forest practices that might
result from the lawsuit, and that the district’s
budget doesn’t rely on timber revenue.
“I think we made the right decision,”
Board of Commissioners Chairman Scott
Lee said about the county’s decision last
month to opt out. “And of course I’m disap-
pointed other taxing districts didn’t opt out. I
still think I made a right decision.”
See LAWSUIT, Page 7A
Shipwreck hunters of the Oregon Coast
Combing
through
history’s
wreckage
EASIDE — Ever have
a fascination with ship-
wrecks? Did you ever wonder
about the mysteries surround-
ing their demise, stories of
lost treasures, or about claim-
ing the rights to abandoned
wrecks?
Maritime
archaeologist
Christopher Dewey does and
during the Seaside Museum
and Historical Society’s His-
S
tory and Hops lecture at Sea-
side Brewing Co. in Janu-
ary , he answered questions to
unravel a few mysteries and
myths .
Dewey is a retired naval
offi cer, an adjunct instructor at
Clatsop Community College
and founder of the Maritime
Archeology Society in Asto-
ria. He is listed on the Regis-
ter of Professional Archaeolo-
gists and is a secretary of the
interior and Oregon qualifi ed
archaeologist. If that wasn’t
enough, he is a modern-day
shipwreck hunter in Oregon
and Washington state.
Unlike treasure hunters,
he searches for, investigates
and documents shipwrecks
and maritime archaeologi-
cal sites. He and a team of
volunteers search sites using
side-scan sonars, a magne-
tometer and a remote operat-
ing vehicle much like Robert
Ballard used to fi nd the
Titanic, the Bismarck and the
U S S Yorktown wrecks, but
smaller.
See HUNTERS, Page 7A
Christopher
Dewey at
“History and
Hops” discusses
shipwrecks off
the Oregon C oast.
Rebecca Herren
The Daily Astorian