7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2017
Oregon lawmaker wants
meadowlark out as state bird
Dave
Bennett
and the
Memphis
Speed
Kings
keep the
crowd
dancing
during the
Seaside
Jazz Festi-
val kickoff
Thursday
at the Elks
Lodge in
Seaside.
Associated Press
Danny Miller
The Daily
Astorian
Festival: ‘We never miss it’
Continued from Page 1A
“We always have a good
time at this fest,” Meregil-
lano said. “Lots of dancing,
lots of enthusiasm for ’50s and
’60s rock — Jerry Lee Lewis,
Johnny Cash, early Elvis
Presley.”
“A lot of Sun Records,”
Smith said. “And a lot of clari-
net. We play some Benny Good-
man and Charlie Christian.”
Dancers are among the most
passionate audience members.
Steve Gillyatt of the town
of O’Brien in southern Oregon
came to the Seaside festival
after an event in Fresno, Cal-
ifornia, two weeks ago. “Not
only are they having the tradi-
tional Dixieland and jazz stuff,
they’re adding variety,” Gilly-
att said.
Becky Armistead of Coos
Bay is a board member of the
South Coast Clambake Jazz
Fest, which at 25 years old, is a
contender with Seaside for the
state’s most venerable jazz fes-
tival. Armistead goes to at least
four jazz fests a year, including
Seaside.
Barbara West of Washougal,
Washington, has attended 10
Seaside jazz festivals. “Great
bands — good town, lots of fun
tonight.” She indicated a pref-
erence for swing, fox trot and
slow dances.
‘The whole scene’
Lowell and Shirley Weiss of
Vancouver, Washington, have
been married 55 years and have
come to the Seaside Jazz Fes-
tival since 1982, drawn by the
dancing, friends and music.
“It’s the whole scene,” Low-
ell Weiss said. “We never miss
it. It’s just like a family reunion
after a while. Everybody likes
everybody, there’s no com-
plaining, people are here smil-
ing, having a good time.”
Dennis Phillips, also of Van-
couver, Washington, was drawn
by the music of Bennett’s
Speed Kings. He and his wife,
Valerie, were joined by four of
their best friends, attending the
Seaside event for the first time.
“We’re here for Dave Ben-
nett, but we are going to enjoy
the rest of the activities here,”
Dennis Phillips said. “If some-
body asked me five years ago if
I liked jazz, I would have said
‘no.’ But then I learned there’s
a lot of different kinds of jazz,
and there’s certain kinds I like.
The neat part is you can walk in
and if you don’t like the music,
you can go to another place.
We like the choices — and the
drinks at the Elks club.”
Dean Martin from Indio,
California, pays a stop at every
jazz festival he can on the West
Coast. “I rank this very, very
high,” Martin said. “I like to
visit Seaside, and the environ-
ment’s so casual and friendly.
You can’t beat it.”
Forum: ‘There’s a lot of uncertainty when
it comes to the economy and federal policy’
Continued from Page 1A
Clatsop County’s average
income is better than two-thirds
of the rural U.S., he said, but
only 2 percent of counties in
the country have more expen-
sive homes on average. About
one-quarter of houses on the
North Coast are classified as
second homes, Lehner said. A
housing crunch exacerbated by
a lack of financing holds build-
ing rates at 40 percent below
the level in the early 2000s.
Population growth
The county added 475 peo-
ple in 2016 to 38,225, a 1.3 per-
cent growth rate and the highest
since 1994.
Knoder said that since the
2000s, most of the county’s
growth has shifted north. More
than 1,500 of those newcomers
were senior citizens, while the
county lost 439 working-age
adults.
“Somewhere between 30
and 40 percent of them are Cal-
ifornian,
disproportionately
retirees coming from Califor-
nia with a little bit of Califor-
nia home equity,” Lehner said,
which he added is at its highest
rate since the 1990s.
Young migrants to Oregon
are flocking to urban centers in
the Willamette Valley, he said,
while the coast and even Bend
receives more retirees and
late-career professionals look-
ing to settle down and improve
their quality of life.
“These are still very valu-
able people,” he said. “They’re
literally voting with their feet,
‘I want to be a part of your
community.’ You couldn’t ask
for anything more, right? There
are so many parts of the country
that don’t have that.”
Charmed, relatively
“The coast runs north to
south as far as economic suc-
cess,” Knoder said.
Clatsop and Tillamook
counties are the only two on the
Oregon Coast to be above their
prerecession peak in employ-
ment, while Clatsop County
rivaled some metro areas and
vastly outperformed many rural
counties in economic growth.
But much of that growth,
Knoder said, is in the low-
er-wage positions such as the
service sector, which added
nearly 1,700 jobs in the county
over the past decade, largely in
hospitality, leisure and retail.
Manufacturing has lost more
than 500 positions over the
same period of time.
“If you look over the last
decade, low-wage jobs and
high-wage jobs here on the
North Coast are roughly where
they were a decade ago … mid-
dle-wage jobs, not so much.
They had huge negative losses,
and hardly any recovery.”
Lehner said that as labor has
become more scarce, wages
and family income have started
to rise. He said the increasing
minimum wage, already effec-
tively $11 on the coast, will
cause slower growth, but not
job losses.
Some traditional mid-
dle-wage jobs such as man-
ufacturing — including lum-
ber mills — and office-support
industries have surrendered
jobs to technology, Lehner
said, a national trend over the
past couple of decades. Knoder
said education and health have
become the main high-wage
growth areas, while seafood
processing has fluctuated with
catches and the shutdown of the
sardine fishery.
Modest growth
“This is roughly as good
as it gets, in terms of unem-
ployment,” Knoder said of the
county’s 4.5 percent seasonally
adjusted unemployment rate as
of December.
Lehner said the U.S., now
in its eighth year of economic
expansion, can expect a more
modest, sustainable growth rate
than seen since 2011, because
the labor force is almost fully
engaged. There will be enough
jobs moving forward, he said,
but economic expansions won’t
be as pronounced as baby
boomers age into retirement.
Another recession is coming, as
always, but Lehner said econo-
mists shy away from predicting
when that will start.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty
when it comes to the econ-
omy and federal policy,” Leh-
ner said, addressing the effect
of Donald Trump’s presidency
and a Republican-controlled
Congress. “It’s not weighing on
the economic outlook now.”
Tax cuts, increased infra-
structure spending and dereg-
ulation of financial markets
could all be a boon to eco-
nomic growth, he said, while
trade wars and rolling back the
Affordable Care Act could have
an outsized negative effect on
Oregon. “If you look around
the country at the economists
out there, they’ve kind of set-
tled on a mild, modestly posi-
tive impact on the short-term
economic growth,” he said.
SALEM — An Oregon lawmaker says
the current state bird is unoriginal, and instead
wants to replace it.
The Statesman Journal reports that state
Sen. Fred Girod sponsored a resolution to
replace the western meadowlark as Oregon’s
state bird with the osprey.
The Stayton Republican says the meadow-
lark is also the state bird of Kansas, Montana,
Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming, mak-
ing it unoriginal. He also says the meadowlark
is no longer commonly seen in Oregon, mak-
ing it an inappropriate choice. Girod says the
osprey can be found throughout Oregon and
better captures the state’s spirit.
Salem Audubon Society president Ray
Temple says meadowlarks are declining and
could use the extra attention.
Robin Loznak/Great Falls Tribune
A western meadowlark trills from its fence
post perch near Fort Benton, Mont. Oregon
state Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, is sponsor-
ing a resolution to replace the western mead-
owlark as Oregon’s state bird with the osprey.
Employees: Retiring next week
Continued from Page 1A
A party for the city stal-
warts will be held Tuesday at
City Hall, before the Planning
Commission meets. It will be
Williams’ last day, three days
before Yuill’s.
Williams, who hails from
Arizona and now lives in
Astoria, said the town has
changed “big time” since she
began at the city more than
two decades ago. She recalls
numerous empty storefronts
and neglected buildings.
Then Astoria experienced
a renaissance. The town
embraced tourism as an eco-
nomic pillar, and historic pres-
ervation and restoration as a
principle and practice. Down-
town is now a frequently bus-
tling strip, and cruise ships
park along the riverfront.
Astoria’s rebirth has
included a flurry of residen-
tial rejuvenation, as property
owners have taken more pride
in their homes. “People are
proud to be in Astoria, and I
enjoy that,” Williams said.
Yuill and Williams said
they’re going to miss their
co-workers. And Williams,
who has been on the front
lines of the city’s develop-
ment projects, said she will
miss having her finger “on the
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Julie Yuill, left, executive secretary to the city manager,
and Sherri Williams, administrative assistant to commu-
nity development, pose for a portrait on Thursday out-
side of City Hall in Astoria. Both will be retiring after a
long history of working for the city.
pulse of what’s going on in the
city.”
Yuill, who stepped up to
the city manager’s office in
1987, was a single mother for
many years. The job “gave
me an opportunity to raise
my two boys and send them
to college, and it’s been just a
great experience for me.”
Yuill and her husband, Ken
Yuill — who retired from the
city’s Public Works Depart-
ment — bought a trailer and
hope to travel. (Ken Yuill sits
on the Warrenton Planning
Commission with Julie Yuill’s
son, Ryan Lampi, who ran for
Warrenton City Commission
last year.)
Williams’ husband, Clark
Williams, a former registered
nurse at Columbia Memorial
Hospital, retired in December.
Asked what she plans to do
in retirement, Williams said,
“That’s a good question …
Whatever I want to do, when-
ever I want to do it — that’s
on my list.”
Miss Oregon: Mather is striving for a
Ph.D. in psychology at Portland State
Continued from Page 1A
that in the end was perfect for
me, just because I learned so
much more. I feel that I am bet-
ter-equipped to be Miss Ore-
gon, and I also received more
scholarship money by doing
it that way and continually
competing.
Q: What did you initially
think pageants were, and
how has that understanding
changed?
I’ve loved to sing ever since
I was little, so I was thinking,
‘Wow; I’d love to just go per-
form.’ And then I was thinking,
‘And you get to wear a spar-
kly crown? That seems like
it’s for me. That seems pretty
cool.’ But then once I started
getting involved … the per-
sonal growth aspect of it was
beyond what I ever thought it
would be, and then just also
being involved in your com-
munity were the huge aspects
of it that I never thought would
be involved.
Q: What are some of the
more memorable experiences
from your reign?
Visiting Children’s Miracle
Network Hospital has been one
of the most humbling expe-
riences, because I love when
I get the opportunity to just
honestly take off my crown
and sash and let them hold it,
wear it and the smiles on their
faces. That’s been a real cher-
ished memory of mine, but also
watching other contestants,
because I remember being in
their shoes.
Q: What comes after Miss
Oregon?
I am currently getting my
real estate license. I’ll be work-
ing for Popkin Real Estate, and
I am a current student at Port-
land State University, striving
to get my Ph.D. in psychol-
ogy to open up my own office
as a therapist for parent-child
relationships.
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