COAST WEEKEND • INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 175
Astoria Music Festival
BACK IN THE BLACK
ONE DOLLAR
Suspicious
death under
investigation
Man, 66, found at
home near airport
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
The Clatsop County Sheriff’s Offi ce
is investigating the suspicious death of a
66-year-old man at a residence near the
Astoria Regional Airport.
Deputies responded to a report of a
deceased man at the home at about 5 p.m.
Wednesday. The Clatsop County Major
Crimes Team is investigating a person of
interest in the case, Clatsop County District
Attorney Josh Marquis said.
While the county medical examiner
determined that the circumstances at the
scene were not consistent with a natural
death, a specifi c cause of death is still being
investigated, Marquis said. The initial med-
ical examination indicated that the man had
likely been dead for several days, he said.
The state medical examiner will likely
perform an autopsy in the next couple of
days, Marquis said.
The S heriff’s O ffi ce is waiting to notify
the man’s next of kin before releasing his
name or the name of the person of interest,
Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin said.
Dwight Caswell/For The Daily Astorian
Keith Clark conducts the Astoria Music Festival
Orchestra in Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 4, “He-
roes,” based on music by David Bowie last year.
15th season opens
with tribute to Foster
Homeland Security
head meets with Brown
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Dwight Caswell/For The Daily Astorian
he Astoria Music Festival, a nonprofi t that holds
a series of classical music events featuring inter-
national artists, is about to turn 15.
And it will end fi scal year 2016 with a positive
fund balance, ending a period of shaky fi nances.
A few years ago, the festival went from an approx-
imately $50,000 surplus — meant to be used for an
endowment — to a roughly $60,000 defi cit run on
credit, according to several board members.
“Our review of the 2015 fi nancials would indi-
cate that fundraising efforts were very light in 2015
and that the expense budget was exceeded in sev-
eral areas,” Leena Riker, a board member, wrote in
an email.
In 2015, shortly after the music festival pulled off
its most successful season — reaching $100,000 in
ticket sales for the fi rst time — the old board quit en
masse, citing unresolved differences of opinion with
Artistic Director Keith Clark about the nonprofi t’s
direction and leadership structure.
Efforts by the new board brought in donations that
allowed the festival to end 2015 in the black and pay
down about one-third of its credit line, according to
Leslie Morehead, board vice president. Additional
fundraisers in 2016 “were also very successful,” she
wrote in an email.
“As of early February 2017, we have paid off more
than one-half of the line of credit, and we have suf-
fi cient funds to cover our basic operating expenses
through the end of the year,” she said.
The music festival, which runs June 10 through
June 25 this year, is “a viable organization, totally
International Tchaikovsky Competition Gold medal-winning cellist
Sergey Antonov will return to this year’s Astoria Music Festival.
See MUSIC, Page 7A
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Michael Foster at his home at 2010. The opening performance will
be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Foster’s favorite piece of music.
ICE targets
‘dangerous
offenders’
T
By DICK HUGHES
For the Capital Bureau
SALEM — The nation’s top immigra-
tion-enforcement offi cial stressed to Gov.
Kate Brown that the Trump administration
is focused on deporting the “violent and
dangerous offenders” among the undocu-
mented immigrants in
the U.S.
Brown was in
Washington, D.C., last
week for the National
Governors Associa-
tion Winter Meeting.
She met with Home-
land Security Secre-
tary John Kelly, as
well as several other
John Kelly
cabinet secretaries.
“They had no intention of picking up
folks who did not have criminal penal-
ties. I specifi cally asked him about folks
who had, for example, a drug charge 20
years ago. He said that is not their target,”
Brown said in an interview Tuesday.
She invited Kelly to Oregon to get a
fi rst hand understanding of how the Trump
administration policies are affecting immi-
grant families.
“What I explained to him is that this
is creating great fear in our communities
around the state of Oregon. I used some
examples of families that I knew. Folks
See ICE, Page 7A
At Fulio’s, new owner, chef offer Italian with a twist
Local Iron Chef
takes over the
kitchen, menu
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Expect the same taste of
Italy at Fulio’s, along with a lit-
tle more of the Mediterranean.
Longtime proprietor Peter
Roscoe recently transferred the
restaurant to Allan LaPlante,
who with new chef Sean Whit-
taker is planning an expanded
menu beyond the Italian pen-
insula to the more than 20
countries bordering the Medi-
terranean Sea.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Fulio chef Sean Whittaker prepares for the day in the kitchen .
Whittaker, made famous
locally through two wins at
the Iron Chef Goes Coastal
cooking competition, started
his career in an Italian din-
ner house, where he said he
was fi rst thrust into the kitchen
after a co-worker didn’t show
up for a shift. But Whittaker’s
culinary philosophy has been
informed by years of world
travel and working at restau-
rants around the country.
Fulio’s patrons can still
expect all the Italian favorites,
from pastas to Tuscan steaks.
But Whittaker, given relative
carte blanche on the menu by
LaPlante, said he’s also look-
ing to branch out .
“I think people are adven-
turous, and so am I,” Whit-
taker said, adding he might
even add an Asian fl avor here
and there. “That’s what adds
the spice to life.”
Much of Fulio’s experi-
mentation will start with the
lunch menu and a happy hour
LaPlante said the restaurant is
adding.
Same philosophy
LaPlante said his fi rst inter-
view with Roscoe as a poten-
tial employee at the Sand Trap
Pub in Gearhart lasted fi ve
hours, going over the entire
menu in detail, along with how
a restaurant was supposed to
run.
“We had very similar views
on business and how cus-
tomers should be treated,”
LaPlante said.
Since he started wash-
ing dishes at age 14, LaPlante
has managed a variety of
See FULIO, Page 7A