GULLS ON THE HUNT: 4A BASKETBALL TOURNEY BRACKETS
DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 179
SPORTS • PAGE 10A
ONE DOLLAR
LESS PLASTIC,
MORE TURTLES
Deborah
Boone
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
VOLUNTEERS FILTER HARMFUL DEBRIS
FROM NORTH COAST BEACHES
Life Flight Pilot and Customer Service
Manager Dan Travers, points to one of
the proposed locations for the Life Flight
base and hanger in the southeastern air-
port property in December in Warrenton.
Port cuts
airport
bond to
$1.9M
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Jennifer Anderson/Pamplin Media Group
Duncan, son of reporter Jennifer Anderson, holds up a bag of plastic debris
collected in just one square meter of sand during a Presidents Day event spon-
sored by the Portland Eco-School Network on behalf of Sea Turtles Forever.
By JENNIFER ANDERSON
Pamplin Media Group
Paying for wet land
The Port Commission decided last month
to ask county voters for the money to build
a pad for Life Flight Network’s new hangar,
while creating a second entrance to the airport
on Flightline Drive, extending utilities and
making ready several more acres for future
development. Part of the project could be on
designated wetlands. If wetlands are fi lled, the
Port would have to offset the work elsewhere.
Airport Manager Gary Kobes said last
month the Port has 15 acres available for
potential mitigation on the 5-acre project site.
But Commissioner Stephen Fulton had argued
that the needed mitigation could be more than
the Port has credits for, and that the bond price
needed to include potential mitigation costs.
He suggested the $2.6 million fi gure, which
the Port Commission later approved.
“I was under the impression we did not
have mitigation credits,” Fulton said Tuesday
of his previous argument, adding he was still
concerned about whether the Port has the nec-
essary mitigation.
Caucus
sides with
gillnetting
reprieve
Lawmakers support
commission’s decision
Concerns about
mitigation credits
The three-year general obligation bond
the Port of Astoria is sending to voters in
May to develop a southern portion of Asto-
ria Regional Airport is back down below $2
million.
After learning they might have violated
bonding rules, the Port Commission on Tues-
day voted to lower the $2.6 million bond mea-
sure to staff’s original recommendation of
approximately $1.9 million.
Commission Chairman Robert Mushen
said the Port has heard from several sources
that “w e are not allowed to … make the tax-
payers responsible for paying for mitigation
credits we already have.”
Betsy
Johnson
T
he colorful bits on the sand appear to be gemstones at
fi rst, or pretty shells.
They stretch for miles and miles at Fort Stevens
State Park in Warrenton, at the mouth of the Columbia River,
covering nearly every sandy surface — hidden in the reeds
and the marsh, blown by fi erce winds up against the bluffs,
and adorning the beach at the high-tide line along with kelp,
driftwood and other natural debris.
See PLASTIC, Page 7A
FIND
OUT MORE
There’s a scheduled
Earth Day cleanup
at Whale Park in
Cannon Beach, on
Saturday and Sun-
day, April 22-23, from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
To get involved in a
cleanup, or for more
info: seaturtles
forever.org.
SALEM — A group of state legislators
from the Oregon C oast are voicing support
for a controversial decision by the state’s
F ish and W ildlife C ommission to maintain
commercial gillnetting along the Columbia
River.
In so doing, they contradict the wishes of
Gov. Kate Brown and other legislators who
support a plan to phase out gillnetting on the
river’s main stem as outlined in an agree-
ment with Washington state.
The Coastal Caucus — a group of three
senators and four state representatives, fi ve
Democrats and two Republicans — sent a
letter Thursday supporting commercial fi sh-
ermen and the commission.
“We fully understand that there has been
a long history of co-managing the Columbia
River with our neighbors in Washington,”
the legislators said. “Though this has been
the case, the allocations passed by the Wash-
ington commission gives the sports fi sh-
ing community almost all of the resources,
much to the detriment of those who share
the river and make their living by commer-
cial fi shing.”
The letter was signed by state Rep. David
Gomberg, D-Central Coast; Sen. Betsy
Johnson, D-Scappoose; Sen Jeff Kruse,
R-Roseburg; Rep. Deborah Boone, D-Can-
non Beach; Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay;
Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay; and
Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford.
See CAUCUS, Page 7A
Eco-School Network member Amy Higgs walks with her haul after the Presidents
Day cleanup of beach plastics along Fort Stevens State Park near Warrenton.
Jennifer Anderson/Pamplin Media Group
Brick wall
The airport project has received sup-
port from cities and hospitals throughout
the region. Former Mayor Willis Van Dusen
offered to stump on behalf of the project, as
long as the bond measure was less than $2
million.
Spokesman Review/AP Photo
Salmon fishing guide Dave Grove, left,
nets a fall Chinook for David Moershel
while fishing on the Columbia River
near Desert Aire, Wash., in 2014.
See PORT, Page 7A
Columbia Forum: Keeping those in power honest
Pulitzer winner
Jaquiss talks
about the fall of
Oregon leaders
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Nigel Jaquiss, a Pulitzer Prize -winning journalist,
speaks to a crowd about investigative journalism,
his work and the state of media during a Columbia
Forum presentation on Tuesday in Astoria.
The free press can act as
a check on politicians’ worst
impulses, Nigel Jaquiss, an inves-
tigative reporter at Portland’s Wil-
lamette Week, said.
And, if any entity can hold
President Donald Trump to
account, it will be the press,
despite shrinking newsrooms and
dwindling revenue.
Jaquiss, who won the 2005
Pulitzer Prize for exposing for-
mer Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s sex-
ual abuse of a young teenage girl,
gauged the press’ role in the age
of “alternative facts” at the pen-
ultimate Columbia Forum din-
ner, held Tuesday at Columbia
Memorial Hospital’s Community
Center.
A few years after publishing
the Goldschmidt story, Jaquiss
revealed Portland Mayor Sam
Adams’ courtship with an intern
for state Rep . Kim Thatcher,
whom he met when the intern was
17.
He also broke Gov . John
Kitzhaber’s corrupt fi nancial she-
nanigans with his partner, a scan-
dal that led to the governor’s res-
ignation in 2015.
In Jaquiss’ telling, the story of
these men who shaped Oregon’s
recent history is archetypal: hubris
causing the downfall of infl uential
but fl awed statesmen who lost the
greatness within their reach.
“They were all, in their own
ways, very gifted public servants:
highly intelligent, highly accom-
plished, got into public service for
the right reasons,” he said. “And
they all suffered in the end from
the same thing that affects many
public servants, that affects many
people.”
See FORUM, Page 7A