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Maddi
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SEASIDE BASKETBALL SPECIAL SECTION | INSIDE
144TH YEAR, NO. 186
ONE DOLLAR
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2017
Picturing the past at Ocean View Cemetery
Warrenton trio fi nd,
capture tombstones
Judy Bearman
demonstrates how
she photographs
headstones for the
Find A Grave web-
site on Wednesday
at Ocean View Cem-
etery in Warrenton.
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — Roughly 16,000
people lie buried at Ocean View Cem-
etery, a vast, sweeping necropolis over-
looking Cemetery Lake and the distant
Danny Miller
The Daily Astorian
J.C. Penney
set to close
in Astoria
National retailer a
fi xture downtown
JUSTICE REINVESTMENT
County out of step with state
initiative to reduce prison use
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
J.C. Penney in Astoria, one
of the last major commercial
retail outlets downtown, is among
the 138 stores the company plans
to close in the coming months.
The company announced ear-
lier this year it would close 130 to
140 stores amid struggling com-
petition with online and niche
retailers, similar issues faced
by other major retailers such
as Sears and Macy’s. The clo-
sures will bring the chain down
to about 900 locations. About
5,000 employees will be displaced.
Representatives at the Asto-
ria location deferred to the com-
pany’s corporate media rela-
tions department, which could
not immediately be reached for
comment. Most locations are
expected to start liquidation
sales in April and close in June.
Astoria’s location, the 109th
opened by the retail chain, cele-
brated 100 years of business in
April. According to a price board
in English and Finnish, the store
originally opened in the Spexarth
Building.
In 1924, the store moved to
its current location on Commer-
cial Street, built specifi cally for the
retailer after a large fi re two years
prior destroyed much of downtown.
The three-story location,
between Paramount Drug Co. and
Allstate Insurance, includes a tiled
entrance inscribed with the store
name, and was one of 13 loca-
tions made to look alike, accord-
ing to operations supervisor Chris
Hoffman.
Douglas
Washington
Clatsop
Linn
Polk
Jefferson
Lincoln
Tillamook
Umatilla
Deschutes
Coos
Curry
Union
The state has provided $54 million in grants to
counties since 2013 to reduce prison use for drug
and property crimes. Clatsop County is among
the top five for prison use above the baseline.*
Last-minute
jockeying
for Port slots
Fulton targets Campbell
in special district election
Benton
Lake
Harney
Sherman
Columbia
Wheeler
Gilliam
Below baseline
Less than 10% above baseline
10% or more above baseline
*Yearly average of the total months for July 1, 2012
through June 30, 2015 for Measure 57 crimes
including property, drug and driving offenses.
Grants to all counties
Grants to Clatsop County
A former price board for J.C.
Penney, which opened in April
1916, comes in both English and
Finnish and espouses the Gold-
en Rule philosophy by which
James Cash Penney did busi-
ness: “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.”
See CEMETERY, Page 6A
Port Commissioner Stephen Fulton will chal-
lenge Commissioner James Campbell in the May
special district election, while Fulton’s ally will
campaign for an open seat, a strategy that could
tip political power at the Port of Astoria.
Fulton waited until
the fi ling deadline
INSIDE
Thursday to announce
Candidates
fi le for
he
would
switch
education,
health
care,
seats and run against
fi re board seats.
Campbell.
Stories on Page 3A
Pat O’Grady, the
president of Warren-
ton Auto & Marine Repair and an ally of Fulton,
fi led against Frank Spence, a former city admin-
istrator, for the seat being vacated by Commis-
sioner John Raichl.
Fulton, a wetlands expert for Warrenton
Fiber, had been facing a bid from former Clatsop
County Commissioner Dirk Rohne for his seat.
Instead, former Warrenton City Commissioner
Karl “Dick” Hellberg will run against Rohne.
Port Commission seats are not divided by
neighborhood geography, so candidates can run
for a position regardless of where they live. The
last-minute jockeying sets up the May 16 elec-
tion as a mandate on the future direction of the
Port.
Fulton and Commissioner Bill Hunsinger
have been critical of fellow commissioners and
the Port’s executive management, but have fre-
quently been on the losing ends of 3-2 votes.
Clackamas
Oregon Justice
Reinvestment
from a church group, spanned more
than a year. Bearman would venture into
the cemetery on days with agreeable
weather, tidy up the tombstones, photo-
graph 100 to 150, edit the images and
upload them to the website. Her hus-
band, Thomas, later joined her.
She gave digital copies to Astoria,
which owns and manages the cemetery.
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Jackson
2013-15: $15 million
2015-17: $38.7 million
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Pacifi c. And now it is easier for their
family and friends to fi nd pictures of the
deceased’s tombstones online.
Judy Bearman, of Warrenton,
recently fi nished taking photos of every
visible gravestone and posting the
images on Find A Grave, a free web-
site that allows users to add pics, iden-
tify burial locations and contribute
biographical information.
The project, which she took over
2013-15: $188,853
2015-17: $414,410
Wasco
Grant
Morrow
Hood River
Wallowa
Baker
Crook
Malheur
EO Media Group graphic
Yamhill
Lane
Marion
Multnomah
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
O
regon has sought to slow the costly
growth of prison by easing sentences
for drug and property crimes and giving
counties grants to supervise more felons
locally.
The reforms — known as justice reinvest-
ment — have helped the state avoid building a
new men’s prison at Junction City.
Some of the largest counties, such as Mult-
nomah, Marion and Lane, have embraced the
incentives and reduced prison use from a state
baseline, while others — like Clatsop County
— have not.
Clatsop County is among the top fi ve
for prison use above the baseline, data from
the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission
shows.
District Attorney Josh Marquis has asked
whether justice reinvestment is really a “neg-
James
Campbell
Klamath
Josephine
Source: Oregon Criminal Justice Commission
Stephen
Fulton
ative bounty system” that will reward coun-
ties that send fewer people to prison with more
grant money. He is concerned counties that
have not performed as well as others have been
stigmatized, down to the state charts that show
counties above the baseline in red and the ones
below in green.
“I feel very strongly about this,” Marquis
said. “I know where I’m driving our boat, and I
know it’s a different place — a different direc-
tion than, say, Marion and Multnomah are
doing — and I also recognize that it may not be
entirely what some of our partners who work
with us in Clatsop County would like to see.”
Finding common ground
Like the district attorney, local judges and
probation offi cers believe defendants should
be sentenced based on the nature of their
drug and property crimes and their criminal
Fulton vs. Campbell
Fulton, in a statement Thursday on his can-
didacy, leveled several allegations against
Campbell.
“I am running against Jim Campbell because
he ignores the fi nancial realities the Port faces,”
he said. “The replacement of Mr. Campbell will
produce maximum benefi t for our taxpayers.”
Fulton accused Campbell, an aviator who
rents a hangar at the Astoria Regional Airport,
of not disclosing a potential benefi t to his space
from a proposed bond measure for a new Life
Flight Network hangar and other improvements
for future development. Campbell, humored by
the accusation, said an airport is the only place to
hangar his plane.
“Mr. Campbell jeopardizes the Port by con-
doning an exclusive private social club that
serves unlicensed alcoholic beverages at the air-
port,” Fulton said in another allegation.
Philip Bales, a retired dentist and aviator,
owns a private building at the airport on land he
leases from the Port. Campbell said Bales holds
social functions there, but that he does not sell
anything.
Fulton said Campbell, who served on the
Port Commission in the 1960s and 1970s and
won election again in 2013, has zero enthusiasm
for Port business other than the airport, is often
ill-prepared and has failed in his years on the
Port Commission to properly budget for
long-term development or bring in additional
cargo.
See PRISON USE, Page 7A
See PORT, Page 7A