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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017
Warrenton: ‘The most important
thing to do is to continue planning’
Couple: Two witnesses
called during hearing
Continued from Page 1A
multiple times on the back
and side of his head. The
couple allegedly dumped his
body off U.S. Highway 30
about 3 miles east of Asto-
ria and stole his white 1993
Allegro Bay motor home
with a dark maroon 1991
Lincoln Continental attached
on a trailer. Days after aban-
doning the trailer just east of
Seaside on U.S. Highway 26,
the couple was found travel-
ing in the Lincoln in northern
Arizona.
Wilkins’ former employer
had contacted police after
the body was found to say
the couple may have been
involved in Vinge’s death.
The Sheriff’s Office was able
to use Vinge’s stolen cell-
phone along with credit card
purchases to track the couple
as they traveled to Junction
City, northwest Nevada and
then south to Arizona.
They are being charged
with murder, second-degree
abuse of a corpse and two
counts of unauthorized use of
a vehicle. Copell is also fac-
ing a hindering prosecution
charge.
The District Attorney’s
Office, represented by Dis-
trict Attorney Josh Marquis
and Deputy District Attor-
ney Beau Peterson, called two
witnesses during the hearing:
Sheriff’s Office Detective
Ryan Humphrey and Seaside
Police Sgt. Guy Knight. They
also played a roughly 10-min-
ute recording of an interroga-
tion between Copell and the
two investigators shortly after
the couple’s arrest.
Copell indicated in the
recording that Wilkins had
beaten Vinge to death with a
piece of beach wood follow-
ing an argument on Sept. 27
while they were inside Vinge’s
motor home. The couple had
been homeless before Vinge
“I will be totally honest with
you: We are woefully behind,”
Workman told the City Com-
mission at a recent work session.
No firm plan
In 2010, more than three-
fourths of city staff had com-
pleted the required training, but
a handful of employees who
have since joined the city have
not.
ICS and NIMS courses are
required — as is the use of the
principles and command struc-
tures that are taught in the
courses — for any entities that
want to receive federal fund-
ing for training, response and
recovery for disasters, Work-
man said.
“We gotta be up to date,”
Workman told the commission,
“because if you’re not, and you
have an event, they could say,
‘No federal funding for you,
because you’re not following
what we asked you (to). These
are rudimentary things that we
want you to do,’”
In addition, Warrenton does
not have a firm plan to get the
city’s basic services running
again, including a clear proto-
col for continuity of govern-
ment if the mayor, city manager
or other local leaders are away,
injured or otherwise out of play.
The mayor, for instance,
normally declares a state of
emergency. But, if he or she is
unavailable, who steps in to per-
form the task?
City Commissioner Henry
Balensifer said these measures
are largely “staff-driven” rather
than commission-driven.
“The commission’s func-
tion, in a severe natural disas-
ter, is to communicate to the
citizens, and to ensure that the
government continues operat-
ing, in terms of budget adjust-
ments and emergency measures
Submitted Photo
Warrenton High School students carry a “victim” during the school’s end-of-year CERT
exercise last year. The city warns residents that they need to be prepared.
or laws,” he said. “But, for the
most part, these plans are really
related to staff.”
‘Element of risk’
Another question is where
the city will set up an emer-
gency operations center to stage
recovery efforts. If City Hall is
not a viable location — if it is
underwater, say — the city will
need a backup.
The emergency operations
plan suggests possible sites
east of U.S. Highway 101. But
as businesses have continued
to crop up in the area — War-
renton is, after all, the fastest
growing community in Clat-
sop County — options have
dwindled.
When Workman talks to res-
idents about emergency pre-
paredness, they tend to assume
the responsibility lies with the
city, he said.
“They’re right, to a certain
extent, but it’s them — it’s them
— that have to be prepared,” he
told the City Commission.
Depending on the scale of
the event, police and fire depart-
ment personnel, and other
emergency responders may be
unable to rescue people for sev-
eral days. After a megaquake,
roads will likely be fractured
and impassable. And the ground
beneath the city, composed
largely of sand, may liquefy.
Workman has asked the
Warrenton Community Emer-
gency Response Team reach
out more to the city’s vulnerable
population. The elderly and dis-
abled residents of Alder Creek
Village in Hammond, west
of Tansy Creek, for example,
could become isolated if even
a minor earthquake harmed the
bridges.
“There is an element of risk,
living on the coast,” Balen-
sifer said. “We want to make
sure that we prepare for those
risks as much as possible, to
make sure that people are pre-
pared for those risks as much as
possible.”
The Federal Emergency
Management Agency has made
it clear to North Coast jurisdic-
tions that, after the “Big One,”
they may not arrive for some
time as the agency’s resources
head to Portland and Seattle.
“FEMA’s told us they’re not
going to be here for two weeks,
at least,” Balensifer said. “So
individual responsibility for
preparedness starts at home.”
Balensifer said the commis-
sion will continue working with
Clatsop County Emergency
Management.
“The most important thing
to do is to continue planning, so
we can determine what invest-
ments need to be made to be
adequately prepared and miti-
gate risk,” he said.
Continued from Page 1A
allowed them to live with him
in the motor home for more
than a month in exchange for
work they performed for him.
The couple apparently was
concerned that Vinge would
soon ask Copell to leave the
motor home and find housing
elsewhere.
Copell said she was sit-
ting in the driver’s seat of the
motor home and Vinge was
laying on a bench at the time
of the alleged murder.
“I had a little lamp light,
and I didn’t think he was going
to do it. Oh, god,” Copell, cry-
ing, told investigators.
Copell sobbed into her
shirt Friday while the record-
ing played. Meanwhile,
Wilkins, who sat with his law-
yer in a jury box, repeatedly
glared at her with a confused
look on his face.
Copell then admitted
in the recording to help-
ing Wilkins clean the inside
of the motor home follow-
ing the incident. Witnesses
also told the Sheriff’s Office
that they saw Copell burning
items that belonged to Vinge.
The Sheriff’s Office was able
to recover some of the burned
items and also located blood
spatter and human tissue in
the motor home.
The recording was the sec-
ond of three statements from
Copell that the District Attor-
ney’s Office filed as evi-
dence. In her initial statement,
Copell said Vinge was still
alive when they left him in
the motor home. The third, an
intercepted note from Copell
to Wilkins while they were
in jail, seemed to instruct
Wilkins to tell investigators
that both had killed Vinge out
of self defense.
Wilkins and his lawyers,
meanwhile, did not make any
statements during the hearing.
Wilkins’ and Copell’s tri-
als are scheduled for Novem-
ber and December.
Goldberg: Environmental issues were key elements of singer’s studies
Continued from Page 1A
Oxford University in England.
As well as lending his bari-
tone to Oxford’s Keble Col-
lege choir, he was selected
to perform with the Schola
Cantorum.
The widely traveled group,
formed in 1960, has worked
with notable musicians like
Leonard Bernstein and violin-
ist Yehudi Menuhin. Its name
is Latin for a singing school for
church choristers.
“I had the good luck in that
they needed my voice,” said
Goldberg, surprised to learn
he was one of 10 selected from
100 who auditioned.
He said his semester at
Oxford has been perfect to soak
up culture and history, finding
Britons welcoming and not at
all “stodgy.”
“Sometimes it feels like
‘Harry Potter,’” he said. (Hog-
warts library and infirmary
scenes were filmed there.)
Intensive tutorials
Intensive tutorials deepen
his understanding of environ-
mental geography, metaphysics
and political philosophy.
“I have spent most of my
time reading and writing, and
then weekends you can go out
to the pub,” he said. “I didn’t
expect to do as much singing,
but I have been really improv-
ing,” he said, delighting to per-
Goldberg Family/Submitted Photo
Tevan Goldberg appeared
in “Fiddler on the Roof” at
the Coaster Theatre in Can-
non Beach shortly after his
arrival in Astoria at the age
of 9. He acted in several
other shows before shifting
his primary artistic focus to
musical performance.
form Renaissance music in
“ancient Anglican churches
with bullet holes from the
English Civil War.”
Goldberg, 20, is the only
child of Bob Goldberg and
Nancy Stevens. Bob Goldberg
is a retired engineer, originally
from New York, and Stevens
is a longtime nurse. The fam-
ily moved to Astoria from Seat-
tle in 2005 when Tevan was 9,
and have been active in the arts
scene.
While Goldberg competed
for the Astoria High School
swim team, he really developed
his niche in the North Coast
acting and music worlds. As
well as singing, he plays piano
and violin, is learning the harp-
sichord, and wants to learn gui-
tar and organ. Memorable act-
ing experiences were at Astoria
High School, at the Coaster
Theatre in Cannon Beach —
with his father, who portrayed
the rabbi in “Fiddler on the
Roof” — and the now-closed
River Theatre in Astoria.
Longtime Astoria High
School drama teacher Jenni
Newton recalled his teenage
talents. “He especially liked to
take on advanced material that
challenges audiences. Tevan
enjoyed joining casts of adults
and seemed comfortable with
mature topics and personalities.
These interactions resulted in
many strong relationships with
local performing artists.
“When Tevan was in mid-
dle school and asked if he
wanted to take an acting class
once becoming a Fisherman, he
shared that his community the-
ater experience already taught
him the basics and his skill
level surpassed his peers.
“With a coy smile, I wel-
comed him to high school casts
where he did learn a lot about
ensemble-building practices
and the team component of
theater. I am certain he contin-
ued to grow in this area as he
has been part of several suc-
cessful performance groups in
his academic and professional
lives.”
“The Christmas Story” at The
River in 2007, he reunited in the
cast with his sixth-grade math
teacher, Mark Erickson, now
retired. “He was quite a perfec-
tionist with remarkable memo-
rization skills and high expec-
tations of his fellow actors,” he
noted, praising the way Gold-
berg’s parents encouraged him.
“He decided what he wanted
to do at a pretty young age —
and didn’t let anyone get in the
way,” Erickson said.
Astoria arts enthusiast Carol
Newman recalls the young
Goldberg’s acting perfor-
mances with fondness and has
watched him mature.
“I was delighted and
impressed with his piano play-
ing, his interest in politics and
writing for the school paper; the
way he came home on vacation,
picked up the score of whatever
we were working on and joined
us to sing with the North Coast
Chorale,” she said.
“I have appreciated that, as
distracted as he might be by his
full life, he was always respon-
sive and interested, or at least
willing to listen and talk intel-
ligently,” she said.
Auditioning with his own
musical creation, he earned a
place for his final two years of
high school at the Interlochen
Center for the Arts in Michi-
gan, majoring in music compo-
sition, while singing in choirs
and playing jazz piano.
Environment
and politics
Environmental
issues,
key elements of his studies at
Middlebury, or politics, may
become his focus after gradua-
tion. Last summer, he interned
in Washington, D.C., work-
ing in the ocean acidifica-
tion program of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
Goldberg said his travels
have given him a deeper appre-
ciation of Astoria, and the for-
est-like ecology of his home on
Irving Avenue. “You can’t get
that anywhere else, and there
are so many things going on for
such a small town,” he said.
In London, he was euphoric
after the concert, which fea-
tured works by Bach and
French composer Francis Pou-
lenc’s 1937 Mass in G. “It’s
some of my favorite music,”
he said, noting he developed
a fondness for sacred music
during his middle school years
listening to the Oxford group’s
online recordings.
The director, James Burton,
was enthused about the newly
recruited voice standing tall
with his bass singers.
“It’s fantastic to have the
best talent from across the
world,” said Burton, whose
next assignment will be as
director of the Tanglewood Fes-
tival Chorus and choral direc-
tor of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. “Tevan has been
in the choir a very short time,
but what a pleasure to have his
voice and musicianship. It has
been an absolute thrill that he
could join us.”
His parents were delighted
to learn details.
“We’re both very proud of
Tevan’s musical, theatrical,
writing, academic, and even
athletic accomplishments so
far, and excited about where
he will take his talents in the
future,” said his father. “At the
same time, we are very appre-
ciative of all the amazing peo-
ple and institutions that have
helped him along the way.”
— Patrick Webb
‘Perfectionist’
Playing a cheeky child in
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