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WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 201
COAST
RIVER
BUSINESS
JOURNAL
• INSIDE
ONE DOLLAR
Santiam Correctional
Institution in Salem.
JUSTICE REINVESTMENT
Wikimedia Commons
‘So the stakes are going
to be quite high for you’
A drunken driving
and theft case shows
the county’s dilemma
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
Michael
J. Ehrlund
W
hen Judge Cindee Matyas was
about to sentence Michael
Ehrlund for felony theft and
drunken driving in February 2016, she
warned him that any lapse in probation
could have severe consequences.
Ehrlund, who lives in Astoria, pleaded
no contest to fi rst-degree theft for claim-
ing more than $20,500 in state unem-
ployment insurance benefi ts while work-
ing for J.M. Browning Logging. He
also pleaded no contest to drunken driv-
ing after being pulled over near Knappa
Market early one morning with a blood
alcohol content of 0.20 percent, his third
DUII in a decade.
In an agreement between the District
Attorney’s Offi ce and Ehrlund’s attor-
ney known as a downward departure,
Ehrlund received probation on the theft
convictions, with the understanding that
if he violated the terms and his proba-
tion was revoked by the Circuit Court, he
would go to prison for fi ve years. He also
received 90 days in county jail, had his
driver’s license revoked for life and was
placed on probation for the DUII.
The deal spared Ehrlund from prison
but left him in a precarious situation
were he to mess up. The District Attor-
ney’s Offi ce does not agree to structured
sanctions in downward departure cases
— such as a county jail stint or residen-
tial treatment after a relapse into drinking
See JUSTICE, Page 6A
STREET 14
A beery
Uniontown
farewell
Popular,
but not
profi table
Family and friends
recall murder victim
Chef branches out
after dinners end
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
A year and a half
after starting their
regionally acclaimed
farm-to-table
din-
ners, Street 14 Cafe
owners Jennifer and
Micha Cameron-Lat-
tek have ended the
venture because of
a lack of diners. But
Andrew Catalano, the
Chef Andrew
award-winning chef
Catalano
behind the menus , will
soon start delivering a similar experience to
people’s homes.
Judge
Cindee Matyas
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Buzz Bissinger, an award-winning reporter and author, speaks at the Columbia
Forum Thursday in Astoria. It was the final program of the forum’s 27th season.
Bissinger talks of falling
in love with Astoria
Pulitzer winner caps off
fi nal Columbia Forum
See CAFE, Page 7A
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
A
journalist is only as good as his eyes,
according to Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer
Prize-winning reporter and author .
Almost 20 years ago, Bissinger’s eyes
— which have observed corruption in the
Philadelphia court system and witnessed his
writings become popular fi lms — landed on
Astoria for the fi rst time. “It was the most
magnifi cent setting for a town that I think I
had ever seen.”
He recounted the experience of falling
for Astoria from a journalists’ perspective
Thursday evening during the fi nal program
of the Columbia Forum’s 27th season, held
in Columbia Memorial Hospital’s Commu-
nity Center.
Recently, Bissinger has been widely
known for his 2015 Vanity Fair cover story
“Call Me Caitlyn” about the transformation
of Olympic icon Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn
Jenner. The writer and subject have collab-
orated on a book about Jenner’s life and will
soon launch a book tour. Bissinger, who lives
in Long Beach, Washington, is currently
working on a profi le of tennis player Serena
Williams for the magazine.
Bissinger’s 1990 nonfi ction book “Friday
Night Lights,” about a Texas town’s obses-
sion with high school football — came into
being after he decided to write about one of
the many isolated points of small-town life
he saw from airplanes.
“I’m always still looking — as a writer,
as a person — for places that get to me, that
move me in some way,” he said, “and then,
as a writer, to see if there is, behind these
emotional feelings, this connection — there
is a strong enough story that can be told on
the page.”
Though he acknowledges his eyes aren’t
what they used to be, Bissinger, 62, still seeks
“to be in the presence of something that is
endlessly stimulating, something that is epic,
something that is different, something that
you haven’t seen,” he said.
That’s what Astoria and the Colum-
bia-Pacifi c r egion does for him and his wife,
Lisa Smith.
Beers replaced tears Saturday as doz-
ens gathered to remember a Warrenton man
allegedly killed by his nephew.
Family and friends packed Mary Todd’s
Workers Bar and Grill for a pot luck lunch to
memorialize the 66-year life of Ronald Bou-
dreau. He died in early March of blunt-force
trauma after allegedly being beaten at his
home by his nephew, Christopher Eric Johns .
Despite the morbid nature of Boudreau’s
death, loved ones said the party was the best
way to remember their friend and relative, a
regular at the Uniontown bar.
“He was a happy-go-lucky person, and
these were his friends,” said Starr Boudreau,
his sister-in-law. “They probably could have
met in a church, but they wouldn’t have
wanted to.”
After attendees grabbed drinks and
browsed through photos of Boudreau near a
food table, they held a toast in his memory.
See FAREWELL, Page 7A
‘Totally authentic’
In the late 1990s, during their court-
ship days, Smith wanted to test Bissinger
— to see whether her partner, a thorough-
going East Coaster, could connect with the
Pacifi c Northwest, a place she had lived
in and loved for almost 25 years. They
stayed in the Sou’wester Lodge in Seaview,
Submitted Photo
See FORUM, Page 7A
Ronald Boudreau, left, with his father, Al-
bert, and brother, Stephen, in happier times.