COAST WEEKEND: ‘IT’S THE ART OF LIFE AND A LIFE OF ART’ INSIDE
144TH YEAR, NO. 205
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2017
ONE DOLLAR
Astoria parks to cut programs, start selling land
Budget shortfall leads to tou gh choices
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
T he Astoria Parks and Recreation
Department will begin making large-
scale cuts to programs next fi scal year,
and may sell a park, because of a more
than $100,000 budget shortfall.
Angela Cosby, the department
director, and City Manager Brett Estes
delivered the sobering, but not unex-
pected, news at a City Council work
session Wednesday.
The department’s resources,
Scrutiny
planned
in Port
squabble
including general fund transfers, have
shrunk over multiple years while staff
obligations — sites maintained, facil-
ities managed, programs offered and
services delivered — have steadily
increased. This has resulted in over-
stretched employees, high staff turn-
over and pockets of parkland kept in
less-than-perfect condition.
“Tough decisions have to be
made,” Cosby said after the meeting,
“but, when we look back, our subsidy
is less than it was 17 years ago, and
the department is currently receiving
7 percent of the general fund when it
used to receive 12. We’ve been cutting
and cutting and cutting away.”
has considered selling, the one with
the fewest deed restrictions is Birch
Field and Park, a 0.96-acre site at
Birch and 50th streets the department
lists in poor condition with very low
usage.
Based on what the department
believes will impact the fewest people
Prime cuts
Of four sites the parks department
See PARKS, Page 7A
SWAT
TEAM
Citizen panel to
review fi nances
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
The Port of Astoria Budget Com-
mittee, accused of overstepping its
bounds, voted Wednesday to recom-
mend the Port Commission create a
separate c itizen fi nancial r eview c om-
mittee to review the agency’s fi nances
quarterly.
State agencies are in the midst of
developing budgets, which need to
be publicly vetted and approved by
the end of the fi scal year in June . At a
Port Commission meeting last week,
the Port’s attor-
ney,
Eileen
Eakins, said the
purpose of the
budget com-
mittee in state
law is to hold
public
hear-
ings, develop a
balanced bud-
get and send it
to an agency’s
Eileen
governing body
Eakins
for approval.
“The intent of that statute is once
the budget committee is done with
its obligations for the year, that it
disbands and comes back the
next year when it’s time to start plan-
ning the next annual budget,” she
said.
The budget committee has
become a fl ash point, with some con-
cerned it is being used as a quasi -Port
Commission.
The Port’s budget committee has
historically held quarterly meetings to
review the Port’s fi nances. But Eak-
ins said the budget committee is over-
stepping its bounds and acting as a de
facto review committee. Port Execu-
tive Director Jim Knight has said her
opinion is shared by the Port’s former
attorney, Tim Ramis, and fi nancial
auditor Jim Lanzarotta.
Commissioners Bill Hunsinger
and Stephen Fulton, often critics
of the Port’s administration, dis-
puted Eakins’ viewpoint. Hunsinger
called for a budget committee meet-
ing Wednesday without a specifi c
reason.
See PORT, Page 7A
FATHER-SON DUO ATTACK MOSQUITOES AT FORT STEVENS
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Edward Horvath with Three Rivers Mosquito and Vector Control uses a blower to distribute a larvicide .
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
M
osquitoes that plague campers at Fort
Stevens State Park may have met their
match: a father-son duo.
The park hired a Klamath Falls-based mos-
quito control company led by Edward Hor-
vath, 44, following an increase of camper
complaints last year . He and his son, Jacob,
16, will apply larvicide to smaller stand-
ing -water sources around the park’s 530
camp sites through August.
Campers — especially in May and June —
sometimes would end their trips early because
of the number of mosquitoes in the park.
Heavy rainfall this past winter resulted in a
high volume of small standing -water sources,
natural mosquito breeding grounds.
“Last year’s mosquito problem wasn’t fun
for anybody,” Park Manager Justin Parker
said. “We’re getting ahead of it this year so
visitor and campers can enjoy the park with-
out hearing the annoying mosquito buzz or
swat the air to fend off the pests.”
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
See MOSQUITOES, Page 7A
Jacob Horvath checks to see how many mosquito larvae are in the water .
DEALS ON WHEELS
Peninsula go-kart track closed after drug busts
iff’s Offi ce started a joint investiga-
tion last fall .
“Merrill and Morris appeared to
be making the sales,” Chief Criminal
Deputy Pat Matlock of the Sheriff’s
Offi ce said.
Arrest reports show that a confi -
dential informant allegedly helped
investigators build a case by purchas-
ing heroin from Merrill and Morris
on fi ve occasions. For each deal, the
informant used police-provided “buy
money ” and immediately turned the
alleged drugs over to police.
Those alleged deals made it pos-
sible for the investigators to secure
a search warrant for Merrill’s busi-
nesses and home, Matlock said.
Couple arrested
for heroin, meth
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Thou-
sands of tourists have sought thrills
at the Merrill family’s downtown
complex of go-kart, bumper car and
moped rental businesses. Now, owner
Robert Anthony “Tony” Merrill, 51,
and his live-in girlfriend, Doreen
Marie Morris, 50, are in for a bumpy
ride of their own.
They are each facing multiple
felony charges following a raid last
week in which police seized sus-
pected heroin, methamphet, prescrip-
tion pills, almost $2,000 in cash and
a vintage motorcycle that had been
reported stolen.
Merrill runs three businesses that
occupy a city block at the intersection
of Sid Snyder Boulevard and Pacifi c
Avenue: Long Beach Go-Karts, Long
Beach Mopeds and Long Beach
Krazy Kars, a bumper car business
Natalie St. John/EO Media Group
Officer Casey Meling removed a generator from Long Beach Mopeds,
one of three downtown businesses that were part of an April 4 drug-
raid. City officials say the owner, Tony Merrill, ran the business on a
generator after state and local officials cut off his utility connection.
that has not been open regularly in
recent years.
The go-kart track and rental shop
consistently draw crowds of tour-
ists. Long Beach P olice suspected
that Merrill was also attracting a local
clientele by offering an entirely dif-
ferent kind of thrill-ride: doses of
heroin and methamphetamine. So,
police and the Pacifi c County Sher-
No bike rentals
Law enforcement agencies served
warrants at the downtown businesses
at around 10 a.m. on April 4. They
simultaneously served a warrant at
the home Merrill and Morris share
in the 1700 block of Ocean Beach
Boulevard.
See DRUG BUSTS, Page 7A