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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 24, 2017)
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, APRIL 24, 2017 144TH YEAR, NO. 212 ONE DOLLAR Legislators pitch cost containing measures Options to reduce budget shortfall By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau Damian Mulinix/For The Daily Astorian During a recent practice, jammers — with stars on their helmet — from the Astoria All Star Junior Roller Derby team try to break the pivot line to start a jam. See more photos from the practice online at DailyAstorian.com HUGS AND HIP CHECKS FORMER SHANGHAIED ROLLER DOLLS TEACH NEW GENERATION TO SKATE By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian SALEM — Concluding a week of height- ened budget rhetoric at the state Legisla- ture, a bipartisan group of legislators say the state’s budget crunch could be addressed in the short- and long-term through a score of possible measures, including a hiring freeze and tweaks to the state’s public pen- sion system. However, it’s not yet clear how much these strategies, if implemented, would save as lawmakers try to address a $1.6 bil- lion shortfall in gen- Richard eral fund revenue nec- Devlin essary to maintain current services. State Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tuala- tin, a member of the group and co-chair of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means — which hammers out the state’s budget — says the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Office could produce an estimate of poten- tial savings as early as this week. Devlin and four other lawmakers have been meeting privately to find ways to cut down on state spending. They released their 18 cost-containment ideas publicly for the first time Friday. D erby bouts ended at the Astoria Armory last summer when the Shanghaied Roller Dolls broke up. But several former Roller Dolls have kept the tra- dition alive through the Astoria All Star Junior Roller Derby team, an initiative to build skating and self-confidence skills among young people. Each weekend at the Armory, Robyn “Hurricane Ka Ream Ya” Koustik, Liz “Sasshole” Visser, Darcy “Darzylla” Fer- guson, Walt “Coach Walt” Sabe and others drill their young recruits in the ways of roller derby, like how to safely fall on a hard wooden floor. The junior derby includes girls — and one boy — of all sizes. Skaters range from 5-year-old Saveri “Sabertooth” San- chez, who is too young for derby bouts but too insistent to be held out of practices, to 15-year-old Nea “Smack U Lara” Johnson, who towers over most of her peers and lays big hits on her coaches. The young skaters travel from as close as down the block to as far as Nehalem, drawn to Astoria for the last vestige of roller derby on the North Coast. See BUDGET, Page 4A Q&A Advocate: ‘You’re not trapped’ The Harbor is a safe place for abuse victims A family Elinor “Bellatrix” Johnson, 11, was a mascot for the Roller Dolls, dressing up as a pirate and doing laps during stoppages. She and her older sister, Nea, have been a part of the team since the founding several years ago as the SRDines. The youth branch is now called the Astoria All Star Junior Roller Derby, which draws up to 20 skaters on a given weekend. By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian See ROLLER DERBY, Page 9A ‘It’s an awesome thing for kids who don’t want to do anything else. They get serious exercise. They get their butts kicked.’ Tess Johnson parent of two sisters who are members of the Astoria All Star Junior Roller Derby team Damian Mulinix/For The Daily Astorian Former Shanghaied Roller Doll Liz Visser works with members of the Astoria All Star Junior Roller Derby team at a recent practice. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Since August, Crystal Moody has been a member of the domestic and sex- ual assault response team of The Harbor, the region’s advocacy group for abuse vic- tims. For the past four Crystal months, Moody has Moody been a sexual assault advocate. She spoke of her work at The Harbor, which operates a 24-hour crisis line. See MOODY, Page 9A New coordinator has lifelong passion for gardens Jones promotes sustainability inda Jones remembers as a young girl visit- ing her grandma’s home in York, Pennsylvania, learning all about gardening and head- ing home each time with cut- tings, which eventually filled her own room with plants. She remembers growing up in Alexandria, Virginia, sur- rounded by historic homes and gardens. “It really started from childhood,” Jones said of her interest in horticulture, “And I’ve been kind of a horticulture nerd ever since. I’m passion- L ate about being environmen- tally responsible, and inspir- ing other people to get into gardening, growing their own food, sustainability.” Jones, the wife of Astoria City Councilor Bruce Jones, has taken her lifelong passion into a new position as coordi- nator of Oregon State Univer- sity Extension Service’s Mas- ter Gardener program. “We’re pretty committed to sustainability, and also provide information on growing your own food,” she said. “We’re committed to providing the information to the public that is the most environmentally beneficial.” “The goal is to teach the home gardeners how to garden in a way that they don’t need … the sprays and the herbi- cides and the pesticides.” Jones, who moved around the U.S. as part of her hus- band’s career in the U.S. Coast Guard, first trained as a master gardener while living in Wis- consin in 2007, adding to her bachelor’s in marketing and master’s in education. Upon See JONES, Page 9A Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Linda Jones, a lifelong gardener, is the program coordina- tor for Oregon State University Extension Service’s Mas- ter Gardener program.
