144TH YEAR, NO. 241
ONE DOLLAR
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2017
CLASS OF 2017
Graduations! area valedictorians, salutatorians and Graduates
raduates • INSIDE
REAL ESTATE
REBOUND
COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
Spunky shorebirds make rare spring stop
Might have been blown off
course on fl ight to Alaska
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
The plucky shorebirds have already fl own
thousands of miles from New Zealand to China,
across the open ocean toward Alaska. C hances
are high they didn’t plan to wind up on a beach in
Clatsop County.
But local birders have spotted unprecedented
numbers of adult bar-tailed godwits on Sunset
Beach this week. Former Astoria High School
teacher and local naturalist Mike Patterson spot-
ted 17 alone on a stretch from Gearhart to the
Peter Iredale shipwreck on Wednesday. In April,
birders in Newport also reported sightings.
This is rare .
‘A big deal’
Birders and biologists have recorded a num-
ber of sightings of young godwits here in the fall.
Usually these birds are very young and very lost.
But Roy Lowe, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and national wildlife refuge manager,
says it is rare to see the birds here in the spring.
Mike Patterson/Submitted Photo
See BIRDS, Page 7A
The shorebirds likely got blown off course on the way to Alaska.
Cancer care gets new home in fall State backs
Gearhart
on vacation
rentals
‘Repeal and replace’
still possible by ballot
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Chris Laman, director of pharmacy and oncology services for Columbia Memorial Hospital, gives members of the media a
tour of the new cancer center still under construction in Astoria. The center is slated to open in October.
CMH, OHSU
center to offer
myriad services
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
t the base of the new Knight Can-
cer Collaborative on Exchange
Street, crews have poured about 2.5
million pounds of concrete into a vault to
house a $3 million linear particle accelera-
tor shipped to Astoria from Europe.
The accelerator is a centerpiece of the
$16.5 million, 18,000-square-foot can-
cer -treatment center, a partnership between
Columbia Memorial Hospital and Oregon
Health & Science University that, when
it opens in October, will establish the fi rst
A
local radiation -therapy center on the North
Coast, along with expanded chemotherapy
infusions.
The vault
Chris Laman, the hospital’s director of
pharmacy and oncology services, said radi-
ation sessions are commonly divided into
nine equal installments of about 20 to 30
seconds of radiation a day, fi ve days a week
for nearly two weeks. Each year, the hos-
pital estimates, 75 to 100 people travel
from the North Coast region to Portland,
Longview, Washington, or Seattle for radi-
ation therapy, sometimes dedicating most
of a day for seconds of therapy. The hos-
pital expects 1,800 such radiation -therapy
visits after the fi rst year of operation.
Laman said the hospital’s setup for
radiation therapy in Astoria will mir-
ror OHSU’s, down to the same linear
See CENTER, Page 6A
Columbia Memorial Hospital/Submitted Graphic
Patients at the Knight Cancer Collabo-
rative will receive infusion chemother-
apy on the second floor, with views of
the Columbia River.
GEARHART — The state Land Use
Board of Appeals has upheld Gearhart’s
regulations on vacation rentals, denying
an appeal from residents who oppose the
restrictions.
The city ordinances enacted last Octo-
ber regulate occupancy limits, parking and
property management con-
tact information. V acation
rental permits are transfer-
able only by inheritance.
“This is a huge victory
for the citizens of Gear-
hart,” Mayor Matt Brown
said in an email. “The
Matt
(short-term rental) rules
Brown
passed last year are work-
ing very well to balance
the high number of short-
term rentals, improve sub-
standard septic systems and
replace cesspools and cre-
ate safe environments for
property owners, visitors
and citizens.”
Chad
The state decision will
Sweet
enable the city to regulate
vacation rentals the way
C ity C ouncil intended, City Administrator
Chad Sweet said.
“This has been very contentious in Gear-
hart. We are happy to have LUBA’s guid-
ance,” Sweet said.
Fourteen Gearhart property owners chal-
lenged the short-term rental rules shortly
after they were passed, citing inconsistencies
in how the city defi ned “residential charac-
ter,” among other issues.
Despite the state ruling, efforts to get a
“repeal and replace” initiative on the Novem-
ber ballot can still proceed, Sweet said. T he
ballot measure would repeal special regula-
tion on vacation rentals related to off-street
See GEARHART, Page 7A
Gun thefts tied to missing go-kart owner
Long Beach
owner linked to
burglary, guns
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
LONG BEACH, Wash.
— Allegations surrounding
Long Beach Krazy Kars owner
Anthony “Tony” Merrill keep
mounting and a warrant has
been issued for his arrest .
Police now suspect that, in
addition to dealing drugs from
his downtown Long Beach
go-kart, bumper car and moped
rental facilities, Merrill, 52, was
the driving force behind a major
burglary in January, a scram-
ble to keep cops from fi nding a
large cache of stolen weapons,
and a failed May attempt to sell
$15,000 in stolen fi rearms to an
undercover cop that led to the
arrests of at least four men.
However, they can’t ask
Merrill if he was involved —
he has been “in the wind” since
failing to show up for a May
19 court hearing, according
to Pacifi c County Prosecutor
Mark McClain. There is now is
a nationwide warrant .
‘It looked like a
bomb went off’
In late January, a man went
to check on his brother’s home
in Ocean Park, and found the
back door swinging open. It
quickly became clear that the
property had been burglarized.
Inside the house, drawers
and a gun cabinet were open.
Numerous items were missing,
including a jewelry box and a
silver tea service. In the master
bedroom, a fi ling cabinet had
been ransacked.
The man told police “it
looked like a bomb went off”
inside his brother’s work-
shop. A green El Camino and
boat motor were gone. A large
safe that had contained “a vast
See MISSING, Page 7A
EO Media Group/File Photo
Long Beach, Washington, Police Officer Rodney Nawn
searched a storage room at Long Beach Go Karts. Local
police agencies served a search warrant at the neighbor-
ing go-k art and bike-rental businesses owned by Anthony
“Tony” Merrill in April .