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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2017)
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 144TH YEAR, NO. 243 ONE DOLLAR City water customers could help pay for parks Astoria looks at $3 fee on home water meters By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Participants solve a variety of puzzles to unlock clues about how to escape a locked room in the North Coast’s first escape room. PIRATES AND PUZZLES Couple opens first escape room on the North Coast See PARKS, Page 7A By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian C ANNON BEACH — When Natalie Miller and Blake Lyman visited Can- non Beach as children, they always felt there was something missing. There was plenty to do on the beach if the weather was nice, but as a kid on those rainy days, Lyman remembers not feeling engaged with the town. “We wanted to bring something to town that people could do that didn’t involve the beach. Even when it’s rainy, parents want to make memories with their kids,” Lyman said. Out of this sentiment came the opening of The Cannon Beach Escape Room — a live-action challenge where a group of peo- ple are locked in a room and must solve a variety of puzzles along a storyline in under an hour to escape. Lyman and Miller plan to have two themed rooms: The pirate room that would be a permanent feature and another that would change themes. Yard debris, glass pickup to come to the curb Service will raise rates, start in several months Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The new escape room in Cannon Beach was started by a Portland couple who experienced one there and decided there should be one on the coast, as well. First on North Coast Escape rooms have been gaining popu- larity in areas like Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia, but this will be the first for the North Coast. “This is such a crazy idea. Get people locked in a room with people they don’t know and solve a problem? But it’s so fun,” Lyman said. The couple got the idea after doing one in Portland earlier this year, and three months later will officially open their own at 248 N Spruce St. on Thursday. See ESCAPE ROOM, Page 4A IF YOU GO People can register for one-hour time slots on the website cannonbeachescaperoom.com. Business hours will be are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Monday. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for children. Lyman and Miller recommend children younger than 8 years old be accompanied by a parent. The Astoria City Council on Monday night directed staff to look at a $3 fee on residential water customers to help finance parks. City Councilor Cindy Price first pro- posed the parks fee at a council work ses- sion in May, saying it would be a way to bring in revenue for the cash-strapped, low- staffed Parks and Recreation Department. She and other councilors believe it could buy the city time as it considers other, long-term solutions. The parks fee was one of a number of fee increases under consideration Monday, including higher garbage rates that would provide for curbside glass and yard debris pickup and a 6 percent increase to a sur- charge for the city’s sewer improvement project. City Manager Brett Estes said city staff would need to look at modifying city code and work on crafting a resolution before the City Council could vote on the $3 parks fee Price proposed. At City Councilor Bruce Jones’ Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Some puzzles at the new escape room in Cannon Beach were found in opened boxes and drawers leading to even more clues. By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Curbside glass and yard debris collec- tion is coming to Astoria, driving up garbage rates. The City Council voted 3-2 Monday night in favor of providing the additional ser- vices. Councilors Bruce Jones, Zetty Nem- lowill and Tom Brownson said the increase would, at most, add only a few dollars to a customer’s monthly bill. Nemlowill said she felt that a few extra dollars was “a small price to pay” for a healthy planet. When the council had first discussed this increase in May, Jones had been hesitant to vote with Nemlowill until he heard from residents about how even a small increase might affect some households. He said he has since heard from a number of people in favor of adding glass and yard debris pickup. The fee will not go into effect until Recol- ogy Western Oregon, the company that pro- vides garbage service to residents and busi- nesses, has containers and pickup schedules in place, a process that could take several months. See PICKUP, Page 4A Legislators introduce cost-containment bills By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau SALEM — Legislators Monday released a series of cost-cutting proposals that they say could eventually save more than $1 billion in the state’s budget. However, the impact in the short term — as legislators are trying to reconcile a $1.4 bil- lion shortfall between revenue and expenses in the upcom- ing two-year budget — would likely be considerably lower. The $1.4 billion gap corre- sponds only to the state’s Gen- eral Fund and Lottery Funds. Savings incurred by changing public employee compensa- tion and benefits would be felt not only in agencies tapping those funds, but throughout the entire state budget, which includes agencies that rely also on fees and federal funds. Cuts are part of the equa- tion when it comes to closing the gap, but Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said in a prepared statement that passing one of the bills, which makes changes to the state’s public pension system, was contingent on passing a “sig- nificant” revenue package. Additionally, some changes wouldn’t kick in until 2018, in which case the full financial impact on the state’s two-year budget won’t be felt until the cycle starting July 1, 2019. Cost curbing The first proposal, SB 1067, is a collection of various cost-curbing measures, such as combining two separate bene- fit boards serving public educa- tors and other public employ- ees, limiting the annual growth rate of health care expenditures for public employees and tying the rates paid for employee health care services to a per- centage of Medicare rates. See BILLS, Page 7A AP Photo/Don Ryan Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, speaks in Salem in January. Oregon lawmakers, through an effort spearheaded by Courtney, rolled out two proposals Mon- day aimed at reining in government spending and closing the state’s upcoming $1.4 billion deficit by at least $141 million over the next two years.
