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.