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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2017
Bill to require advance notice of work schedule heads to governor
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon is
poised to become first in the
nation to adopt a statewide law
to require advance notice of
employees’ work schedules.
“It’s going to be a national
model,” said state Rep. Ann
Lininger, D-Lake Oswego.
The House of Representa-
tives voted 46-13 Thursday to
pass the legislation. The Sen-
ate approved the measure 23-6
last week.
Gov. Kate Brown’s signa-
ture is the final step to enact
the law.
The legislation requires
employers in the retail, hos-
pitality or food service sec-
tors who have 500 or more
employees to give at least
seven days’ notice of a work
schedule. The law would take
effect July 1, 2018. By July
2020, the amount of required
notice would increase to 14
days. Employers are exempt
from the requirement when
there are weather conditions
beyond their control.
The notice gives workers
more time to arrange child or
elder care and juggle sched-
ules for multiple jobs and
school.
“I think that there is wide
agreement that we want fam-
ilies to be able to provide for
themselves. We want families
to want to be able to have and
to be able to sustain a job, and I
believe this bill will make that
easier,” Lininger said.
Employers may not sched-
ule workers for shifts with-
out a minimum of a 10-hour
reprieve in between.
“I think it promotes safety
as well as people’s good
health,” said Rep. Janelle
Bynum, D-Clackamas, who
owns two McDonald’s fran-
chises in Portland. “On the
business side, I support this
because I believe it will make
Oregon a leader in the devel-
opment of this policy.”
When employers fail to
give the mandatory notice,
they will be required to pay
penalty compensation to
Library: The building was special for Larson
the employee.
Employees who wish to
work last-minute shifts or shifts
that are closer than 10 hours
apart to earn more income may
join a standby list. Employees
on the standby list who volun-
tarily pick up last-minute shifts
will not receive the penalty
compensation.
Workers who think their
employer has violated the law
may file a complaint with the
Bureau of Labor and Indus-
tries or a civil complaint.
Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove,
who voted against the bill, said
Oregon’s policies are “picking
winners and losers.”
“In this regard, maybe a
Plaid Pantry that has a dif-
ferent model in the way it is
set up and has more than 500
employees is different from
say a 7-Eleven that has the indi-
vidual stores,” Barreto said.
“Whether they have a certain
number of employees, we pick
and choose. Whether they are
in retail, hospitality and food
service versus other industries,
we pick and choose.”
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
The renaming came just
before Larson announced
his intention to step down as
mayor after the second year of
his fourth term. Larson, who
was 80, died less than a month
later.
Continued from Page 1A
Personal mission
The library, originally
housed on the west side of U.S.
Highway 101, was deemed too
small, lacked parking and crit-
ical facilities for patrons and
staff.
But with daunting costs,
plans for a new building stalled
until Seaside resident Albert
Groot offered a $500,000
matching grant, former library
Director Reita Fackerell said.
Mayor Larson, who took
office in 2002, made the library
his personal mission and in
2005, a new library became
the City Council’s No. 1 goal.
Larson envisioned a build-
ing that would blend in with
the beach and be something the
community would be proud of.
Under Larson’s leadership,
“The community completely
came together,” Fackerell said.
The city purchased the
property at 1131 Broadway in
2007 for $184,000.
With grants, urban renewal
money and fundraising, the
library opened its doors in
2008 without raising taxes or
incurring debt, Fackerell said.
Ribbon cutting
The building was special
for Larson. Project Manager
Dale McDowell — now the
city’s public works director —
even gave Larson an honorary
‘Extraordinary
passion’
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Don Larson’s family attended a ceremony Thursday night
where the former mayor was honored with the renaming of
the Seaside Library. Larson’s wife, Lois, is fourth from front.
hard hat.
With a giant pair of scis-
sors, Larson performed the
ribbon-cutting ceremony and
started a new era.
“People would come and
drive just to come to the
library,” Fackerell said. “It
was kind of a tourist attraction
— it was awesome. He was an
awesome person and we were
lucky to have him as a mayor.”
Eight years later, in
November 2016, Larson was
honored with the renaming of
the library building. City coun-
cilors made the decision based
on the mayor’s “numerous and
extraordinary contributions to
local government leading to
positive changes for the future
of Oregon.”
The resolution, adopted
unanimously, recognized Lar-
son’s major contributions to
the library project, from the
first discussions to construc-
tion and completion.
At Thursday’s ceremony,
councilors extolled the may-
or’s “extraordinary passion
and visionary leadership to the
city of Seaside.”
McDowell, along with vol-
unteer firefighter Katie Bul-
letset, stood on ladders to
unveil the building’s new
name, prominently displayed
above the front doors.
“If he were here, he would
say that his favorite moment
was watching this building
being built,” Lois Larson, Lar-
son’s wife, said. “The kids and
I are delighted that his ser-
vice to the city that he loved
is being remembered by nam-
ing this beautiful building after
him.
“I will still call it ‘the
library,’ as you will, but I will
stand a little taller, I will walk a
little straighter, and I will smile
a whole lot more broadly each
time I enter the building under
that name,” she said. “We are
awed, blessed, humbled, proud
and extremely grateful that
Don Larson is being honored
in such a wonderful way.”
Orcas: Under increased nutritional stress
Continued from Page 1A
Struggles
Southern resident killer
whales along the U.S. West
Coast have struggled since they
were listed as endangered spe-
cies in 2005. They now num-
ber just 78, down from a high
of 140 decades ago. The whales
face threats from a lack of food,
pollution and boats.
The new study, published
Thursday in the journal PLOS
ONE, zeroes in on food sup-
ply as an important stress fac-
tor among these fish-eating
whales. Unlike other killer
whales that eat marine mam-
mals, the orcas that spend the
summer in Puget Sound, and
also feed elsewhere along the
Oregon and Washington coasts
including the Columbia River
and Willapa Bay, primarily eat
salmon, mostly Chinook.
Many species of Chinook
salmon along West Coast are
listed as threatened or endan-
gered because of a host of fac-
tors, including loss of habi-
tat from urban development,
dams, fishing, pollution and
competition from non-native
fish.
Toxins that accumulate in
the whales’ fat and are released
when the animals starve and
metabolize that fat also play a
role in the pregnancy problems.
“Food is the driver. But
what we can’t yet say is how
much of that then is affected by
its interaction by toxins,” Was-
ser said, adding that there were
not enough samples to say how
influential the toxins are.
Whale-sniffing pups
Using dogs trained to sniff
out whale poop, a team of sci-
entists collected nearly 350
excrement samples from 79
unique whales in inland waters
of British Columbia and Wash-
ington state between 2008 and
2014.
Back in the lab, they ana-
lyzed it for the hormones pro-
gesterone and testosterone and
assessed whether the orca was
pregnant and at what stage.
They also used DNA to deter-
mine the identity, sex and fam-
ily line of the whale. A preg-
nancy was deemed successful
if the female whale was later
observed with her calf.
Their analysis showed 35
orca pregnancies between 2008
and 2014. Eleven calves were
spotted with their mothers in
successful births. Puget Sound
orcas are individually identi-
fied and intensely tracked, so
researchers know when calves
are born to one of three fami-
lies of orcas, known as the J, K
and L pods.
The study found 24 unsuc-
cessful pregnancies. No calves
were seen in those cases, indi-
cating that the whales lost the
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babies or the calves died shortly
after birth. Those females
showed signs of nutritional
stress — more so than those
who gave birth successfully.
Worrisome numbers
The concerns reflected in
the study are not new; research
cruises in recent years have
been examining issues with
whale fecundity. In 2015, Dr.
Brad Hanson, a wildlife biolo-
gist with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administra-
tion, noted that L pod was espe-
cially worrisome. At the time, L
pod had few young whales and
its adult females were nearing
the end of their breeding years.
Researchers also recorded
the number of boats in the area
when collected the whales’
scat. They studied two hor-
mones that play important roles
Astoria Band Boosters
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Submitted Photo
This orca was photographed near the mouth of the Co-
lumbia River in 2015 by researchers from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
in physiological stress and were
able to differentiate between
stress from poor nutrition and
stress from boat traffic.
The team compared the
hormone data to abundance
records of two Chinook salmon
runs in the Pacific Northwest.
The data over time suggest
the orcas experienced periodic
nutritional stress, partly caused
by variation in the timing and
strength of the salmon runs in
the Columbia and Fraser rivers,
the study said.
The study said improving
those Chinook salmon runs
could help save Puget Sound
orcas.
“I think it’s fair to call out
nutrition as a major stressor for
these guys,” said Joe Gaydos,
a wildlife veterinarian and sci-
ence director of SeaDoc Soci-
ety, who was not involved in
the study.
Transient resident whales
that feed on marine mammals
confront similar boat noise and
pollution, but haven’t had the
same kind of pregnancy prob-
lems as the fish-eating whales.
But Gaydos added that nutri-
tion or food can’t be viewed
independently of other factors.
Noise, boats, food availability
and toxins are all interrelated.
He said the study shows the
need to take as many actions
as possible to save the iconic
creatures.
Daily Astorian reporter
Katie Frankowicz contributed
to this story.
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to arrange pickup of large amounts.
More court challenges expected
for Trump’s new travel ban
WASHINGTON — A scaled-back version of President
Donald Trump’s travel is now in force, stripped of provisions
that brought protests and chaos at airports worldwide in January
yet still likely to generate a new round of court fights.
The new rules, the product of months of legal wrangling,
aren’t so much an outright ban as a tightening of already-tough
visa policies affecting citizens from six Muslim-majority coun-
tries. Refugees are covered, too.
Administration officials promised that implementation this
time, which started at 8 p.m. EDT, would be orderly. Customs
and Border Protection spokesman Dan Hetlage said his agency
expected “business as usual at our ports of entry,” with all valid
visa holders still being able to travel.
Still, immigration and refugee advocates are vowing to chal-
lenge the new requirements and the administration has strug-
gled to explain how the rules will make the United States safer.
Under the temporary rules, citizens of Syria, Sudan, Soma-
lia, Libya, Iran and Yemen who already have visas will be
allowed into the United States. But people from those countries
who want new visas will now have to prove a close family rela-
tionship or an existing relationship with an entity like a school
or business in the U.S.
GOP may keep Obama tax on
wealthy in bid to save health bill
WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republicans may try pre-
serving a tax boost on high earners enacted by President Barack
Obama in a bid to woo party moderates and rescue their sputter-
ing push to repeal his health care overhaul.
The break from dogma by a party that has long reviled tax
boosts — and most things achieved by Obama — underscores
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s feverish effort to
yank one of his and President Donald Trump’s foremost pri-
orities from the brink of defeat. The money would instead be
used to bolster proposed health care subsidies for lower-income
people.
The change, proposed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would
give a more populist flavor to the bill. The nonpartisan Congres-
sional Budget Office says that as the legislation now is written,
it would boost out-of-pocket costs for many poor consumers
and produce 22 million uninsured people while cutting around
$700 billion in taxes over a decade — largely for richer people
and the health care industry.
Trump pans TV host’s look,
brains: Republicans plead, Stop!
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump launched a
crude Twitter attack on the brains, looks and temperament of a
female TV personality Thursday, drawing bipartisan howls of
outrage and leaving fellow Republicans beseeching him: Stop,
please just stop.
Trump’s tweets aimed at MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski
revived concerns about his views of women in a city where
civility already is in short supply and he is struggling for any
support he can get for his proposals on health care, immigration
and other controversial issues.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me
(don’t watch anymore),” Trump tweeted to his nearly 33 million
followers Thursday morning. “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy
Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in
a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She
was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
The tweets served to unite Democrats and Republicans for
once in a chorus of protest that amounted to perhaps the loudest
outcry since Trump took office.
“Obviously I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” said
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. House Democratic leader
Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s tweets, “blatantly sexist.” The pres-
ident, she added, “happens to disrespect women ... it’s sad.”
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