DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
145TH YEAR, NO. 28
BOOK ¢ ENTS
Library levy increase will be on the ballot in November
ONE DOLLAR
Deviney
gets 30
years in
rape case
Abducted the girl
in California in 2015
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Tyler Wirt did not wait for all the books to be unpacked at the new home of the Warrenton Community Library in May
before taking advantage of the children’s reading section.
See DEVINEY, Page 7A
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
W
ARRENTON — For
the first time in nearly
15 years, the Warrenton
City Commission will
go to the voters seeking an increase to
the library’s operational levy.
If voters approve the increase in
the November election, the five-year
levy would jump from 9 cents per
$1,000 of assessed property value to
33 cents. This would raise an esti-
mated $933,773 over the next five
years. The money would go toward
expanding the Warrenton Commu-
nity Library’s limited hours, add staff
time, pay for an automated check-out
system, e-books and other books and
materials as well as cover routine bills
such as rent, utilities, maintenance and
telephones. The upgrades will help
modernize a library where volunteers
and staff still hand-stamp due dates in
the backs of books.
The levy increased once before,
from 6 cents to today’s 9 cents.
City commissioners examined four
different scenarios at a meeting Tues-
day night. These were labeled bronze,
silver, gold and platinum. Each out-
lined different tax increases — from as
low as 20 cents to as high as 41 cents
— and detailed what the library could
accomplish with the different sums
each would likely raise. City staff and
the library board recommended the
gold scenario, which the commission
unanimously approved.
A Washington state man was sentenced
today to more than 30 years in prison for rap-
ing a California girl in 2015 and leaving her in
a car in Astoria.
Russell Wayne Deviney, 50, of Ever-
ett, Washington, pleaded guilty last week
to first-degree rape,
first-degree
unlaw-
ful sexual penetra-
tion, first-degree sod-
omy and using a child
in a display of sexu-
ally explicit conduct.
He originally was also
charged with first-de-
gree kidnapping, three
counts of first-degree
sexual abuse and sec-
Russell Wayne
ond counts of the four
Deviney
charges for which he
pleaded guilty before
eventually reaching a deal with the Clatsop
County District Attorney’s Office.
Authorities say Deviney abducted the
15-year-old girl in Sanger, California, in May
2015 after posing as an 18-year-old man on
Instagram. After fighting with her mother one
Warrenton,
water district
to discuss dam
Potential thaw in
the ongoing dispute
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
The shelves at the new home of the Warrenton Community Library are full and
patrons are busy taking advantage of all the new space.
Warrenton Communi-
ty Library volunteer
Schatzie Perkins
worked on getting
shelves ready in May
to handle books at
the new facility in
downtown Warrenton.
‘Library needs to grow’
The library has been at its new
WARRENTON — The Warrenton City
Commission will meet with the Skipanon
Water Control District on the Eighth Street
Dam, hoping to find consensus for new stud-
ies into whether the aging structure is useful
for flood control.
The city said the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers and the federal Natural Resources
Conservation Service favor more research on
the dam on the Skipanon River. The city has
temporarily put aside legal questions about
ownership and liability, and will instead con-
centrate on whether tide gates can be restored
to test whether the dam can reduce flooding
for property owners.
“We are concerned about the anecdotes
and the stories and the reports that we’ve
received from homeowners and property
owners across the city, and we’re pursuing
further actions to open a dialogue,” Mayor
Henry Balensifer said Tuesday night after
the City Commission met privately in exec-
utive session.
See LIBRARY, Page 7A
See DAM, Page 7A
Seaside’s latest innovation goes topsy-turvy
Viewing the
world from
upside down
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — If the world
seems to be a little upside
down, you’re not alone.
Keith Baker first imagined
a topsy-turvy outlook as a kid
watching TV shows upside
down while lying on the liv-
ing-room couch. During the
long months as a commercial
fisherman in Alaska, he would
let his imagination run as he
gazed over the horizon.
Back in Seaside, Baker has
turned his longtime vision into
a reality at the Inverted Expe-
rience, appropriately located at
the former location of the Fer-
ris wheel on Broadway.
Today, the room is deco-
rated like a Fred Astaire-Gin-
ger Rogers Hollywood stage
set, with fixtures on the ceiling
and upside down on the walls.
Barstools are upside down at
the “inverted saloon” and on
a side wall, a 1950s kitchen
scene hangs from above.
Reactions are “unbe-
lievable,” Baker said. “It’s
steamrolling.”
He developed the concept
about 10 years ago, during those
long moments on a fishing boat
in the Bering Sea. “When you
are isolated on a boat you have
a lot of time to think,” Baker
said. “You don’t have a lot of
influences, TV or internet.”
The Inverted Experience is
the product of Baker’s imagi-
nation and his love for Seaside.
A $6 admission fee gains
entry; a family pass is $20 for
four. Visitors pass their phones
to an attendant, who snaps and
rotates the shots so that people
appear to be hanging, floating,
running or scrambling upside
down.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
See SEASIDE, Page 7A
Owner Keith Baker at the Inverted Saloon.