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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017
Guilty: ‘This is not about cannabis’
Continued from Page 1A
would have meant a manda-
tory prison sentence, before
reaching a deal with the Dis-
trict Attorney’s Office.
They were sentenced today
in Circuit Court to three years
of probation after pleading
guilty.
“What makes it unusual is
that to my knowledge this is the
first time, in at least Oregon,
and maybe in the United States,
in which a legally permitted or
licensed marijuana production
facility — the people operating
it — have been found guilty of
a felony for injuries resulting
from it,” Marquis said.
Oei and West would serve
20 months in prison if either
violate probation. Both men
did not have any criminal his-
tory before the explosion. Cir-
cuit Court Judge Dawn McIn-
tosh said the district attorney’s
willingness to not ask for guar-
anteed prison time, due to the
lack of criminal history and
because the fire was started
accidentally, was unusual.
West, 41, and Oei, 44,
owned and operated Higher
Level Concentrates, a mari-
juana processor located in the
basement underneath Sweet
Relief Natural Medicine on
the corner of Industry and
Portway Streets in Uniontown.
The October blast left West
and Jacob Magley, a worker at
the facility, with severe burns
and the building in ruins.
The reckless endangerment
charges stem from the dan-
ger caused to emergency per-
sonnel working to contain the
fire, Marquis said. Second-
ary explosions occurred as fire
personnel attempted to extin-
guish the blaze.
“This is not about cannabis.
This is about a manufacturing
process that is very danger-
ous,” Marquis said. “Nobody
believes they intended to do
this but that they acted reck-
lessly with a dangerous
weapon, in this case butane.”
West, Oei and Magley, who
listened to the proceedings
over the phone, declined to
make statements to the court.
Magley, who spent several
weeks recovering in a Portland
burn unit, is suing the two men
in Multnomah County Cir-
cuit Court for premises liabil-
ity and violations of the Ore-
gon Safe Employment Act.
His attorney claims Oei was
“dabbing,” inhaling the mari-
juana smoke from butane hash
oil pressed against a heated
surface, while West was using
butane to remove tetrahydro-
cannabinol, or THC, from
marijuana leaves.
Butane vapors emitted
from a cannister can quickly
fill an enclosed space, where
even a pilot light can cause a
fire. Hundreds of previously
punctured cannisters that con-
tained butane were found
during the fire investigation.
The heat from Oei’s dabbing
mixed with vapors emitted
from the cannisters caused the
explosion, Magley’s attorney
claims.
The lawsuit is ongoing in
Multnomah County after a
judge denied a motion to move
the case back to Astoria.
Marquis has been critical
of the Oregon Health Author-
ity for not inspecting licensed
marijuana
manufacturers,
including Higher Level Con-
centrates. The state Occu-
pational Safety and Health
Administration fined the com-
pany $5,300 in April for work-
place safety violations. Had
the same incident occurred in
a building in downtown Asto-
ria, it could have started a mas-
sive fire similar to the inferno
that leveled the city in 1922,
Marquis said.
“That’s, frankly, indefen-
sible,” Marquis said of the
state’s lack of inspections
before the explosion.
Eclipse: Begins shortly after 9 a.m. Monday
Continued from Page 1A
expect there to be any out-
ages due to overcapacity. “Full
hotel rooms and campgrounds
are something the company
plans for,” the utility company
said in a statement, “and there
is no reason to believe power
supply or equipment issues
will surface.”
For government agencies
countywide, with the excep-
tion of police departments,
Monday will be “business as
usual.”
But law enforcement and
transportation officials say
traffic snarls could occur as
people traveling toward central
Oregon for the eclipse turn to
the coast’s back routes to avoid
traffic jams on major highways
inland.
Clatsop
County
Cir-
cuit Court is shutting down
on Monday from 9:45 a.m.
to 10:45 a.m. due to “the
expected high volume of traf-
fic for the eclipse,” while Sun-
set Empire Transportation Dis-
trict has warned customers
that some bus routes could be
significantly delayed or can-
celed if traffic is bad. The Ore-
gon State Police office in War-
renton plans to conduct extra
patrols starting today and, on
Monday, will have all hands
on deck — patrol troopers
as well as fish and wildlife
enforcement.
“Again, we don’t know
exactly what’s going to occur,”
Lt. Andrew Merila said, “or
how bad it’s going to be.”
‘A major winter storm’
“We’re treating this like a
major winter storm,” said Lou
Torres, a Department of Trans-
portation spokesman, and they
are maneuvering resources
into place. The big difference
between the eclipse and a win-
ter storm is that they have been
anticipating this eclipse for
almost a year, he explained.
The department announced
it is halting construction around
the state over the weekend, and
there will be no lane closures
during the eclipse weekend
on roads and bridges under-
going maintenance work. This
includes the Astoria Bridge,
where crews are recoating the
steel below the span.
Merila thinks the big issues
in Clatsop County will be the
traffic before and after the
event. U.S. Highway 30, for
instance, could become an
issue. It runs in a direct line
from Portland to coastal high-
ways and arteries that can take
people south toward the path
of totality. Similar scenarios
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Specialized glasses to pro-
tect the eyes of those who
choose to observe the total
solar eclipse are in short
supply on the North Coast.
Experts are urging those
who wish to observe the
phenomenon to properly
protect their eyes as the
event can cause perma-
nent damage.
will likely play out on U.S.
Highways 26 and 101, too. The
Astoria Bridge is expected to
be another pinch point because
of people traveling from Wash-
ington state.
Fire is the other big worry.
Dry, hot conditions and
concerns about the sheer num-
ber of people expected in
the state prompted Oregon
State Parks to ban all camp-
fires, beach bonfires and open
flames on property it owns
or manages since Wednes-
day. The ban includes Clatsop
County and is in effect until
after the eclipse.
The local Oregon Depart-
ment of Forestry office in
Astoria has staged wildfire
fighting crews at key points
across the county so they can
quickly respond to any threat
of fire over the weekend. On
Wednesday, in conjunction
with other majority landown-
ers in Clatsop County, the
office announced it was clos-
ing a gate on the east end of
Pipeline Road to lessen the risk
of fire.
Dramatic
Unlike people in Salem or
Lincoln City, North Coast res-
idents won’t witness a total
solar eclipse or see that famous
image: The moon, a black disc,
outlined by the sun’s fiery
corona hanging in a darkened
sky.
But what they could see
from their viewing place of
choice — whether that’s the
Astoria Column, a boat on the
Columbia River, or Haystack
Rock in Cannon Beach — will
still be dramatic.
Beginning at about 9:06
a.m., the moon will start to
move in front of the sun,
whittling it down to a cres-
cent and making the sky go
dark at 10:18 a.m. The moon
will completely block the sun
for about two minutes and 40
seconds.
As the moon passes, that
crescent of sunlight will
appear to swing to one side
and then flip upside down, like
a Cheshire Cat grin. Then, as
the moon continues on its jour-
ney, the sun will begin to reap-
pear. The entire event will be
over by 11:37 a.m.
The North Coast last expe-
rienced a total solar eclipse on
Feb. 26, 1979 — also a Mon-
day — and Astoria was in the
path of totality then. But an
article in The Daily Astorian
before the event warned res-
idents not to get too excited.
The writer noted that since
1953, the date of Feb 26 in
Astoria had been rain-free five
times and cloud-free only four
times.
“And if the weather pat-
tern of the last quarter-century
holds true,” the writer con-
cluded, “North Coast residents
may get their best view of the
event sitting in front of a tele-
vision set.”
On the day of the 1979
eclipse, Clatsop County was
covered in clouds. Residents
experienced the sudden plunge
into darkness, but otherwise
went about their lives as usual.
A reporter noted children wait-
ing, unimpressed, for their
school bus.
So far, people this time
around are in luck. The fore-
cast for Monday is partly
cloudy skies, no rain and a
high of 69 degrees.
And those reports of ani-
mals panicking because of the
sudden plunge into nighttime
darkness in the middle of the
morning? Domestic animals
and pets probably won’t notice
a thing, scientists say. Birds are
another story.
“Stimulated by the dark-
ness which set in about 8:13
a.m. to think that sunset was
returning only minutes after
dawn, sea gulls, crows and
other feathered creatures cir-
cled nervously in flocks
and cawed noisily,” a Daily
Astorian reporter wrote on
Feb. 26, 1979.
Where you’ll see it
Crowds are expected on
Clatsop County’s beaches and
peaks. In Astoria, a number of
locals shrugged when asked
where they would go. “The
Column?” they said.
The Column was Astoria
Parks and Recreation Director
Angela Cosby’s first thought,
too, and it is a spot particularly
ripe for traffic jams, she said.
“I would encourage people
to walk up,” she said. “Use the
Cathedral Tree trail!” The trail-
head is located on Irving Ave-
nue, east of 26th Street.
Cosby also recommended
the Astoria Riverwalk, which
is specifically set up for pedes-
trian traffic and which is able
to provide many views of the
early morning sun over the
Columbia River.
Local, state and national
parks will hold viewings. At
Lewis and Clark National
Historical Park, Superinten-
dent Jon Burpee plans to be
at the south Netul Landing,
past the park’s main entrance,
and invites visitors who want
a good view of the sky to join
him there between 9:05 and
11:36 a.m. At Fort Stevens
State Park, a ranger and volun-
teer will be posted on the beach
at the Peter Iredale shipwreck
with a few glasses. On Sun-
day night, the park will hold
a “Fort Stevens Family Trivia:
Eclipse Edition” in the camp-
ground amphitheater at 7 p.m.
What not to
worry about
NASA addresses a num-
ber of misconceptions on web-
pages dedicated entirely to the
upcoming event, including the
belief that if you are pregnant,
watching the eclipse will harm
your unborn baby. It won’t, but
observatories report that this is
a frequently asked question.
Then there is the worry that
eclipses produce some kind of
extra radiation that will poison
any food prepared during the
event. Again, no.
Are eclipses harbingers of
some kind of doom? Nope,
that’s just confirmation bias,
NASA says, meaning “we tend
to remember all the occasions
on which two things happened
together, but forget all of the
other times when they did not.
… Total solar eclipses are not
often recorded in the historical
record, but they do tend to be
recorded when they coincide
with other historical events.”
Schools: ‘Short of an
economic downturn, I
see funding increasing’
Continued from Page 1A
teacher since drastic budget
cuts several years ago.
The district’s answer is
to add a part-time, Measure
98-funded counselor to work
with eighth- and ninth-grad-
ers who will spend the other
part of their time as a dis-
trict-funded foreign lan-
guage high school teacher.
The school district is also
adding a math and science
instructor out of its own bud-
get to free up another to teach
more technology and science
classes aided by Measure 98.
Astoria
Superinten-
dent Craig Hoppes said the
school district is using Mea-
sure 98 funding for a smat-
tering of efforts. The district
is adding a social worker
to interface with families,
increasing a middle school
counselor from part time
to full time, starting a pro-
gram to help middle-school-
ers transition to high school,
expanding college course and
career-technical offerings,
providing more professional
development for staff, start-
ing a robotics program and
exploring a program to con-
nect employers with students.
Warrenton-Hammond
Superintendent Mark Jeffery
said that while his school
district already does a good
job of connecting kids with
college courses, he wants
to do more on vocational
education.
“We’re starting pretty
much from ground zero with
our career tech,” he said. “We
have the high-tech in, but
it’s our intent to develop …
welding and some woods.”
Jeffery said Measure 98
will help the district start a
three- to five-year process
of building a career-techni-
cal center similar to what the
Area Vocational Center in
Miles Crossing used to offer
students. “My vision for it
would be to construct a facil-
ity of some sort that would
house everything from high-
tech and welding to woods
and autos,” Jeffery said.
In South County, Super-
intendent Sheila Roley in
Seaside and Superintendent
Alice Hunsaker in Jewell said
they will invest their Mea-
sure 98 funds in freshman
advising and career-technical
expansion.
Funding floor
Measure 98 passed last
year with a nearly two-thirds
majority. The measure was to
provide $800 per student to
help with expanding college
courses,
career-technical
programs and dropout pre-
vention, but did not identify
a funding source. The state
Legislature, facing a budget
gap, was left to decide how
much would be funded.
“Initially, we thought we
were only going to get $100
per student,” Johnson said.
But by early June, she
said, educators learned the
funding would be set at
$400 per student. The coun-
ty’s five districts will receive
about $726,000 in the com-
ing school year, and around
$755,000 in the 2018-19
school year, after which
the Legislature must decide
again on the funding level.
Hoppes said he doesn’t see
the money slipping for a
measure with such clear sup-
port from the public.
“Short of an economic
downturn, I see funding
increasing,” Jeffery said.
“Even in hard times, they
found at least half the fund-
ing. I think as the economy
continues to improve and
they find revenue streams,
they’ll continue to increase
funding.”
Port: Candidate will be
appointed after interviews
Continued from Page 1A
Pamela Wev, a land use
planner and economic devel-
opment consultant who
moved to Astoria in 2014,
wrote in her application that
she was motivated to apply
by a concern over negative
publicity for the Port, a com-
mitment to bring strategic
thinking, the need for a fresh
perspective and support for
the staff.
Russ Earl, a land devel-
oper and former Clatsop
County commissioner and
Seaside planning commis-
sioner, had applied to fill
one of the vacancies left by
Jack Bland and Ric Gert-
tula when the two resigned
within weeks of one another
in 2014. The positions were
eventually filled by Mushen
and former Port Commis-
sioner John Raichl.
Ronald Meyer, 87, a
retired machinist, inven-
tor and designer of lighting
and hospital equipment, said
he has closely followed the
financial difficulties of the
county and the United States.
The Daily Astorian
Seven candidates have applied for a vacancy on the
Port of Astoria Commission.
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