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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 2017)
KNAPPA LOGGERS LOOK TO DEFEND LEAGUE FOOTBALL TITLE PAGE 11A DailyAstorian.com 145TH YEAR, NO. 42 TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017 ONE DOLLAR Accused sex abuser has dark past Convicted of sex abuse and drug crimes By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian WARRENTON — Carl Hag- nas’ generosity is visible. He is a well-known handyman who often passes out candy to chil- dren he encounters while per- forming small jobs and volunteer work. Less visible, though, were the sex crimes he allegedly contin- ued to commit following a 1986 sex abuse conviction. Hagnas, 68, was arrested Fri- day and charged with 12 counts of fi rst-degree sex abuse and one count of second-degree sod- omy. He pleaded not guilty Mon- day. Circuit Court Judge Paula Brownhill set bail at $500,000. In addition to the sex abuse conviction, Hagnas also was found guilty in 1991 on two counts of manufactur- ing and delivery of a controlled substance. An indictment alleges that Hagnas committed eight acts of sexual abuse from 1992 to 1996 against one girl, all before her eighth birthday. Those alleged crimes were not reported to authorities until 2005. Victims often spend lengthy amounts of time speaking to police, who then search for evi- dence of a crime before bringing ASTORIA COMPLETES ANNUAL HARVEST AT BEAR CREEK WATERSHED THINNED OUT the case to the district attorney. Since the case against Hagnas would have relied solely on hear- say in 2005 , law enforcement offi cials declined to make an arrest. Without charging some- one with a crime, authorities are limited in their ability to restrict someone’s access to children. See HAGNAS, Page 3A Carl Axel Hagnas Seaside embraces urban renewal Forestland eliminated from city blueprint By R.J. MARX The Daily Astorian Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Astoria Public Works Superintendent Ken Nelson, left, and Astoria City Forester Ben Hayes, right, look out over a part of the Bear Creek w atershed near Astoria during a recent visit to the 3,700 acre site. By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian N ear the ridge line that forms the boundary of Astoria’s Bear Creek w atershed, the only sounds are the whistle of wind through the trees and the rumble of city forester Ben Hayes’ truck. A routine thinning completed on 52 acres near the watershed’s southwestern boundary earlier this month yielded $228,651 net revenue for the city, greater than the city’s original estimate of $200,000. Public Works Director Ken Cook did not yet know the total amount of wood harvested but said annual harvests at the watershed usually run between 700,000 to 800,000 board feet. Loggers targeted non-native, disease-prone trees, but left behind many native species: healthy spruce, hemlock and Pacifi c silver fi r. This kind of harvest is the main way the watershed’s manag- ers have tried to slowly address the area’s logging past, a legacy that produced dense stands dominated by Douglas fi r. “If you break it up, you create more diversity and resiliency,” Hayes said. See HARVEST, Page 4A SEASIDE — City councilors unani- mously adopted the Southeast Seaside Urban Renewal Plan on Monday, with one import- ant change — the elimination of 33 acres of Weyerhaeuser-owned forestland from the 560-acre project. “We heard concerns about the particu- lar piece of land that is included in the plan that is not in the city property and not in the urban growth bound- ary,” City Councilor Tita Montero said. “When all is said and done, I think the right thing to do is diminish the boundar- ies and reduce the size of the urban renewal district by removing the forest land outside Mark the city limits.” Winstanley The Weyerhaeuser property had been con- sidered a way to provide additional infra- structure — water, sewer lines and roads — to the Seaside School District’s new campus, City Manager Mark Winstanley said. “That was the thought behind putting that piece of property in — it gave more options to the agency.” Revenues fund improvements Logging at the Bear Creek w atershed happens every year and has been described by the city as necessary for a healthy resource that provides water to the community. Urban renewal is a fi nancing program authorized under state law and implemented locally, allowing the use of property tax rev- enues from city and regional taxing districts to grow the economy in blighted or underde- veloped areas. Funding comes through increases in assessed values of local properties. As new development arrives and exist- ing properties are improved, assessments rise and see property tax increases. Property taxes on the growth in assessed value in the urban renewal area are frozen and increases are allocated to the city’s urban renewal agency and not the taxing districts. The urban renewal plan sets a limit on the amount of money which can be used to fund See SEASIDE, Page 3A ACLU puts heat on elected prosecutors Marquis calls the campaign misleading By NICK BUDNICK Portland Tribune PORTLAND — With dis- trict attorney elections coming up in Washington and Marion counties, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has knocked on more than 15,000 doors , encouraging people to support prosecutors who shun “tough on crime” policies. But the new campaign, called They Report to You, is running into a problem: While the ACLU contends Orego- nians support liberal crimi- nal justice policies, the group concedes people often don’t know much about how the system actually works. That ignorance includes the central role of district attorneys, each county’s top prosecutor, who are the focus of the ACLU campaign. “Some of what we found out is that the overwhelm- ing majority of voters have no idea that district attor- neys are elected,” said David Rogers, executive director of the group. People “actu- ally have very little sense of what it is they do.” The ACLU aims to fi ll that knowledge gap — and is rais- ing hackles among prosecutors with its aggressive message. The campaign relies on a new website that links to newspa- per articles highlighting racial disparities in charging, sen- tencing and other issues. The site offers brief videos that feature an opinionated take on the criminal justice system, for instance depicting a white, suit-wearing prosecutor taking a folder marked “evidence of innocence” and throwing it in the trash. See ACLU, Page 3A Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian David Rogers, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, wants to shine a light on elect- ed prosecutors.
