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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.