7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2017
RV park: Many
aspects of plan will be
guided by ecological,
geological surveys
Continued from Page 1A
Mike Manzulli, the pres-
ident of the Oregon Coast
Alliance and a member of
the Ecola Watershed Coun-
cil, said these kind of vio-
lations not only disregard
the planning process, but
the survival of the marbled
murrelet, which only lives
in increasingly rare, old-
growth, coastal forests.
While surveys have yet
to be conducted to show
whether Smejkal’s prop-
erty is directly home to these
birds, the Department of For-
estry identified the property
as immediately adjacent to
a marbled murrelet manage-
ment area in 2009.
“Given the time frame,
and Mr. Smejkal’s disregard
of our local ordinances, it
is in the best interest of the
threatened marbled mur-
relet and people that care
about the birds’ dwindling
critical habitat to try and
purchase this land now,”
Manzulli said.
Smejkal said no one has
come forward with any kind
of an offer, but said “any-
thing is for sale.”
Next steps
Caplinger said many
of the aspects of the plan,
like water and sewer infra-
structure, will be guided by
ecological and geological
surveys.
Because the property is in
a resource zone, anyone 300
feet from Smejkal’s prop-
erty line will receive a notice
from the county after his plan
is submitted for the oppor-
tunity to participate in a
public comment period and
hearing.
Both the county and the
Oregon Coast Alliance said
they are keeping a close eye
on development to make
sure local ordinances are fol-
lowed. But until more sur-
veys are completed, a time-
line for when this could be
completed is not clear.
“It’s going to be awhile,”
Caplinger said.
Craig Bailey/Florida Today
A SpaceX unmanned Falcon rocket launches from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center today.
SpaceX launches Air Force’s
super-secret minishuttle
By MARCIA DUNN
Associated Press
CAPE
CANAVERAL,
Fla. — SpaceX launched the
Air Force’s super-secret space
shuttle today, a technology tes-
ter capable of spending years
in orbit.
The unmanned Falcon
rocket blasted off from Flor-
ida’s Kennedy Space Cen-
ter, as schools and businesses
boarded up for Hurricane
Irma.
It’s the fifth flight for one
of these crewless minishuttles,
known as the X-37B Orbital
Test Vehicle.
The two Air Force space
planes have already logged a
combined 5 ½ years in orbit.
But officials won’t say what
the spacecraft are doing up
there. The last mission lasted
almost two years and ended
with a May touchdown at
the runway formerly used by
NASA’s space shuttles. The
first one launched in 2010.
As has become custom-
ary, SpaceX landed its leftover
booster back at Cape Canav-
eral for eventual reuse.
This was the first time
SpaceX has provided a lift for
the experimental minishut-
tle. The previous missions
relied on United Launch Alli-
ance’s Atlas V rockets. Air
Force officials said they want
to use a variety of rockets for
the X-37B program, to launch
quickly if warranted.
The Boeing-built mini-
shuttle is 29 feet long, with a
14-foot wingspan. By com-
parison, NASA’s retired space
shuttles were 122 feet long,
with a 78-foot wingspan.
SpaceX stopped provid-
ing details about the X-37B’s
climb to orbit, a few minutes
after liftoff at the Air Force’s
request. The booster’s return
to SpaceX’s landing zone at
Cape Canaveral Air Force Sta-
tion, however, was broadcast
live.
“The Falcon has safely
landed,” a SpaceX launch
controller announced. Cheers
erupted at SpaceX headquar-
ters in Hawthorne, California.
It was SpaceX’s 16th suc-
cessful return of a first-stage
booster. Booster rockets are
normally discarded at sea.
Warming center: Appeals process could delay opening
Continued from Page 1A
Submitted Photo
Blue lines on this county aerial indicate approximately
17.5-acre parcel owned by James Smejkal across from
Arcadia Beach.
Hangar: Commission agreed to
bring issue up at its next meeting
Continued from Page 1A
getting the equal treatment in
return.”
FAA permission
Life Flight applied for the
state grant with the under-
standing that the Port was
going to cover the cost of
installing infrastructure and
utilities to the preferred
site, Travers said. Since the
bond failed, he said, Life
Flight has received permis-
sion from the Federal Avia-
tion Administration to start a
review of its current site for
the new hangar.
Life Flight needs to final-
ize a location for the hangar by
the end of September or seek a
second extension on its Con-
nectOregon grant, in which
it originally committed to
choosing a location by the end
of June. Travers asked the Port
to either secure the funding for
infrastructure as promised or
OK the current location.
Port Executive Director
Jim Knight remained com-
mitted to the preferred site
to the south and said he took
exception to some of Tra-
vers’ characterizations of
past conversations.
“At no time did I make a
promise that I would com-
mit the Port’s resources,”
Knight said. “I don’t have
the authority to commit the
Port’s resources to fund the
infrastructure costs. I did say
I would do everything in my
power to find those funds.”
The Port did not have the
money to develop the infra-
structure to the preferred site,
and asked voters to fund the
expansion. It was Life Flight
that had asked the Port to find
a different location at the air-
port for its hangar, Knight
said.
Dalstra denied ever hav-
ing said Life Flight wanted
to move from its current
location.
“If we were allowed to
build at our current location,
it wouldn’t cost the Port any-
thing, zero dollars,” Dalstra
said. “It wouldn’t cost the tax-
payers any dollars. We would
take on all the costs of build-
ing right where we’re at.”
Life Flight would pay
for any costs to mitigate any
issues at the current site, but
doesn’t want to wait for the
Port to find infrastructure
funding while its aircraft are
subjected to corrosion from
being left outside, Dalstra
said.
“We sent an aircraft out
on a truck,” he said. “We
couldn’t even fly it because
of corrosion, because the
aircraft was sitting outside.
We’re not going to go through
that again. We are on a time
crunch to get this built.”
Discussions
between
Life Flight and the Port have
reached an impasse, necessi-
tating a quick decision by the
Port Commission separate
from the airport committee,
Travers said.
‘One more shot’
Port Commission Presi-
dent Frank Spence called for
a vote on the preferred loca-
tion, but Commissioner Bill
Hunsinger said he wanted
more information. Commis-
sioner James Campbell said
the current location is not
safe. New commissioners
Dirk Rohne and Robert Ste-
vens called for more negoti-
ations between the Port and
Life Flight to find a solution.
“I’d like to see everyone
try one more shot at it, before
we vote on it, and if we can’t
get there … I would support
building where they are if we
can’t figure out how to pay
for where we want them,”
Rohne said.
The Port Commission
agreed to bring the issue up
again at its next meeting later
this month.
First United Methodist Church
on Franklin Avenue and 11th
Street where the center oper-
ates each winter and the Asto-
ria Downtown Historic Dis-
trict Association.
“This is difficult work,
creating a document like this,
and I was very pleased to see
the results of this,” Pearson
said. He supported approval
of the center’s permit “100
percent.”
The agreement — now
referred to as a good-neigh-
bor commitment — details
how the center’s board,
staff and volunteers plan to
address neighborhood con-
cerns and issues with how the
center operated in the past. It
also explains what the cen-
ter will require of the home-
less who come to eat a meal
and spend the night at the cen-
ter when low temperatures or
expected rainfall hit estab-
lished thresholds.
Parkison said he was “very
pleased that a majority (of the
Planning Commission) saw
the need in Astoria and saw
that our mission is import-
ant to not only the people we
serve but to all the citizens of
Astoria.” He added that the
city deserves credit for the
good-neighbor commitment;
the document and last week’s
meetings overseen by a medi-
ator were first suggested by
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Volunteers Steve Swenson, left, and Rory Gerard, center,
help check people into the warming center at First United
Methodist Church in 2015.
city staff and City Manager
Brett Estes.
“You could just see all
the different groups com-
ing together because it really
was a collaborative effort of
everybody trying to reach an
understanding of the other
person’s needs and the other
person’s rights and what they
wanted,” Parkison said. “It
would not have happened
without the city’s mediation
effort. We started off just too
far apart.”
Planning Commissioner
Sean Fitzpatrick, a vocal
opponent of the center’s
location though not its mis-
sion, did not attend Wednes-
day night’s meeting. He had
recused himself from consid-
ering the application in July.
As an owner of the Illahee
Apartments across the street
from First United Method-
ist Church, he participated in
the community meetings last
week.
Commissioners
Kent
Easom and Daryl Moore
voted against approving the
warming center’s permit, say-
ing they were still concerned
about impacts on the neigh-
borhood. Moore explained
that since Planning Commis-
sion members could not attend
the community meetings last
week and the city did not
record who attended, he has
no evidence that the neigh-
bors actually approved of the
good-neighbor commitment.
The commitment “didn’t
alleviate my concerns that the
impacts will be addressed,”
he said, but added, “I hope
they are and I hope (the
warming center) is run great
and the neighborhood is fine.
I certainly hope that they
help people and I appreci-
ate the work that you do, but
my role is to protect our gov-
erning documents. The doc-
uments that I reviewed and
researched say that my role in
this was to protect the neigh-
borhood from uses that don’t
belong in the neighborhood.
It’s never been about the peo-
ple that need help.”
He said he wished the cen-
ter the best.
The
Planning
Com-
mission’s decision can be
appealed to the City Coun-
cil by anyone with standing
— people who testified or
submitted testimony during
the public hearing — within
the next 15 days. If the mat-
ter does go to the City Coun-
cil, whatever the councilors
decide can also be appealed.
The warming center is
allowed to open beginning
Nov. 15, but the appeals pro-
cess could delay these plans.
Parkison said the board
will need to hold off on secur-
ing their food donor network,
fulfilling landscaping and
other requirements outlined
in the permit, hiring addi-
tional staff and contacting
volunteers until the chance
for appeals has passed.
Jury law: Oregon’s law was passed by voters in 1934
Continued from Page 3A
Lambert was convicted of
second-degree murder by a
10-2 guilty verdict in connec-
tion with the fatal shooting of
a man in Louisiana’s Orleans
Parish on March 22, 2013.
His lawyers supported
their petition to the Supreme
Court with research by profes-
sor Aliza Kaplan and law stu-
dent Amy Saack of Portland’s
Lewis & Clark Law School.
Louisiana’s majority ver-
dict system was introduced
in the 1898 Constitution as
part of measures designed to
“establish the supremacy of
the white race,” according to
the researchers’ February arti-
cle in the Oregon Law Review.
Likewise, Oregon’s law,
passed by voters in 1934, was
an anti-Semitic reaction to one
juror holding out on convicting
a Jewish man of first-degree
murder in the death of Jimmy
Walker, a Protestant white
man, in 1933, the research-
ers assert. Instead, the Jewish
A case appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court could impact
Oregon law allowing 10-2 convictions.
man, Jacob Silverman, was
convicted of manslaughter and
spared a death sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court
upheld Oregon and Louisi-
ana’s jury laws in 1972, but
since then, the understand-
ing of the detrimental effect of
non-unanimous jury verdicts,
especially on people of color,
has increased, said Kaplan,
director of the Criminal Jus-
tice Reform Clinic at Lewis &
Clark.
“All of the social science
points to why unanimous
juries work out better and more
fair and demonstrate why all
voices need to be heard,” she
said.
Clatsop County District
Attorney Josh Marquis dis-
missed the researchers’ asser-
tion that Oregon’s law is based
on racism. The law offers
benefits that criminal justice
reformers overlook, such as
fewer hung juries, he said.
“The issue is that as a result
of a popular referendum in
1934 that guaranteed the right
to a non-jury trial, Oregon vot-
ers decided that a verdict of 10
to 2 is needed to either con-
vict or acquit in criminal cases,
except murder, where a unan-
imous verdict is required for
guilty, but it can be 10-2 for
not guilty,” he said in an email.
“The result is not more
convictions, just fewer hung
juries.”
The Supreme Court is
scheduled to consider whether
it will take the case Sept. 25.
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