145TH YEAR, NO. 60
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2017
WHEN HOURS
BECOME
DAYS
WEEKEND BREAK • PAGE 1C
ONE DOLLAR
A GUIDE TO LOCAL
CRAFT BEER
SPECIAL SECTION • INSIDE
Astoria
sitting
on pot
money
City silent on local tax
as state clarifi es rules
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
TRASH MAN
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Raymond Furr picks up a piece of trash on Highway 101 near Gearhart on Wednesday as part of his campaign to clean
up the roadway from Coos Bay to Astoria.
Coos Bay man picks up litter, one mile at a time
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
W
hite plastic bags with the
word “CARE” spray-
painted on the side have
popped up along U.S. Highway 101 in
Clatsop County.
They all come from one man, Ray-
mond Furr , who since July has dedi-
cated every day to picking up trash on
the scenic highway from Coos Bay to
Astoria.
With garbage picker and trash bag
in hand, Furr bundles the waste he fi nds
for the Oregon Department of Transpor-
tation to pick up . His mission to raise
awareness about the consequences of
litter operates out of one vehicle and
donations from inspired onlookers.
“I saw a problem that I didn’t feel
anyone else was doing anything about,”
said Furr, who also goes by Raymond
Block. “It’s been a long, long walk.
I’ve never done anything like this. But
I wanted to raise awareness and set
a precedent to show we are not doing
enough soon enough.”
The campaign is a part of Leaven
No Trace, a trash collecting group Furr
started to empower communities to be
accountable for their litter.
Throughout his journey, Furr has
fi lled about 30 to 55 bags of trash a day.
On the southern Oregon Coast, it would
take about 10 to 20 miles to accumulate
that much litter. But as he has moved
north through Tillamook and Clatsop
counties , it has only taken about 3 to
5 miles of walking to stuff that many
bags.
Since starting Leaven No Trace two
years ago, Furr and others have gathered
more than 100 tons of garbage through-
out Oregon.
There is money sitting in Astoria’s cof-
fers that City Finance Director Susan Brooks
can’t talk about.
The payments represent the fi rst install-
ment of a local 3 percent tax on the sale
of recreational marijuana, but the revenue
doesn’t appear on budget documents and no
one else at City Hall knows how
much has come in. Brooks, like
others across the state, had to
sign a confi dentiality agreement
when Astoria asked the Oregon
Department of Revenue to
collect the tax on the city’s
behalf.
Meanwhile, Coos Bay, oper-
ating under a similar confi dential-
ity agreement, included an amount in its
monthly fi nancial report — though, like
some other tax revenue the city collects, the
local marijuana tax money was not singled
out by name, Coos Bay Finance Director
Suzanne Baker said.
See POT, Page 7A
Traffic continually whisks by Raymond Furr as he picks up trash along High-
way 101 near Gearhart on Wednesday.
‘I wanted to stop and pick it up’
time he drove up and down the highway,
the amount of trash he saw bothered him.
His love for the environment is deeply
rooted in memories of family hiking and
camping trips.
“I just felt my foot twitch on the gas
pedal — I wanted to stop and pick it up,”
Furr said.
Eighty percent of what he fi nds is
plastic — water bottles, bubble wrap, sin-
gle-use containers. Other items, like used
diapers or chewing tobacco cans, are a lot
less pleasant .
But Furr has encountered obstacles
that go beyond gross.
A Coos County jury found Furr , 37,
guilty of misdemeanor disorderly con-
duct in February in a case that stemmed
His passion for litter removal started
locally at his home in Coos Bay. Every
See FURR, Page 7A
Raymond Furr , who has been pick-
ing up trash along the side of High-
way 101 since July, said he averages
about 30 to 55 bags of trash per day.
Plastics
on the
half shell
Researchers examine
microplastics in shellfi sh
By KEN CHRISTENSEN
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Sarah Dudas doesn’t mind shucking an
oyster or a clam in the name of science.
But sit down with her and a plate of oys-
ters on the half shell or a bucket of steamed
Manila clams, and she’ll probably point out
a bivalve’s gonads or remark on its fertility.
“These are comments I make at din-
ner parties,” she said. “I’ve spent too much
time doing dissections. I’ve done too many
spawnings.”
See PLASTICS, Page 7A
Lodging tax changes possible in Cannon Beach
Discussion
planned for
November
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH —
Cannon Beach might require
travel companies like Airbnb
and Expedia to pay taxes
directly to the city.
In the hospitality indus-
try, it is becoming increas-
ingly common for hotels and
vacation rental owners to sell
rooms through intermediary
companies , which then take a
cut of the profi ts . Hotels and
vacation rental owners pay the
lodging tax whether the rooms
were booked through an inter-
mediary or not .
C ity A ttorney Tammy
Herdener and C ity F inance
D irector Laurie Sawrey said
they want to require companies
like Airbnb to fi le taxes on the
profi ts made from the sale of
the room directly with the city.
Sawrey said keeping large
companies accountable for pro-
viding the information neces-
sary for the city to fi le tax returns
is proving to be a challenge, and
she hopes requiring them to
work directly with the city can
help reduce these issues.
City councilors plan to dis-
cuss an ordinance change in
more detail at a November
work session and hope to get
more input from the lodging
industry in the meantime.
In the past year, Cannon
Beach took in more than $3.8
million in lodging taxes .
“If a hotel sells 100 rooms
to an intermediary, we have
no tracking mechanisms to see
who they sold them to,” Saw-
rey said at a C ity C ouncil work
session earlier this month.
“From the intermediaries, we
want more info of who they
purchased the room from.”
R.J. Marx/ The Daily Astorian
See TAX, Page 7A
Cities on the North Coast are discussing how to tax and
regulate vacation rentals.