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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2017)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2017 Underground: ‘It’s going to be millions of dollars’ Continued from Page 1A Underground If you could slice a street in half and view the bones of a chairwall, the name would immediately become clear . In a cross-section view, the structure looks like a chair that begins directly below sidewalk curbs. Sand fi lls the empty space between oppos- ing chairwalls. For each chairwall sec- tion, a wall drops down under- ground — the back of the chair. Another section extends out. This is the seat of the chair. Then another wall drops from the end of this seat. The legs of the chair. Climb into the tunnels with Public Works Superinten- dent Ken Nelson and he will emphasize the danger. These are small, enclosed spaces . The air could turn dangerous quickly. At any time, anyone could fl ush anything into the sewer system. If the ground started to shake, it’s the last place he would want to be. When he goes underground, he keeps a small gas detector on hand and is in constant com- munication with another Pub- lic Works employee outside. On a recent afternoon, Nel- son took Astoria city coun- cilors Cindy Price and Bruce Jones down into a section of tunnel near City Hall, between two chairwall seg- ments. Gravel crunched under- Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Public Works Superintendent Ken Nelson, second from left, leads a tour for city officials of a short tunnel system under the streets of Astoria on Monday. foot as they ducked under a low, looping wire. Their hard hats knocked gently against the top of the tunnel. Their fl ashlights illuminated a crum- pled can of organic grape soda. At a work session last month, councilors learned that the city is in the middle of talks with the Oregon Depart- ment of Transportation for reg- ular inspection services that will eventually inform a strat- egy for shared responsibility of chairwall maintenance. Public Works staff hope the structures will be included on the National Bridge Inventory , which could make them eligi- ble for outside funding sources — an important point since the cost of repairing and, inevita- bly, replacing the chairwalls will be well beyond what the city can afford. “(There’s) not even a ball- park,” City Engineer Jeff Harrington said of the costs of future replacement work. “It’s going to be millions of dollars.” Historic legacy Before the chairwalls and tunnels were built, the streets and buildings downtown were raised above a tidal fl at and the tides by wooden beams and driven timber pilings. Most of the buildings were timber as well. On Dec. 7, 1922, a massive fi re swept through the city. Thanks to Astoria’s wooden underbelly, the fi re was able to spread quickly, almost out of sight until it soared into the buildings above. Build- ings were blown up with dyna- mite in an attempt to check the fl ames . “This is not Seattle,” said local historian and preserva- tionist John Goodenberger, referencing that city’s famous underground network of pas- sageways and basements that contain storefronts and side- walks, remnants from when Seattle rebuilt after its own disastrous fi re in 1889. “Yes, we did raise the downtown, but it’s not like you’re going and seeing for- mer storefronts and rooms,” Goodenberger said. “You’re seeing a structural system.” Homeless people have since used these tunnels as hideouts and bedrooms. Even further back, the daughter of A.G. Spexarth, a prominent Astoria businessman in the late 1800s and early 1900s, remembered a trip she took with her father through the underground. Spexarth dipped under the sidewalk to adjust a client’s sewing machine, she wrote. Father and daughter walked past cramped, under- ground rooms where Chinese families lived. The stale air smelled of incense, dried fi sh and sewage. Woven in with other myths about the tunnels — giant spi- ders, giant rats, a forbidden and hidden shadow city — is the belief that people used them to shanghai sailors. Though shanghaiing was certainly an Astoria legacy, local histori ans say there is no reason to think the tunnels were ever used for this purpose. Today, the city’s under- ground mostly consists of nar- row, confi ned areas, pipelines, spiderwebs and litter. There’s some rude graffi ti, a quick sprawl of words etched in quick sweeps of a spray paint can. Entrances are sealed off behind fences, gates and walls. Goodenberger says it’s helpful to think about the era when the chairwalls and tun- nels were built. “After the fi re, people were, rightly, afraid of another fi re,” he said. The structures, built amid setbacks and squabbles, allowed pipelines to be stowed safely underground in a sort of vault and established a new foundation. “All these ethnic groups were colliding,” Gooden- berger said. “And we had to come together and rebuild downtown under the greatest of odds.” Audit: New data system will centralize investigations of abuse, neglect Continued from Page 1A case manager performance than on the welfare of people receiving services, auditors said. “There is no aspect of the quality assurance process or consumer monitoring or assessment reports that looks at consumers’ well-being,” audi- tors wrote. Auditors also recom- mended that the state’s Home Care Commission work with the union representing home- care workers — the Service Employees International Union — to establish basic training requirements. Home-care workers are given an orientation, and the commission offers voluntary training, but home-care work- ers are not required to undergo any formal training. And auditors found that case managers had “exces- sive” workloads that include duties that some other states don’t have their case manag- ers handle. For example, some case managers are required to do time-consuming annual ver- ifi cations of whether patients qualify for the CEP program and other government benefi ts like food stamps. The Department of Human Services says it is starting to reassign eligibility determina- tion to other staff as part of a pilot program to redesign case manager duties. Auditors also noted that in recent years, the agency has not fi lled all of the case man- ager positions funded by the Legislature. Department of Human Ser- vices Director Fariborz Pak- seresht wrote in a response to auditors that the agency was working to improve training for case managers, comply with federal requirements regarding contact between case manag- ers and clients, and enhance the agency’s data collection and analysis. The Aging and People with Disabilities division of the department is also implement- ing a new data system to cen- tralize investigations of abuse and neglect. It is expected to get fully under way in January. The f ederal Older Amer- icans A ct requires the state to investigate complaints at licensed care facilities through its long-term care ombudsman, but Oregon law doesn’t include in-home care complaints within the duties of the ombudsman. The Legislature would have to change the law and provide funding for the ombudsman to serve in-home care patients, auditors said. The Capital Bureau is a col- laboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. ! 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