DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2017
145TH YEAR, NO. 78
ONE DOLLAR
Knight inks
three more
years as
Port leader
Commission split in 3-2 vote
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Port of Astoria Executive Director Jim Knight
received a three-year contract extension and a
pay raise Tuesday after a 3-2 vote by the Port
Commission.
Commissioners Frank Spence, James Camp-
bell and Robert Stevens voted to extend Knight’s
contract . Commissioner Bill Hunsinger vocally
opposed the extension and said Knight should
resign or be fi red. Although sup-
portive of Knight, Commissioner
Dirk Rohne preferred a rolling
contract subject to annual perfor-
mance reviews.
Knight started at the Port in
October 2014 on a three-year con-
tract . His new contract, negotiated
Jim
by Spence, starts in November
Knight
at a base salary of $168,375 — a
4 percent increase over his cur-
rent salary — and runs three years. After the ini-
tial term, the contract includes two one-year exten-
sion options that would take Knight through 2022.
The contract extension comes days after a $4
million verdict against the Port for breach of con-
tract and fraud in a lawsuit brought by Param Hotel
Corp. over operation of the Astoria Riverwalk Inn.
A jury found that Knight knowingly made false
representations and misled Param in the Port-
land company’s failed negotiations to assume the
remaining lease of troubled former hotel operator
Brad Smithart.
Knight had an individual fraud claim brought
by Param against him dismissed, but the verdict
included nearly $3.8 million in damages for fraud
against the Port.
Out of the nest
Photos by Amelia O’Connor
Cormorants nesting at Cape Falcon Marine Reserve.
Volunteers help
collect cormorant
data at Cape Falcon
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
T
See PORT, Page 7A
Ballots head to
voters in Gearhart
ABOVE: Citizen scientists can be important to research projects.
BELOW: Volunteers help gather data on cormorants at Cape Falcon.
Vacation rental rules, years
in the making, face repeal
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
GEARHART — R esidents in Gearhart perceive
the vote to repeal and replace vacation rental rules
to be a dramatic turning point that could determine
the future look and direction of the community.
With ballots on their way today to the city’s
1,245 registered voters, advocates of Measure
4-188 say the new rules take away their property
rights and will cost the city millions in lost tour-
ism dollars .
City offi cials and many residents counter that
a repeal would jeopardize Gearhart’s residential
character. They, too, say property rights are at stake
and that the rules promote much-needed long-term
rental housing.
Vote “no” advocates warn repeal could lead to
overcrowding and health and safety hazards.
The issue comes to a head at the ballot box on
Nov. 7 , the result of years of discussion and debate.
Ongoing debate
In 2013, city leaders and residents raised con-
cerns over “renters’ mentality” and how vacation
‘MORE AND MORE,
COMMUNITY SCIENCE IS GOING TO
BE IMPORTANT FOR AGENCIES AND
(ORGANIZATIONS) LIKE AUDUBON.’
Joe Liebezeit | avaian conservation manager for the Audubon Society of Portland
he cormorants always saw the
eagles before he did.
Jeremy Sappington would
be at his spotting scope above Devil’s
Cauldron in Oswald West State Park,
watching the sea birds as they cleaned,
preened and clamored. Then, suddenly,
the birds would go deathly still. Out of
the corner of his eye, Sappington would
see an eagle cruise past the cliffs.
Sappington, who lives in Manza-
nita, was one of over a dozen volun-
teers who spent the summer observing
cormorants at the Cape Falcon Marine
Reserve. One day each week, they set
up their scopes and honed in on the col-
onies, recording the number of eggs in
nests and keeping track of the chicks’
development from afar.
The data they have collected for the
last two years will inform a report and
comparison of data by the Audubon
Society of Portland this fall, as well as
feed broad, aerial surveys conducted by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service each
year.
While the agency can collect gen-
eral information about the number of
birds present in a region, commu-
nity scientists are helping paint a more
detailed picture of how the birds are
faring.
Doing this work without volunteers
would be challenging, especially for
agencies like Fish and Wildlife where
there is less and less funding to go
around, said Joe Liebezeit, avian con-
servation manager for the Audubon
Society of Portland.
“More and more, community sci-
ence is going to be important for agen-
cies and (organizations) like Audubon,”
he said.
See CORMORANTS, Page 7A
See GEARHART, Page 7A
Housing developer moves forward on Waldorf project
Some affordable
housing planned
next to City Hall
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Innovative Housing is clos-
ing in on a purchase of the for-
mer Waldorf Hotel for $80,000
from demolition and recycling
company Groat Bros. Inc.
Earlier this year, Innova-
tive Housing began a due dil-
igence period on whether to
buy the dilapidated h otel and
turn it into 40 units of afford-
able housing next to Astoria
City Hall. During a recent tour ,
Julie Garver, the group’s d irec-
tor of h ousing d evelopment,
said the nonprofi t had fi nished
that due diligence after ensur-
ing there was no extensive oil
plume beneath the building.
Innovative Housing has paid
earnest money on the building,
and will close the purchase in
May, Garver said.
As part of its due diligence,
Innovative Housing had a geo-
technical engineer test soil
underneath the foundation.
“When we dug into one
hole, he found black soil
that smelled like oil, and that
means that there is oil there,”
Garver said.
The state Department of
Environmental Quality was
notifi ed, triggering a series of
tests to see how much oil was
in the ground, and where it was
going.
“The DEQ actually made
us take a drill rig out to the
street to see if we had a plume
of contamination that we were
causing that was going toward
the river, because that’s what
they start to get really excited
about,” Garver said. “And for-
tunately, we have no plume,
and that is the reason we’re
buying the building.”
The belief is that some
underground piping from
oil tanks to a boiler leaked,
Garver
said.
Innovative
See WALDORF, Page 7A
Julie Garver,
left, the hous-
ing develop-
ment director
for Innovative
Housing Inc.,
points out a
boring the
group did to
test soils.
Edward Stratton
The Daily Astorian