7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017
Merrill: Has pleaded
not guilty to all charges
Continued from Page 1A
letter to the court, a Fresh
Start representative said Mer-
rill would be carefully super-
vised while in treatment, and
escorted by staff to any court
appearances.
His attorney also prom-
ised Merrill would return
for court dates, but that did
not happen. Instead, Merrill
disappeared, forfeiting his
bond. McClain’s offi ce sub-
sequently issued a warrant
for his arrest and Commis-
sioner Faubion increased his
bail to $500,000.
While Merrill was on the
loose, Pacifi c County sher-
iff’s deputies established his
involvement in an Ocean
Park burglary and the later
sale of guns from that bur-
glary. That led to a second,
separate criminal case, in
which he was charged with
gun, burglary and possession
of stolen property charges. A
new $1 million arrest war-
rant was issued.
Bail fi ght
During the Monday
afternoon hearing, Faubion
reviewed the charges and
release conditions for both
cases. Merrill has pleaded
not guilty to all charges.
Generally, Washington
state law says people can
only be held without bail in
capital punishment cases,
but McClain tried to argue
that there was a legal prec-
edent for holding a known
fl ight risk like Merrill with-
out bail.
“He fl ed the country, he
fl ed Washington and Cal-
ifornia,” McClain said.
“… Somehow he was able
to do this while not hav-
ing his passport.” Further-
more, McClain said, Mer-
rill allegedly indicated in
a recorded jail phone call
that he still has an indepen-
dent income, possibly from
the recent sale of the fami-
ly’s downtown businesses.
That increases the chances
of Merrill fl eeing again,
McClain said.
Merrill’s attorney, David
Mistachkin of the Aberdeen
law fi rm Ingram, Zelasko &
Goodwin, pushed back, call-
ing the request for a no-bail
hold “baseless.”
“These charges are non-
violent drug offenses and
property crimes,” Mistach-
kin said. Faubion agreed,
saying Merrill still had the
legal right to a reasonable
bail amount. However, he
agreed that the bail should
still be steep. When Mistach-
kin called the original bail
set by the court “excessive,”
Faubion replied, “It can’t be
excessive if it wasn’t suffi -
cient to keep him here.”
‘Zero’ money
McClain then asked for
$1 million bail in the drugs
case.
“It’s clearly excessive.
It’s clearly a punishment for
Mr. Merrill fl eeing the juris-
diction,” Mistachkin said.
He claimed his client doesn’t
have the independent means
to get himself out of jail.
“Mr. Merrill has abso-
lutely no money. Zero, and
the state can’t prove other-
wise,” Mistachkin added.
Faubion set bail at
$400,000, then turned to the
newer guns and burglary
case. In that case, he lowered
the original bail of $1 million
to $400,000.
With a total amount of
$800,000, Merrill’s fam-
ily would have to pay about
$80,000 to get him out of
jail. If he were to be released,
he would be required to live
with his parents, abstain
from drugs and alcohol,
regularly check in with the
court, and stay away from all
other parties in his criminal
cases.
However,
Mistachkin
claimed that this time, his
client is likely to stay in
lockup until his trial.
“His parents are not
going to bail him out again,”
he said.
More charges
could follow
In a Friday press release,
McClain praised Pacifi c
County Detective Ryan
Tully for his diligence, say-
ing Tully “continued to work
every lead to its conclu-
sion and fed the information
to the marshals in order to
locate Mr. Merrill.”
He, too, had little infor-
mation about how exactly
the marshals caught Mer-
rill, but said local and fed-
eral efforts to “follow the
money” were key to crack-
ing the case.
Investigators
suspect
one or more people in the
U.S. may have helped Mer-
rill escape, or supported him
during his south-of-the-bor-
der sojourn. If so, charges
could follow for those indi-
viduals, McClain said.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
A cadet with the Tongue Point Seamanship Academy working on the Tourist No. 2 ferry can be seen through the win-
dow of the workshop on deck.
Ferry: ‘I love this community project’
Continued from Page 1A
former cannery on a pier in the
Columbia below the Astoria
Bridge into the Cannery Pier
Hotel & Spa.
All the projects faced hur-
dles he chipped away at, some
with big price tags, Jacob said.
“I was taught not to stare at
that elephant in that kitchen,
’ cause you can’t eat it,” Jacob
said in an analogy to the ferry.
“But if somebody takes it out
to the table and hands you
a chunk of ear, you can eat a
chunk of ear.”
For labor, Jacob enlisted
the help of Tongue Point Job
Corps Center’s seamanship
program. The students have
been tearing out carpet and
plywood fl ooring to expose
the original deck , before put-
ting on a fresh coat of paint.
Joseph White, a seamanship
student for the past 19 months
at Tongue Point, said train-
ees are used to maintaining
the center’s steel-hulled train-
ing vessel Ironwood, but are
learning some valuable skills
for working on older, wood-
en-hulled boats.
Job Corps students have
also been helping fi x the Sal-
vage Chief, a regionally famed
former marine towing vessel
under restoration by another
nonprofi t.
Oregon: Rosenblum is prepared to fi le at least
two potential lawsuits that are specifi c to the state
Continued from Page 1A
The fi rst came when Oregon
joined two lawsuits challeng-
ing Trump’s January executive
order temporarily banning vis-
itors, students, workers and ref-
ugees from seven Muslim-ma-
jority nations. Federal courts
have since stayed multiple ver-
sions of the travel ban.
Most recently, Oregon
joined 18 other states to chal-
lenge Trump’s order to end fed-
eral subsidies that help low-in-
come Americans pay their
health insurance premiums
under the Affordable Care Act,
also known as Obamacare.
In addition, Oregon has
challenged 20 out of 52 envi-
ronmental regulations the
Trump administration has
moved to eliminate or roll back,
Rosenblum said.
The series of actions coming
out of the Trump administration
is “dizzying,” she said.
In the fi rst nine months of
the Obama administration, Ore-
gon joined no lawsuits against
the federal government, accord-
ing to the state Department of
Justice.
Just fi ve days before Obama
took offi ce, Oregon and fi ve
other states sued to block a
Bush administration regulation
designed to enhance protections
for health care workers who
refuse to perform abortions for
moral reasons. The regulation
enabled the federal government
to withhold funding from state
and local governments and oth-
ers who discriminated against
those health care workers.
The Obama administration
moved to rescind the regulation
just one month later.
Rosenblum is prepared to
fi le at least two potential law-
suits against the Trump admin-
istration that are specifi c to
Oregon.
She said she plans to chal-
lenge any Trump administration
move to decrease the acreage
of southwest Oregon’s Cas-
cade Siskiyou National Monu-
ment, which Obama expanded
in 2016. While the 1906 Antiq-
uities Act authorizes a pres-
ident to designate a national
monument, a legal question
remains whether that includes
the power to shrink or eliminate
the designation.
The state also would go to
court if the Trump administra-
tion ends federal funding for
Planned Parenthood, which
provides reproductive health
services for women, Rosen-
blum said. U.S. law already
prohibits use of federal funds
for abortion, a service some
Planned Parenthood clinics pro-
vide using money from other
sources.
Obama experienced simi-
lar challenges to his policies by
Republican attorneys general
during his two terms.
Led by then-Oklahoma
Attorney General Scott Pruitt
— now director of the Environ-
mental Protection Agency —
those states attempted to over-
turn environmental rules by the
EPA, and challenged actions by
other federal agencies.
Here are the other Trump
administration policies Ore-
gon and other states have chal-
lenged either in court, in letters
of intent to sue or formal oppo-
sition to regulation changes:
• A repeal, announced Oct.
10, of Obama’s 2015 executive
order requiring power plants to
cut greenhouse gas emissions;
• The Oct. 6 rollback of
Affordable Care Act require-
ments for employers to provide
insurance coverage for birth
control;
• A Sept. 22 rescission of
a 2011 Obama administra-
tion directive on how schools
should investigate reports of
sexual assault;
• A Sept. 5 decision to
end Obama’s DACA, which
allowed undocumented immi-
grants brought here as chil-
dren to legally work and attend
school;
The state last week also
sued federal agencies for fail-
ing to produce public records
on immigrant deportations and
detentions.
•
The discontinuation,
announced in June, of an
Obama administration program
to forgive the loans of student
borrowers who were defrauded
by their schools;
• A June 14 delay of Clean
Air Act rules designed to pre-
vent chemical accidents;
• A May 18 suspension of
new requirements for green-
house gas emissions report-
ing and tracking on highways.
The Trump administration
announced in September it
would allow the tracking to
move forward.
• A March delay of new
energy-effi ciency
standards
for ceiling fans. The Trump
administration in May reversed
course and allowed the stan-
dards to take effect.
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
“I love this vessel,” White
said of the ferry. “I love this
community project. To bring
back almost 100 years of his-
tory is really bringing a big
thing in my heart.”
Lucien Swerdloff, an
instructor with Clatsop Com-
munity College’s historian
preservation program and a
ferry board member, said his
students will also use the ferry
as a fl oating classroom for
workshops.
Overseeing the Job Corps
students is Lint, who has been
traveling from the Olympic
Peninsula weekly with other
boat restoration partners. The
cosmetic restoration of the
ferry pales in comparison to the
structural issues he faced in the
recent restoration of a 137-foot,
1893 sailing yacht, he said.
“Everything is good about
the boat except for the cosmet-
ics,” Lint said.
The Astoria Ferry Group
previously estimated $500,000
was needed for Coast Guard
certifi cation, a necessary step
before taking out large groups
on the vessel. Lint has dis-
puted the fi gure, saying the
boat is close to the condition
needed for certifi cation, and
that much of the work can be
done at Tongue Point for a
lesser cost than at other com-
mercial shipyards.
Location, location
After the face-lift, the ferry
heads back down the Colum-
bia to Floyd Holcom’s water-
front commercial complex at
Pier 39, where the ferry group
hopes to hold tours and build
public interest while continu-
ing to upgrade the vessel’s
safety, electrical and other sys-
tems in preparation for certifi -
cation by the Coast Guard.
“By putting it at Pier 39,
it will be more in the sight of
people,” Taylor said .
Meanwhile, a new infl ux of
volunteers has expressed inter-
est in joining the ferry group,
Taylor said. She, Price and
other volunteers have been
continually working on grants
for the boat. Taylor and Price
claimed the operation of the
boat would cost upward of
$500,000 annually but could
be covered by operational rev-
enue with tours, weddings,
conferences and other events
on board.
Donna Quinn, Cannery
Pier’s director of market-
ing and sales, said the group
is in the beginning stages of
developing a marketing plan.
A board member on the Ore-
gon Coast Visitors Associa-
tion, she has reached out to the
state’s tourism agency Travel
Oregon and said the group has
shown interest in supporting
the development of the ferry as
a sustainable tourist attraction.
“One of the challenges that
local people and even visitors
in this area have is the abil-
ity to get on the Columbia
R iver,” Quinn said. “And that
really defi nes us. We’re a river
town.”
My Hope for
Your Journey.
Amrita Desai, MD
Medical Oncologist
Care
No cancer is routine, and as a medical oncologist, I don’t
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