DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2018 145TH YEAR, NO. 147 ONE DOLLAR MEASURE 101 Oregon voters approve health care taxes Money to finance Medicaid program By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau SALEM — Oregon voters on Tuesday approved a slate of health care taxes to help fund Medicaid. Nearly 62 percent of voters approved keeping certain taxes on health insurance premiums, hospi- tals and managed care organizations, and about 38 percent voted to over- turn them, according to preliminary results posted by the Oregon Secre- tary of State’s Office. In Clatsop County, Measure 101 passed 65 percent to 35 percent. The result lifts significant finan- cial pressure off state lawmakers Tsunami scare an early morning wake-up call as they prepare to enter the short legislative session that begins in February. Rejection of the package would have meant a $210 million to $320 million loss in state revenue, plus additional matching funds from the federal government, that were anticipated to help the state pay for Medicaid. About 960,000 Oregonians are on Medicaid, which here is called the Oregon Health Plan. The campaign pitted public unions and health care groups against two Republican state lawmakers who led the campaign after petitioning to get certain parts of the 2017 legislation on the ballot this fall. The Yes For Healthcare campaign raised about $3 million more than the “no” side, according to campaign finance records. The “yes” campaign was quick to celebrate the effort after preliminary results were posted. Andy Davidson, president and CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, said the state’s hospitals were “deeply gratified.” See MEASURE 101, Page 5A DROPPING POTS No local alert was issued By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian After a magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Alaska prompted a tsunami watch for the Oregon Coast in the wee hours Tuesday morning, Clatsop County Emergency Management Director Tiffany Brown started getting questions about why her office did not issue a local alert. A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a surge to happen but does not require imme- diate action. This differs BE from a tsunami warning, which calls for immi- ALERT nent evacuation, accord- Sign up for ing to the National Oce- alerts at co. anic and Atmospheric clatsop.or.us/ Administration. em/page/ Confusion about the clatsopalerts difference prompted a flood of emergency calls to Seaside and Astoria dis- patch centers. Management at Camp 18 restaurant on U.S. Highway 26 reported seeing more than 40 cars of people trying to evacuate in their parking lot at 4 a.m. Brown is the administrator for the local emer- gency system, which can send messages to anyone signed up through ClatsopALERTS! to their land- lines, cellphones or emails. Many factors, includ- ing the time of day and severity of the earthquake, guided her decision not to issue an alert. Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Amos Johnson ties crab pots down to a trailer before they are transported to a fishing boat at the start of crab season at the Warrenton Marina. See SCARE, Page 5A Equipment is loaded onto a fishing boat as crab season kicked off this week. James Poulson/Daily Sitka Sentinel People drive to higher ground early Tuesday in Sitka, Alaska, after a tsunami threat from a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. Crab pots are loaded onto a trailer for transport to a waiting fishing boat. Fishermen and workers load equipment onto a crab boat. URSULA LE GUIN, 1929-2018 Remembering a literary giant Author’s work was rooted in Cannon Beach By R.J. MARX and BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian Euan Monaghan Ursula K. Le Guin died Tuesday. Ursula K. Le Guin, a liter- ary giant who made her home in Portland and Cannon Beach, died Tuesday at 88. The world-famous author was heralded as a major female voice in science fiction, but her work transcended the genre. Betsy Ayres, of Cannon Beach, remembered Le Guin as a friend and inspiration. “Her ability to see other societies and other worlds opened up my eyes to different ways of looking at my own life,” she said. “She will be greatly missed.” She was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 21, 1929, the youngest of four chil- dren and the only daughter of two anthropologists, Alfred L. Kroeber and Theodora Quinn Kroeber. As a young writer, Le Guin acutely felt the closed society of both literary and male-dominated elites, which stymied her yet also shaped her own genre-defining path. She graduated from Rad- cliffe College in Massachusetts in 1951, earned a master’s degree in romance literature of the Mid- dle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia University in New York in 1952, and won a Fulbright schol- arship to study in Paris. There she met her future husband, Charles Le Guin, who survives her. Early in her literary career, a frustrating period of rejections gave way to a venture into a new genre. See LE GUIN, Page 7A