‘FIT TO KILL’ AT COASTER THEATRE COAST WEEKEND • INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 153
Clatsop County Histori
cal
Society
College restores
Alderbrook Hall
Astoria’s Alderbrook Hall was built in 1915 as a firehouse.
ONE DOLLAR
State’s
child
welfare
system
flawed
Audit documents
shortcomings
By ROB MANNING
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Clatsop Community College’s Historic Preservation and Restoration Program has been restoring the historic Alder-
brook Hall since 2016, including the removal of plywood siding to the historic shingles.
A proving
ground for
students
‘SOMEONE CRIES
AT THEIR DESK
EVERY DAY.
NOT BECAUSE
OF TRAUMA.
BECAUSE THEY’RE
OVERWHELMED
WITH WORK.’
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
A
lderbrook Hall, a bungalow built at
45th Street and Lief Erikson Drive in
1915 as a firehouse and later turned
into a community center, has gone
through a lot of changes, from the loss of
the intricate gables, cornices and chimneys
around the roof to the replacement of the
shingle siding with the plywood.
Clatsop Community College’s His-
toric Preservation and Restoration
Program has partnered with Astoria and
used the hall as a proving ground for stu-
dents, slowly taking the building back in
time.
About a dozen students spent last
weekend in a workshop refinishing the
building’s original double-hung Douglas
fir windows, stripped of lead-based paint
in Portland and refinished with linseed
oil and turpentine. Leading the workshop
was guest instructor Chris Gustafson, a
window restorer who went through the
college’s program, with help from his-
toric preservation instructors John Good-
enberger and Lucien Swerdloff.
“This building is great, because it
gives us an opportunity to let students
work on a variety of different aspects of
a building, all in one building,” Swerdloff
said. “This is the reality in the world, and
this is kind of house-scale, very similar to
Deep within the Oregon Secretary of
State’s 85-page audit report on the state’s
Office of Child Welfare is an account from
caseworker Bridget Rayburn, 24.
“I love my job, but I feel like it’s not sus-
tainable,” Rayburn said.
Rayburn said she and her colleagues
receive up to 23 new cases a month — six
new cases is the recommended amount.
She described feeling “desensitized” and
that her “whole perspective on what consti-
tutes abuse has shifted.”
Rayburn described “unreal” staff turn-
over. She and just one other person in her
unit had been there for more than a year.
And the emotional toll?
“Someone cries at their desk every day,”
Rayburn said.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Students recently finished restoring the windows on Alderbrook Hall.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Students treated the windows of Al-
derbrook Hall with linseed oil and
turpentine.
a small house.”
The college began work on Alder-
brook Hall in 2016, detailing the con-
dition and changes to the building and
replacing the plywood siding with orig-
inal wood shingles. Jay Dickason, a
recent graduate of the program, restored
the building’s historic carriage doors and
is now an instructional assistant helping
oversee the workshops.
For the project last weekend, the city
provided $3,000 to have the windows
taken to Portland and stripped of lead
paint. The rest of the project was funded
by tuition and fees.
The college is helping to preserve
several city sites, such as the stained-
glass windows of the Ocean View Abbey
Mausoleum in Warrenton and the plas-
ter repair workshop next month at the
Doughboy Monument in Uniontown.
Bridget Rayburn | caseworker for
Oregon’s Office of Child Welfare
“Not because of trauma. Because they’re
overwhelmed with work.”
The scathing audit took aim at every
aspect of a critical agency responsible for
the safety of neglected and abused children,
from receiving complaint calls to certifying
foster homes and investigating families.
The audit reviewed more than a decade
of legislative changes aimed at helping some
of Oregon’s most vulnerable children. It
found the Office of Child Welfare, within the
state’s vast Department of Human Services,
has failed to keep up with legal mandates and
the increased demand for state intervention.
At the same time, the Office of Child
Welfare has faced scandals, like the dis-
covery in 2015 that the Give Us This
Day foster home in Portland was running
See RESTORATION, Page 7A
See AUDIT, Page 5A
Store closings stoke
concern downtown
Some caution
against overreaction
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Several recent and upcoming clo-
sures on Commercial Street have raised
fears of a weakening downtown busi-
ness core.
Office supplier Abeco Office Sys-
tems and specialty gift store Ada-
gio both closed storefronts this week.
Home decor shop In the Boudoir and
clothing store The Fox & Fawn are fol-
lowing suit next month.
J.C. Penney, the largest retailer
downtown, closed last year. The
stores are shutting down as the
economy across Oregon and the
United States is relatively strong, a
worrisome sign of what might happen
in Astoria when the economy inevita-
bly dips.
But the reason behind each closure
is unique, and the Astoria Downtown
Historic District Association cautions
against overreacting to the ebb and
flow of retail.
See CLOSINGS, Page 5A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Several businesses along Commercial Street have either closed recently
or will in the near future, including, clockwise from upper left, Adagio,
Lee’s Attic antique store, office supplier Abeco Office Systems and home
decor shop In the Boudoir.