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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 2018)
6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2008 Two pieces of naval antiquity were revealed for public consumption for the first time since being discovered. A group of approximately 80 people gathered Tuesday at the maintenance shop at Nehalem Bay State Park in Manza- nita to watch the unveiling of the cannons, which were sub- merged in saltwater and covered with burlap after being reclaimed Feb. 19. According to park staff, the tanks will be drained weekly with more and more fresh water being infused into the tanks to slowly wean the cannons off their saltwater dependency. “We have been very fortunate to be involved with two very, very important artifacts,” said Larry Oswald, a park ranger. Shelley Parker, interpretive ranger for the park, con- firmed what has already been circulated — the cannons are believed to be from the USS Shark. She said there was plenty of evidence to support this supposition, including the location descriptions of the wreckage given by the crew of the Shark, all of whom survived the 1846 wreck that left the cannons on the beach. First a new boat, then a new helicopter? As the Columbia River Bar Pilots await their new pilot boat Columbia, the lighter, speedier version of the existing model expected to arrive this spring, they’re also hoping for state funding that will help them purchase a new helicopter. The pilots have requested $5.7 million from Con- nectOregonII to help them fund a more efficient version of the helicopter they use to deliver pilots to inbound and outbound ships on the Columbia River. 50 years ago — 1968 Orville M. Wilmot, President of Terra Mar, a divi- sion of Sherwood Pacific, announced today the autho- rization of sale of land for a $30 million recreational development on the Long Beach Peninsula near Ilwaco. This 1440-acre development will offer recreation and leisure living for the vacationer, conventioneer and senior citizen. Located on Highway 101 on the Long Beach Pen- insula, Terra Mar stretches across the entire peninsula from the Pacific ocean to Willapa Bay. Close to the large population areas of the Pacific Northwest. Terra Mar extends across forests and dunes, bounded on one side by 1 1/4 miles of sandy beach and the surf of the Pacific ocean ... on the other by 2 1/4 miles of front- age on Willapa Bay. Between ocean and bay will run a network of canals, connecting the areas with an inland lake. Dredging has already started on the complex of canals. “We are attempting to look as far ahead into the future as possible,” said Wilmot. “We are anticipating a need for helicopter service into our project that will serve commuters between Terra Mar and Portland and possibly Seattle. A heliport can be built on top of our motel, so that people may spend an evening, a day or a Drawing shows the planned Terra Mar recreational development on the Long Beach Peninsula. week at Terra Mar.” One of the major proposed projects will be the con- struction of a marina complex that will include a luxury high rise motel that features a gourmet dining room and lounge. A convention center is also planned that will accommodate 1,600 people. Also planned for Terra Mar are paddocks and bridle paths, sites for permanent mobile homes, condomini- ums, beach clubs and private homes facing the ocean on one side and Willapa Bay on the other, along with a shopping center and an airstrip. 75 years ago — 1943 With nothing less than astonishment, Astoria food store operators today are surveying the provisions of the food point rationing system, under which they will do their merchandising next week. “Unbelievable,” was the statement of a repre- sentative Astoria grocer today when asked what he thought of the rationing program. “It means at least a 30 percent cut in our total volume of sales of rationed and so far un-rationed foodstuffs,” he added. Packers on the Columbia River processed a record-break- ing 309,500 cases of albacore in 1942, received 11,000,000 pounds of the valuable fish and paid fishermen more than $2,175,000 in the greatest tuna season of all time here. Thus an industry, which before 1937 was unheard of, booms into maturity and more firmly fixes Astoria in a posi- tion of leadership among fishing centers of the Pacific coast. Albacore were discovered first in 1937, but only an exper- imental case was packed, and most of the catch that sea- son was shipped to southern California canneries by rail. In 1938 an estimated pack of 110,000 cases was put up by local packers, the Columbia River Packers Association tak- ing the lead, followed by Columbia Rive Salmon company and the Sebastian-Stuart company in Washington. The brief jaunt to the school ration board is over for Mrs. Astoria housewife. Now before Monday when canned goods go on sale again, she must sit down with pencil and point plan chart in hand to discover just what changes this war time program will mean in the planning of her daily menus. The first juggling of 14’s, 16’s and 32’s together to reach the precious 48 point allowance per person brings the keen realization that now it’s a question of what a family can’t have, rather than what it can. Aside from baby food, which takes only one point, and sauerkraut (liberty cabbage of World War I) assessed at five or eight points depending on size of can, a rare taste of most of the familiar canned fruits and vegetables will be all that’s allowed. For instance, if a married couple with 96 points to spend, is accustomed to tomato or grapefruit juice for breakfast, they’ll either have to change this dietary habit or else spend all of their coupons in this way. Four of the large (2 lb. 14 oz.) cans of tomato juice would take more than the quota or 128 points, while four cans of grapefruit juice takes 92. If this couple depends greatly upon canned soups for a hurried lunch or evening snack, the quota would allow five cans of soup (at six points each), two cans of green beans, two cans of corn and one can of grapefruit. GUEST COLUMN A new county jail is absolutely necessary I n a guest column published last week, Richard Elfering, who identifies as a mental health advocate, claims the proposed new jail is utterly unnecessary, and instead argues Clatsop County should fund a massive treatment center, the cost of which is not discussed. After 25 years I am leaving public office as your district attorney, so I have no personal or professional benefit that would accrue from the county finally having enough jail beds. I’m weighing in because, as a citizen, the failure to fund a new jail will mean our failure to appear rate will dramatically increase above the current 33 percent, and worse — more critically — vulnerable lives will be put at risk. This isn’t political JOSHUA MARQUIS hyperbole. I invite anyone to come to court any weekday at 1:15 p.m. I, or one of my deputies, will be arraigning in-custody defendants and you’ll see the court forced to release people accused of felony domestic violence and other crimes, even many with lengthy histories of convic- tions. I’ll be happy to explain what and why we’re doing what we have to that day. A jail is not a prison. It has completely different goals and design and it certainly is not “only punitive.” A jail is used primarily as a safe place to hold people not yet tried for serious crimes who’ve shown they are either unlikely to appear in court voluntarily or pose an immediate and serious risk to victims and the community. The claim that “the state and nation are trying to get out of the prison system” makes little sense. Oregon has no private prisons or jails, nor should it. It would be a utopian goal to “abolish pris- Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Sgt. Aaron Parks patrols the halls of the Clatsop County Jail. ons,” and I suppose by extension even jails. But that would be a massive abdication of responsibility. We already spend millions of dollars on mental health services and while it’s still not enough (as I have repeatedly publicly advocated) the idea that we could — or should — involuntarily detain mentally ill people to force help on them simply won’t fly legally. There is no legal way to “briefly hold and detoxify” someone without due process. Beyond that it is extravagantly expensive, far beyond the jail proposed to be adapted from the recently closed Oregon Youth Authority facility. It was hard enough — it took years and special outside funding — to open the crisis respite center in Warrenton and that only offers about a dozen nonsecure beds. In a better world we’d have a custodial psychiatric unit — essentially what the writer suggests — but that is far more expensive, takes far more staffing and requires a different funding stream. Let’s start with our most immediate need and what we actually can afford. I’d like a brand-new Jaguar, but I can’t afford it. Few counties 10 times our size can afford a large treatment center. The staff of the jail goes to great lengths to avoid keeping people whose primary issue is mental illness, not serious criminal behavior. We have an elaborate and expensive process for involuntary mental commitment. We spend additional millions in Clatsop County through the Oregon Health Plan. People in jail are not there because they’re depressed or addicted — they’re in for burglary, assault and child molestation. Oregon, including Clatsop County, has a much lower incarceration rate than most of the United States. Jail is used to leverage cooperation by the 75 percent of those convicted felons on probation. At 60-bed maximum capacity, our jail is at about 30 percent of what the judges need. More impor- tantly, nobody in Oregon — even someone in “full psychosis” — can be detained without a lawyer and a hearing. Voters have turned down two previous jail bonds that would have required entirely new construction. This proposal about to be discussed on March 14 at the county commission uses an existing facility and will be partly funded by county timber revenues. Let’s not sink the jail proposal before it’s even proposed. Come to the county commission meeting at 6 p.m. March 14 at the Judge Guy Boyington Building in Astoria to hear what we have to say about the proposal to relocate the county jail to a larger facility in Warrenton. We desperately need more jail beds, which would be accomplished much more economically by this than any other plan. Joshua Marquis is the Clatsop County dis- trict attorney.
