7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2018
Voices: Not everyone buys into the Never Again message
old met with Indivisible North
Coast Oregon — the local
chapter of a nationwide pro-
gressive activist organization
— ahead of the walkout last
week. The Harolds’ called gun
violence an “epidemic” that
has been addressed by other
developed countries through
gun control.
“I had to figure out what
sort of thing would catch peo-
ple’s eyes and how to phrase
most things,” Elias Harold
said of his role in the walk-
out. “We were trying to keep it
away from anti-gun and focus
more on, just, saving student
lives. But part of that is by
having some amount of gun
control.”
Suzanne Harold recalled
the safety drills she led when
she worked at Warrenton
Grade School.
“That hits home to me,
when you’re trying to coach
8-year-olds to be silent for 10
minutes to avoid a tragedy,”
she said. “Shame on us for
making them have to be the
ones to stand up.”
Continued from Page 1A
One of those survi-
vors, senior Emma Gonza-
lez, has become the face of
Never Again. She entered the
national spotlight after a fiery
televised rally speech follow-
ing the shooting and through
her active social media pres-
ence. She played a leading
role in organizing the national
march.
Her personal appeal among
those who support the cause
can be seen in Astoria, as well.
Alea Bone, a Portland art-
ist, painted a portrait of Gon-
zalez for “Fierce,” an exhibit at
RiverSea Gallery. The exhibit,
which runs through April 8, is
intended to showcase female
empowerment during Wom-
en’s History Month.
Bone’s acrylic-on-wood
portrait — titled “Brave One”
— depicts Gonzalez staring
forward intently. She said the
63 bottle caps that surround
her represent school shootings
that have taken place in the
U.S. since 20 children were
shot at Sandy Hook Elemen-
tary School in Connecticut in
2012.
Bone, a parent of a high
schooler, has often incorpo-
rated gun violence into her
artwork.
“Every time something
happens, I feel like I need to
respond in some way. I was
so inspired by her, and the
first thing that came to mind is
she’s fierce,” Bone said.
The portrait also includes a
halo surrounding Gonzalez’s
head.
“I wanted to illuminate
her, like the spotlight is on her
right now,” Bone said. “She’s
like an angel. A lot of people
are looking to her image as a
symbol of this new, political
rising at the schools, and it’s
amazing.”
As she began to promote
the painting in February, a
high school friend told Bone
that her husband knew Gonza-
lez’s father.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, what
are the chances?’” she said.
“It’s crazy how small the
world is sometimes.”
Other solutions
Not everyone buys into the
Never Again message.
Astoria rally
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Azaria Damghani creates a sign for Saturday’s Rally for Our Lives event in downtown Astoria.
Students from Astoria High School planning to attend the
Rally for Our Lives event on Saturday make signs.
Jim Hoffman, chairman of
the Clatsop County Republi-
can Central Committee, said
he opposes gun control mea-
sures and believes they would
be ineffective. Instead, he
pointed to other solutions, such
as having an armed resource
officer at every school.
Trust: Taskforce would
oversee the restoration
closing in on two grants —
one federal and another state
— worth $1.2 million to buy
90 acres south of Liberty
Lane.
Dan Roix, conservation
director for the land trust,
said the group has heard its
federal grant application
with the U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service for $920,000 is
competitive and likely to
be funded. The land trust
will likely hear back within
weeks on a $340,000 match
from the state Watershed
Enhancement Board, he
said.
After the purchase,
the Columbia River Estu-
ary Study Taskforce would
oversee the restoration of
the land — much of it histor-
ical dredge spoil deposits —
into off-channel salmon and
wildlife habitat. The land
trust would then transfer
ownership of the property
to the college to be used as
a living laboratory coupled
with future environmental
science programs.
Continued from Page 1A
building at the South Tongue
Point campus, if it can raise
an equal match within the
next several years. The col-
lege must also own the prop-
erty or hold a 99-year lease to
access the funds, Zahn said.
At a recent board meet-
ing, the college’s President
Christopher Breitmeyer said
the college will likely mod-
ify its original plan with
the bond funding and bring
back a different proposal for
approval by Legislature. The
strategic plan will inform the
college about the needs of
the campus.
“Anything that happens,
we still have to do facili-
ties maintenance to the mar-
itime building,” Zahn said.
“It is starting to decay from
a standpoint of leaks in the
roof, particularly with wind-
driven storms.”
While the college pre-
pares to purchase the land
under its campus, the
Columbia Land Trust is
‘Anything that happens,
we still have to do
facilities maintenance to
the maritime building. ’
JoAnn Zahn
Nick Vasilieff
Jim Stewart • Brain Ratty
Melissa Eskue Ousley
Ann Ornie • Cynthia Moyer
Holly Lorincz
Diane Kirk • Gideon For-mukwai
Clatsop Community College’s
vice president of finance and operations
“We’ve got to do some-
thing. We all agree,” Hoffman
said. “I would actually support
something that would stop it.”
He noted that most high
school students — including
those in Astoria — did not
participate in the walkouts.
“I think, for the most part,
Elias Harold works on a sign for a rally planned for Satur-
day in downtown Astoria.
a parent or teacher has put
this in their head. I don’t think
they did this on their own,”
Hoffman said. “Absolutely
they should want change, but
they should become educated
on the issue. They should get
more than just one side of
this.”
Elias and Suzanne Har-
The rally in Astoria on Sat-
urday will be held on Eighth
and Commercial streets from
noon to 1:30 p.m. Indivisi-
ble North Coast Oregon will
host the event along with local
students.
When the march and ral-
lies end, it is unclear where the
national conversation on guns
will turn.
“Quite frankly, I don’t
think it’ll have a whole lot
of effect,” Hoffman said. “I
think it’ll have some, but not
a whole lot.”
Elias Harold said he hopes
the connections made at the
national march — his first
involvement in a large-scale
demonstration — will help
legitimize student opinions on
gun violence.
“As a kid, it is harder to,
sort of, be respected some-
times and for our opinions
to be heard,” he said. “So I
think, for how many of us are
bunching together, to have
our voices heard, to be a little
more respected and when we
need to make a stand, for other
people to understand where
we’re coming from and to lis-
ten to us.”
Cormorants: ‘This situation at East Sand
Island demands a full and public review’
Continued from Page 1A
the island studying the birds
for the Corps.
Daniel Roby, a profes-
sor at Oregon State Univer-
sity who led research teams
on East Sand Island, said in a
letter submitted during a pub-
lic comment period when the
management plan was still
being drafted that the Corps
ignored the studies it funded
on the island to come to very
different conclusions than
researchers. He said the Corps
exaggerated the risks of using
types of nonlethal manage-
ment techniques and down-
played the risk and uncertainty
of killing the birds.
At the time the Corps was
drafting the cormorant man-
agement plan, the agency
emphasized the lethal option
over others, saying meth-
ods such as limiting the nest-
ing area, hazing birds off the
island or luring them to other
locations were risky. Such
actions could disperse the birds
throughout the estuary, driving
them farther upriver where,
with fewer prey options, they
might pose more of a threat
to young migrating salmon,
Corps spokespeople said.
The Audubon Society of
Portland argues this is what
is happening now. When the
birds abandoned East Sand
Island in 2016 and 2017, the
number of cormorants using
Write on Seaside!
Saturday, March 31st, 2018
Seaside Convention Center
Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times
Double-crested cormorants on East Sand Island may get a reprieve this year.
the Astoria Bridge and other
bridges as alternative nesting
sites swelled.
“This situation at East Sand
Island demands a full and pub-
lic review,” Sallinger wrote.
“Federal agencies have spent
millions of public dollars pur-
suing a strategy that has pre-
cipitated the collapse of the
largest double-crested cor-
morant colony in the world,
potentially increased rather
than decreased predation on
listed salmonids and put the
Western population of dou-
ble-crested cormorants (at)
risk.”
There are an estimated
45,047 breeding pairs in the
Western double-crested cor-
morant population today,
down from an estimated
76,306 in 2016.
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