DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, MAY 7, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 220
ONE DOLLAR
Motorists
at greater
risk in road
work zones
State aims to raise awareness
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
PORTLAND — When Brodie Harvey works
onsite at a highway project, he often thinks of his
former Knife River colleague, Ron Davis, who was
struck by a truck while working on northbound
Interstate 5 north of Aurora nearly a year ago.
Davis eventually died from his injuries.
Harvey, a project manager with the national
highway construction contracting company, said
he even questioned whether he wanted to continue
in his chosen profession.
“It was a very sad, tragic event,” said Harvey,
an Albany resident. “It made me question whether
I really wanted to be out there on the highways and
interstates working, with how dangerous it can be.”
While construction workers struck down in
work zones make headlines, motorists approaching
work zones are much more likely to be injured than
workers, said Matt Garrett, director of the Oregon
Department of Transportation.
He offered a staggering statistic: Someone is
injured an average of every 17 hours in a road con-
struction work zone in Oregon, a state with a popu-
lation of 4.1 million.
Analysis of state crash data from 2012 to 2016
shows that an average of five people die each year
in work zones, while about 437 people are injured.
The majority of the injuries were among motor-
ists, Garrett said. More than 500 crashes occur each
year in work zones.
Garrett held a news conference Thursday at an
Interstate 5 paving and auxiliary lane project in
Tualatin, where, he said, five people already have
been injured in that work zone since February.
Milwaukie resident Justin Brandon, a Depart-
ment of Transportation coordinator for the proj-
ect manager’s office, said he has seen some of the
damaged vehicles after the recent crashes.
“A lot of our work takes place at night, and
that’s when the accidents have mainly been hap-
pening,” Brandon said. “That’s one of the biggest
issues we have working at night: It’s dark. Peo-
ple are driving. They want to get home, and it’s
extremely dangerous.”
Speed reduction signs are posted in the work
zone, but motorists sometimes fail to see the signs
or choose not to follow them.
“Some drivers are distracted. Sometimes,
they’re drunk. A lot of times, they’re tired,” Bran-
don said. “All of these things add up, and it’s
extremely dangerous out there, working feet away
from vehicles moving 65 miles an hour, 70 miles
an hour.”
See MOTORISTS, Page 7A
Photos by Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
Master gardener trainees Janet Willoughby, left, and Diane McKenzie spend the first weekend in May working in
the demonstration garden at Alderbrook Park.
PRESERVING PARKS
Groups will
pitch park
adoptions
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
I
t’s been just over four months since
the Astoria City Council approved
three park adoptions.
Tonight, two groups will make
pitches to city councilors for two new
park adoptions in an effort to preserve
sites the city has considered putting up
for sale: Birch Field in Alderbrook and
the Custom House near Safeway.
Classed as underutilized in a 2016
parks master plan, both are properties
the council believed could be devel-
oped into something else, relieving the
Parks and Recreation Department from
the responsibility of caring for them.
In February, the council directed
city staff to look into delisting Birch
Field, a little-used ball field, as a park.
Since then, Alderbrook neighbors
organized a group to adopt the field.
Their goal, they say, is to maintain and
improve the field as a city park. The
Lower Columbia Preservation Soci-
ety hopes to tackle the Custom House,
an historic reconstruction of the first
U.S. Custom House west of the Rocky
Mountains with parkland surrounding
it.
Two of the three parks recently
granted adoption agreements were in
the same situation, but are off the list
Volunteers plant native sedums along a wall in the Tidal Rock Park site.
for now, in part because of the mainte-
nance and beautification agreements in
place with city residents.
Tiny Post Office Park, on 15th Street
between Exchange Street and Franklin
Avenue, is off the list permanently. The
council agreed with city staff that the
site, with its several layers of historic
designations, would have been difficult
to sell. A five-year maintenance agree-
ment with neighboring bed-and-break-
fast owners Pam and Dave Armstrong
sealed the decision.
Tidal Rock Park, adopted by a
group of artists who had landed a grant
from the Andy Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts to improve the site,
could still be considered for sale again.
Councilors noted it could be a complex
site to develop, however.
Both sites have undergone sig-
nificant transformations since the
City Council approved the adoption
agreements.
Post Office Park is tidy and well-
groomed. Just down the road at Tidal
Rock, artists Jessica Schleif, Brenda
Harper and Agnes Field have been
holding regular planting and clean-up
events at the sunken and long-ne-
glected park near Fort George Brew-
ery. The rock that gives the park its
name, used by mariners as a high tide
marker, is visible again, freed from
undergrowth that had almost swal-
lowed it up.
Alderbrook Park, the third park
adoption, was not going to go up for
sale, but it has also been transformed
because of the adoption agreement.
See PARKS, Page 7A
‘TO HAVE THIS AVAILABLE TO THE COMMUNITY,
I THINK IS JUST WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD.’
Paris Achen/Capital Bureau
Knife River project manager Brodie Harvey
and his son, Beau, 9, of Albany.
Janet Willoughby | master gardener trainee, speaking about a learning and
demonstration garden at Alderbrook Park established by Clatsop County Master Gardeners
Educator inspires in English, Spanish
Rojas-Galvan
also does work
as a translator
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
F
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Fernando Rojas-Galvan teaches Spanish, English and
General Education Development classes at Clatsop Com-
munity College.
ernando Rojas-Galvan is
ready to help students at
Clatsop Community College,
whether they speak English or
Spanish.
The recent hire splits his
time teaching Spanish, English
and General Education Devel-
opment classes for the college.
Rojas-Galvan commutes
between Astoria and Portland,
where his two youngest chil-
dren are sixth and 10th grad-
ers, and his wife a high school
Spanish instructor. He rents a
room several blocks from cam-
pus but hopes to one day buy
a house in Astoria, after his
daughter finishes high school.
A Hood River native,
Rojas-Galvan earned a bach-
elor’s from the University of
Portland. He and his wife met
during an advanced Spanish
grammar course he was help-
ing to teach as a graduate stu-
dent at the University of New
Mexico.
“I also lived in Nebraska,
where my wife is from,” he
said. “We were eager to get
back to Oregon.”
Moving back during
an economic downtown,
Rojas-Galvan was working up
to three different jobs. Before
being hired by the college, he
had been commuting between
Portland and Salem, where he
See EDUCATOR, Page 7A