DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 221
ONE DOLLAR
Astoria
backs park
adoption
requests
Parks had been set for sale
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
The Silver Explorer, the first of six cruise ships stopping this month in Astoria, pulled in Monday.
LUXURY CRUISE
STOPS IN ASTORIA
Two parks the Astoria City Council had con-
sidered opening up for sale and development will
instead be put up for adoption.
Following presentations by a group from the
Alderbrook neighborhood and representatives
of the Lower Columbia Preservation Society at a
meeting Monday night, city councilors asked the
Parks and Recreation Department to work with
the groups to develop maintenance agreements for
Birch Field in Alderbrook and the Custom House
site near Safeway.
The two sites were on a list of underutilized
parks the city had considered selling to lighten the
load for the parks department.
Final park adoption agreements for the two sites
will come back to the City Council for approval.
If approved, the parks will join a handful of other
parks across the city with adoption agreements in
place.
See PARKS, Page 4A
Silver Explorer is the first of six cruise ships expected in May
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
T
he start of a busy cruise ship
month began with a whisper
Monday.
The small luxury cruise ship Silver
Explorer pulled into the Port of Astoria
on its way upriver.
The ship carries up to 130 passen-
gers on what Willy Fleming, an expe-
dition programs coordinator, called
luxury expedition cruising.
“We try to go places where you
can’t exactly get to by plane, like the
whole point of cruising,” Fleming said.
“The idea with expedition cruising is
to really bring the point of cruising,
and going to very, very remote places,”
he said. “But then also the owner likes
to have his ultra luxury service.”
The 29-year-old cruiser, built in
Finland, was purchased in the mid-
2000s by Silversea Cruises and retro-
fitted for Arctic excursions in the sum-
mer and Antarctica in the winter. The
ship includes butler service for pas-
sengers, along with fine dining, spas,
a library, a cognac room and other
amenities.
Cruises run between $6,500 and
more than $20,000.
After visiting Astoria, the Silver
Explorer left for Rainier, after which
it will head toward the Puget Sound
region, ending the trip in Vancouver,
British Columbia. The ship will travel
south from Canada, visiting Astoria
May 18 on its way to San Francisco.
Bruce Conner, cruise ship marketer
for the Port, said there are 43,000 pas-
sengers expected this year, up from
38,000 last year.
“We’re known as part of the Alaska
experience,” Conner said.
Astoria will have six cruise ships in
May, one in July, 13 in September and
five in October. The largest, the Dis-
ney Wonder, arrives Sept. 11. A cruise
ship schedule is available at portofas-
toria.com
Republicans
tackle abortion,
taxes, pensions
Primary winner will face
Gov. Brown in November
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon Republicans have three dis-
tinct choices for their gubernatorial nominee on
May 15.
State Rep. Knute Buehler, a Bend orthopedic
surgeon, has been laying the groundwork for this
election for the past two years. He announced his
plan to run well ahead of his opponents, retired
Navy aviator Greg Wool-
dridge of Portland and Bend
businessman Sam Carpenter.
But Buehler’s moderate
social platform prompted
some members of his party
to seek a candidate who
would take a stronger stance against abortion rights
and other social issues.
Wooldridge and Carpenter launched surpris-
ingly effective challenges to the then-presumed
front-runner, said Jim Moore, political science pro-
fessor at Pacific University.
Carpenter has modeled himself — though on
a smaller scale — after President Donald Trump,
adopting the motto, “Make Oregon Great Again.”
The EO Media Group/Pamplin Media Group
Capital Bureau asked the candidates questions
about issues that are important to many Republi-
cans. We have included their verbatim responses.
Each candidate was asked identical questions
and provided a limit of 50 words for each answer.
The winner of the primary will face off with
Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, in November.
The Silver Explorer pulled into a freshly emptied logyard at the Port of Astoria Monday.
See PRIMARY, Page 3A
Oregon craft beer experiencing slowdown in sales
Marijuana may
be a factor
By SUZANNE ROIG
Bend Bulletin
BEND — At a time when
craft breweries compete more
than ever for shelf space and
tap handles in pubs, industry
sales are leveling off, even in
Bend, known as Beer Town
USA.
The slowdown has con-
tributed to slumping sales at
Bend’s biggest beer success
story, Deschutes Brewery, and
prompted other brewers to put
more effort into their local
pubs.
Craft beer sales in Oregon
stores where packaged beer is
sold grew 0.3 percent in 2017,
compared to 13.8 percent in
2014, said Patrick Livingston,
a consultant of client insights
at IRI, a Chicago-based ana-
lytics firm.
In comparison, packaged
craft beer sales nationwide
grew 3.8 percent in 2017, com-
pared to 14.6 percent in 2014,
according to IRI figures.
Craft beer may be a niche
market, but it accounts for 28.8
percent of all beer sold in Ore-
gon, Livingston said.
The slowdown in sales is
more pronounced in Oregon,
Livingston said, because other
segments of the market —
wine, spirits, hard seltzers and
malt beverages — have shown
dramatic growth.
And some believe that legal
recreational marijuana, which
saw its first full year of busi-
ness in Oregon in 2016, is a
factor.
“I believe cannabis has
affected sales,” said Deschutes
Brewery
CEO
Michael
LaLonde. “It’s so potent today.
Someone might go and have a
beer and do some edibles, and
the combination of those two
things means they don’t con-
sume as much alcohol.”
After experiencing the first
sales decline in its 30-year
See CRAFT BEER, Page 4A
Andy Tullis/The Bulletin
Mason Joey Boisineau, center, checks the door on one
of the outdoor fireplaces he built on the deck of the new
Boneyard Pub, under construction in Bend. At a time when
craft breweries compete more than ever for shelf space
and tap handles in pubs, industry sales are leveling off.