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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 14, 2018)
DOZENS KILLED IN GAZA AS US EMBASSY OPENS IN JERUSALEM PAGE 3A DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, MAY 14, 2018 145TH YEAR, NO. 225 ONE DOLLAR Bornstein Seafoods buys apartments for employees Low-cost housing option By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Photos by Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian Students with Tongue Point Job Corps help clean up Ocean View Cemetery. Cemetery gets some love Volunteers turn out for maintenance Interests widen in fight over coal- export terminal By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian C hanges are in store for Ocean View Cemetery this year. Astoria’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes increases to what the depart- ment is able to pay per hour for sea- sonal maintenance work across its parklands, including the historic cem- etery it maintains in Warrenton. There are also plans to bring on a mainte- nance worker whose sole responsi- bility will be to care for the cemetery grounds — a level of personal care Ocean View has lacked for years. “I’m pretty excited for that site,” said Parks Director Angela Cosby, though she cautioned that mainte- nance at the cemetery still won’t be quite what it was in the 1980s or 1990s, when there were multi- ple full-time positions dedicated to Ocean View’s care and operations. Last budget cycle, the depart- ment went through a painful shift to identify the true costs of running the department, the various facilities it maintains, programs it hosts and organizes and the acres of parkland under its care. The city decided to cut some community programs and looked at other ways to make opera- tions more efficient. For some parks and sites, this has meant less vigor- ous maintenance programs. Cosby said a jump from min- imum wage to $14 an hour has already helped the department begin to recruit and retain seasonal main- tenance employees — something the city struggled with last year, and that contributed to hit-or-miss care of WARRENTON — Born- stein Seafoods has purchased an apartment complex near its Warrenton Deep Sea mar- ket to help provide low-cost housing for employees. The company formed Deep Sea Apartments LLC and hired Easom Property Management to manage the complex, mere feet from the seafood market. Andrew Bornstein, co-owner of Bornstein Sea- foods, said the purchase is another effort to become an employer of choice and help ease the housing crisis. The seafood processor is using empty apartments in the building as a marketing tool to attract employees, he said, while allowing existing tenants to stay without a rent increase. “We’ve had trouble being fully staffed during the surge of summer,” Bornstein said, adding that some workers will carpool in vans from Longview, Washington. The company has made other moves to become more attractive to workers, he said, such as increasing wages to a minimum of $12 an hour, offering competitive ben- efits, improving hours and focusing on a culture of safety. By PHUONG LE Associated Press ABOVE: Volunteers clean around grave markers. BELOW: Volunteers remove overgrown brush. Ocean View Cemetery. Astoria came under fire last year for the condition of the grounds from Warrenton city officials and people whose family members are buried at the cemetery. At a public meeting in July, War- renton City Commissioner Mark Baldwin said the cemetery was in “shameful” condition, pointing to overgrown grass around grave sites, spotty mowing and dandelions grow- ing rampant over much of the ceme- tery’s grounds. See CEMETERY, Page 7A SEATTLE — Six West- ern states and national industry groups have lined up against Washington state in a legal battle over its deci- sion to reject permits for a massive proposed coal-ex- port terminal on the Colum- bia River. Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Utah, South Dakota and Nebraska filed a joint amicus brief, arguing in support of project back- ers and saying the case has broad implications for the export of commodities that are important to many states. Utah-based Lighthouse Resources, which operates coal mines in Montana and Wyoming, sued Washington state in federal court in Jan- uary, alleging officials vio- lated federal laws in deny- ing approvals for its $680 million Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview proj- ect. The company accuses the governor and state regu- lators of being anti-coal and discriminating against it by blocking the movement of coal mined in other states from being exported. The Washington Depart- ment of Ecology denied the project a water-quality per- mit last fall, saying there were too many major harm- ful impacts including air pollution, rail safety and vehicle traffic. The project would move coal mined in U.S. West- ern states through a termi- nal in Longview for export to South Korea, Japan and other Asian markets. The facility on the Columbia River would handle up 44 million metric tons, boost- ing U.S. exports to foreign markets. Montana Attorney Gen- eral Tim Fox said in a state- ment that “politicians in Washington State have again demonstrated their willingness to hold coal states hostage.” In a legal brief, Montana and the other states argue: “Today it is coal, tomor- row it could be natural gas or non-organic produce. The interests of interior states in developing foreign trade are now subject to the barriers erected by the pol- icy whims of states that control access to interna- tional markets through their ports.” See TERMINAL, Page 4A Couple earns award for working with animals Lears have volunteered for two decades By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian onnie and Annette Lear offer different perspec- tives about their origins at Clat- sop County Animal Shelter. They agree Annette started volunteering first in the late 1990s, and Lonnie started about a year later. “Next thing I know, she said, ‘I signed you up to be a volunteer,’ and I started doing it,” Lonnie said. L But Annette adds more to the story. “He likes to always tell everybody I made him come. He always says, ‘I do whatever I’m told,’” she said. “He tries not to say it’s because he loves the animals, but, you know.” Regardless of how they started, the couple is still a regular presence at the shel- ter roughly 20 years later. In April, Clatsop County gave the Lears a volunteer award after being nominated by three peo- ple at the shelter. The couple, both 57 years old, met in Seaside in the early 1980s and married a few years later. Lonnie is the head cus- todian at Seaside High School and used to work at the Stop and Go Convenience Store. Annette delivers for Mimi’s Flowers, and both have a side gig cleaning vacation rental homes. “We fit it all in somehow,” Annette said. In the four to five hours they spend at the shelter each week, the Lears walk and feed dogs, tend to and foster cats, See COUPLE, Page 7A Lonnie and Annette Lear are longtime volunteers at the animal shelter.
