CANNON BEACH SANDCASTLE CONTEST NEARS COAST WEEKEND
DailyAstorian.com
145TH YEAR, NO. 243
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2018
ONE DOLLAR
Bus fares,
passes
might
decrease
Transit district
looks to boost riders
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Sunset Empire Transportation District
is proposing to slash and simplify fares and
passes as the bus provider tries to further
increase ridership and get a bigger slice of
grant money that subsidizes the service.
A $1 flat rate would cover each one-way
trip, rather than the zoned system that can cost
$3 to go from Astoria to Seaside. Daily passes
would drop from $5 to $3. A monthly pass
would cost $30 and the discounted monthly
pass $20 — both 33 percent reductions.
One thing critics of public transit point to
is empty seats. “The goal is always to increase
ridership, and lowering fares does that,” said
Jeff Hazen, the transit district’s executive
director.
Only 7 percent of Sunset Empire’s pro-
posed $4.3 million operating budget next fis-
cal year would come from fares. State funding
accounts for nearly one-third of the agency’s
budget, cash reserves more than one-quarter
and taxes nearly 22 percent.
Grant funding is determined by ridership
and the percentage of operational costs recov-
ered at the fare box, Hazen said.
The recent $5.3 billion transportation pack-
age passed by the state Legislature included a
$1 billion carve-out for public transit, funded
by a 0.1 percent employee payroll tax. The
funding required transportation agencies to
show how they are helping low-income riders
access transportation.
The new discounted passes, expanded
to include low-income households, met that
requirement, Hazen said.
Simplifying the pass structure is also an
effort to reduce the use of cash on buses, Hazen
said, allowing drivers to focus on driving and
cutting down wait times. Under his proposals,
only daily passes and the flat fares would be
sold on buses. Monthly passes would be sold
at the Astoria Transit Center and Seaside kiosk.
In the coming year, Hazen said, the bus
agency will also be transitioning to electronic
fares, further reducing the cash handled on
buses.
The bus agency will hold a public hearing
June 28 on the budget, including the fare and
pass changes. If the proposed fare and pass
changes are accepted, they would become
effective with the new budget in July.
The agency also recently started using the
smartphone application Transit, allowing rid-
ers to track bus locations online. For those
who don’t have smartphones, the agency pro-
vides a phone number for riders to call for
arrival times.
OPEN HOUSES
Sunset Empire Transportation District is
holding four open houses on proposed
fare and pass changes.
• June 18, 1 to 2 p.m., Bob Chisholm
Community Center, Seaside
• June 18, 3 to 4 p.m., Cannon Beach
Chamber of Commerce
• June 19, 1 to 2 p.m., Astoria Transit
Center
• June 19, 3 to 4 p.m., Emerald Heights
Apartments community room.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Business owners are concerned about the homeless downtown.
Task force struggles to
confront homelessness
Divisions over
approach, labels
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
omelessness is everywhere in
Astoria.
It sits next to discussions on
the lack of affordable housing. It winds
through debates over public safety. It slips
into concerns about the eroding quality of
life.
As people talk about how to address
the challenge, they sketch uncomfortable
and contradictory lines.
Volunteers who feed the homeless are
discouraged by questions over whether
they are helping or enabling. Residents
see the need for emergency shelter, but
not in their neighborhoods. Some are
eager to reach out to the needy, but draw
distinctions with the homeless who are on
the street by choice.
Homelessness is not unique to Asto-
ria. It is a local, state and national issue,
a fact that can be both comforting and
confounding, since how can a small town
with limited resources figure out a prob-
lem Portland and Seattle cannot?
“Really, whose problem is it?” Asto-
ria Police Chief Geoff Spalding said. “Is
it Astoria’s problem? Is it a state problem?
Is it a county problem? If each community
H
Renovations to this former Uniontown boarding house are underway to help
the homeless.
tries to deal with it individually, I don’t
think we’re going to be as successful.”
After months of deliberation, a home-
lessness solutions task force is brain-
storming concrete ways to confront
homelessness.
Here are some of the things they’ve
been talking about:
Housing
Social-service advocates say the lack
of housing options is affecting more than
the people who are already homeless.
Helping Hands, a nonprofit that oper-
ates re-entry shelters and programs in sev-
eral counties and plans to open a facility
in Uniontown this summer, maintains
that both cost and inventory are issues.
For many families or individuals who
are struggling, wages, especially in tour-
ism-related jobs, haven’t kept pace with
the cost of living.
See HOMELESSNESS, Page 5A
‘WHATEVER OUR SOLUTION IS, I THINK IF WE
ACCEPT THAT THIS IS NOT WHETHER YOU’RE GIVING
A HAND OUT, THIS IS ABOUT HELPING PEOPLE BECOME
CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY.’
Amy Baker | executive director of Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare
A fixture of Astoria homelessness moves on
Wedell was told to
move possessions
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Chase Allgood/News-Times
John Wedell is a well-known figure in
Astoria and Forest Grove.
About a month ago, John Wedell
— one of Astoria’s most well-known
homeless residents — packed up his
shopping carts and left the section of
11th Street where he was a downtown
fixture.
His departure set off a whirlwind of
rumors, including one that police had
forbidden him from coming down-
town. A rumor that he also faced arrest
circulated Wednesday on Facebook.
People who know him or know of
him protested in a comment thread,
asking why he was being singled out
when many consider him part of the
community.
But in fact, police were targeting
Wedell’s possessions, spilling out of
several shopping carts at the corner
of Marine Drive and Second Street
where he had moved — not Wedell
himself.
Astoria Police Chief Geoff Spald-
ing received complaints from drivers
who said the carts blocked their view
of oncoming traffic on Marine Drive.
Spalding and another officer spoke
Tuesday to Wedell about moving his
possessions. They gave him 24 hours
to clear his stuff away or risk it being
seized.
Wedell seemed confused about
whether or not he could go downtown
and what the 24-hour notice meant —
this confusion later morphed into con-
cerns about an impending arrest, lead-
ing to the Facebook rumor.
But police had told him Tues-
day: “You can go wherever you want
in town, John, but you have to move
your stuff every 24 hours.”
“If you can pare down your
stuff,” they said, “you can probably
fly under the radar and we won’t get
complaints.”
Wedell was seen loading his pos-
sessions into a taxi Wednesday. The
corner where he’d spent the recent
weeks is now empty.
As for the other rumor: Spald-
ing said Wedell was not told to leave
See WEDELL, Page 5A