COAST WEEKEND
CANNON BEACH PLEIN AIR
& MORE ARTS FESTIVAL
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 253
ONE DOLLAR
PAC formed
to stump
for Astoria
school bond
Voters asked to back
$70 million plan
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Wildlife photographer Rob Curtis searches Haystack Rock for puffins and other birds.
Donations fund puffin
research at Haystack Rock
Study will be
first on the coast
See PAC, Page 5A
State warns
Astoria on
bridge load
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
C
ANNON BEACH — Tufted puf-
fins have been on the decline at
Haystack Rock for decades, and
no one really understands why.
This summer, a $15,000 donation
from the Friends of Haystack Rock will
enable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
to study what factors are keeping puffin
populations low.
The research will be the first of its
kind on the Oregon Coast.
“We really need to collect more data
and it has taken a long time for us to do
that,” said Shawn Stephensen, a wildlife
biologist with the Oregon Coast National
Wildlife Refuge Complex. “This gives us
the opportunity to do that.”
More than half of the research money
can be attributed to the “Pro-
tect our Puffins” sweat-
shirt campaign started
last summer by
John Underwood, a
Friends of Haystack
Rock board member
and longtime Cannon
Beach homeowner.
It started with
Underwood question-
ing why, every sum-
mer when he came
back to visit Can-
non Beach, there
Astoria school boosters have formed a
political action committee to stump for a
$70 million bond package in November to
improve schools.
While school dis-
trict employees can pro-
vide objective informa-
tion, they cannot advocate
for a bond measure. Yes
for Astoria Kids is led by
David Oser, an Astoria
School Board member who
David
recently retired from non-
Oser
profit lender Craft3, and
Skip Hauke, a former busi-
ness owner who recently
retired from the Asto-
ria-Warrenton Area Cham-
ber of Commerce.
A bond voters passed
in 2000 to build Lewis and
Skip
Clark Elementary School
Hauke
and improve three other
campuses is set to expire
in 2020. In anticipation of another bond, the
school district has spent the past year study-
ing options.
Violations spotted
near the waterfront
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
From left, Magdalena, Owen and Zaria Goward scan Haystack Rock with bin-
oculars looking for birds.
were fewer and fewer puffins flocking
around the rock. He partnered with the
awareness program to design and donate
a few dozen sweatshirts to sell around
the community, with the hope profits
would eventually go toward education
and research.
A year later, the idea raised more than
$9,000.
“I was hoping it would do well, but I
didn’t know what to expect,” Underwood
said. “I’m happy people care.”
While Haystack Rock is still home
to Oregon’s largest tufted puffin colony,
along the Oregon Coast the species has
steadily declined from about 5,000 birds
nesting 20 years ago to just a few hun-
dred today.
Researchers have theorized factors
such as rising ocean temperatures and
lack of accessible prey could be causing
the die-off, but haven’t had resources to
test it.
The donations will purchase five
transmitters, which will be attached
to puffins and track where exactly the
Six waterfront bridges in Astoria slated
to be replaced over the next two years could
close to vehicle traffic immediately if load
limits continue to be ignored.
Inspectors hired by the Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation saw multiple vehi-
cles that exceeded the 3-ton load limit drive
over the bridges during a recent annual
inspection. Under the load limit — 6,000
pounds — anything much bigger than an
SUV would likely be too heavy, according to
the Astoria Public Works Department.
The bridges sit at the bases of Sixth Street
to 11th Street.
If the city can’t enforce the load limit, the
state will recommend the bridges be closed
See RESEARCH, Page 5A
See BRIDGES, Page 5A
‘I was concerned for my own family’
Hero pastor
has local ties
Chinook Observer
TUMWATER, Wash. —
David George, an Oakville
pastor who was a longtime
leader of the New Life Assem-
bly of God Church in Ilwaco,
spoke in public for the first
time Wednesday about his role
in stopping a deadly attack out-
side a Walmart in Tumwater.
George, who has a con-
cealed-carry firearms permit
and was trained as a volun-
teer firefighter to respond to
active-shooter situations, shot
and killed Tim O. Day, 44, of
McCleary, who was shoot-
ing at people Sunday while
attempting to hijack cars.
“I am grieved that the
shooter’s reckless actions
endangered numerous indi-
viduals and demanded he be
stopped before doing more
harm,” George said in an emo-
tional statement broadcast on
television news stations.
After stopping the shooter,
George, an emergency medi-
cal technician, provided first
aid to a gunshot victim in the
parking lot.
George
was
deeply
involved in the Long Beach
Peninsula community from
about 2003 through 2013, In
addition to his role at New Life
Assembly of God, he served as
president of the Rotary Club.
George teared up as he
described how a family trip to
Walmart to make an exchange
ended up with him having
to fatally shoot the armed
attacker.
He said he immediately
recognized the gunshots and
responded in accordance with
his training.
“I was concerned for my
own family and I sought to find
them and exit the building,” he
said. “My daughter, recogniz-
ing the gunshots, also gathered
her daughter quickly to exit
the building. I did not see my
See PASTOR, Page 5A
KING5
David George, a longtime Ilwaco pastor, spoke in public
for the first time Wednesday about intervening to stop an
armed attack Sunday at the Tumwater Walmart.