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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 2018)
145TH YEAR, NO. 254 ONE DOLLAR WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018 Oregon, Washington to sue over family separations States to challenge Trump’s executive order By LAUREN DAKE and CONRAD WILSON Oregon Public Broadcasting Washington State Attorney General Bob Fergu- son and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum plan to sue the Trump administration to ensure chil- dren who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border are reunited. After intense political pressure, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that ends the separation of families by placing parents and children together in detention centers together. But the Democratic attorneys general said the president’s move doesn’t go far enough. “The president’s order says that children will be held with parents ‘indefinitely,’ but where? Children certainly do not belong behind bars — even with their parents,” Rosenblum said in a statement. The multistate lawsuit is expected to be filed as early as next week. The debate over the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from their parents has infiltrated politics at every level. The public out- rage has also prompted the two candidates vying for Oregon’s top job to call for the reunification of fam- ilies and an end to what they both consider an inhu- mane practice. On Thursday, Gov. Kate Brown took on a famil- iar role, blasting the Trump administration for what she called the president’s “reign of terror.” “THE PRESIDENT’S ORDER SAYS THAT CHILDREN WILL BE HELD WITH PARENTS ‘INDEFINITELY,’ BUT WHERE? CHILDREN CERTAINLY DO NOT BELONG BEHIND BARS — EVEN WITH THEIR PARENTS.” Ellen Rosenblum | Oregon attorney general “We’ve heard small children crying out for their parents and relatives. Crying out for comfort, love and safety. It’s appalling to me that these children are being used as political pawns by the White House,” Brown said. “And it’s abhorrent that the president should promote his executive order as some sort of victory. This shouldn’t happen here.” Brown said she’s still hoping to receive more information from the federal government as to how many children separated from their parents are in Oregon and where they are located. “As you know, we have four youth here in Ore- gon that we are aware of,” Brown said. “We are working very hard to find out if there are any addi- tional children or babies in the state of Oregon. We want to make sure they are safe and we want to make sure they have adequate services.” Her GOP opponent in the gubernatorial race, state Rep. Knute Buehler, also called on Trump early to end the zero tolerance policy of splitting families, calling it “un-American.” Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Elk graze at the state-run Jewell Meadows Wildlife Area. An experimental fence on private property next door could become a way to manage herd movements and reduce human-elk conflicts. PROTOTYPE FENCES COULD KEEP ELK AT BAY Double design might make elk reconsider By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian W hen it comes to keep- ing elk out of gardens, backyards, fields or golf courses, North Coast residents have a couple of options. They can barricade themselves behind tall sturdy fences elk won’t jump and can’t push over. Maybe they startle the elk away with lights or sounds, techniques that usually have a short shelf life as the animals, like hor- ror movie fans, get used to the scare tactics. Or maybe they just move to a land free of these large, determined creatures. But with growing concerns about conflicts between elk and people in cities like Gearhart and Warrenton, state wildlife biologists are working on another option: Double fences. The system consists of two short, wooden post-and-plank fences spaced about 3 feet apart and parallel to each other, with lines of barbed wire run- ning down the track between them; the type of barrier biologists hope might make an elk pause and reconsider. As far as wildlife officials can tell, double fences have never been used to manage elk movements before. The only studies they found addressed reg- ular-sized deer in Ontario, Canada, and extra-large red deer in Scotland. But a deer is whole different kind of Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian A new type of fence built near Jewell is designed to ward off elk. ‘SO FAR THEY SEEM TO BE AVOIDING IT ALL TOGETHER.’ Herman Biederbeck | biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife critter, wildlife biologists say. “We just decided, well, if nobody’s done any work on this, we’re just going to build an experimental fence prototype,” said Herman Biederbeck, biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The state installed a double-fence segment on a rancher’s land off High- way 202 in March, down from the protected Jewell Meadows Wildlife Area and elk herd viewing sites. There are about 280 elk in the wildlife area itself, and around 350 in the area total that could possibly come in contact with the fence. But the true number of elk crossing the fenced area regularly is probably closer to 120, according to employees at the refuge. A typical elk fence is usually around 8 feet tall and is often con- structed with wood posts and wire, giving off a whiff of prison camp. A double fence may cost more but could be made to look more decorative. If the prototype in Jewell succeeds in See ELK, Page 7A See SEPARATIONS, Page 7A Former riverboat host starts Astoria tour company Walks, hikes and bike rides on offer By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Bob Vinatieri will often start his walking tours of downtown Astoria near the large anchor outside the Columbia River Maritime Museum. As a former host on the river- boat SS Legacy between Lewiston, Idaho, and Astoria, Bob Vinatieri remembers local historians coming aboard to lecture about the region’s history. “It was easy to get people inter- ested in Lewis and Clark … but there was not that much informa- tion about the city of Astoria,” he said. When he moved to Asto- ria in the spring, Vinatieri started his own company, Astoria Tours, offering guided educational tours around the city. Vinatieri takes groups for walk- ing tours through downtown, bicy- cle rides to historic filming loca- tions and hikes from the Cathedral Tree Trail to the Astoria Column. “I’m doing this all as tours for tips,” Vinatieri said. The downtown walking tours, his favorite, often start near a large anchor in front of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Vinat- ieri focuses his talks on people who lived in the area, from Native Americans before European colo- nization and early settlers to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and how people came together after a dev- astating fire in 1922 to rebuild. He studies books and visits museums to learn more about Asto- ria, regularly consulting local his- torians such as Liisa Penner at the Clatsop County Heritage Museum. “I’ve been selling Astoria as a tour operator out of Portland since 1993,” Vinatieri said. He helped operate the Lewis and Clark Explorer, a subsidized passenger rail service that operated around Astoria’s bicentennial cel- ebrations, and worked for several years on the SS Legacy. Vinatieri advertises his tour company at local hotels and on incoming cruise ships. He still runs a company, GroupActive, connect- ing seniors with local tours.
