3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2018
Cronin hired Warrenton passes budget
for Warrenton and water and sewer hikes
planning post
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
He held a
similar job in
Astoria
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — Asto-
ria’s former community
development director is now
the planning director for
Warrenton.
Monday was Kevin Cro-
nin’s first official day as a
Warrenton department head
overseeing the growing city’s
development review. He has
served as the city’s interim
city planner since former
planner Skip Urling retired
in March.
Cronin said he is excited
to work with Warrenton; City
Manager Linda Engbretson
said the city is glad to have
him. With all the growth hap-
pening in Warrenton, Cro-
nin’s experience working
for cities and the months he
has already spent becoming
familiar with Warrenton will
allow him to “hit the ground
running,” Engbretson said.
“He’s been very proactive.”
Cronin was not interested
in taking the job permanently
at first. After leaving Astoria
last fall, he worked as a con-
sultant for a variety of cli-
ents, including the Port of
Astoria.
Engbretson hoped to have
someone in the city planner
position by May. She had a
pool of candidates, but con-
sidered reposting the job and
seeing who else was inter-
ested. She joked with Cro-
nin, asking him if he was
sure he didn’t want to apply
for the job.
The role
Cronin is tak-
ing on will
look some-
what
dif-
ferent from
what it was
in the past.
Kevin
Cronin said
Cronin
he
wasn’t
interested in the original
planning director position
as advertised, but after dis-
cussions with Engbretson,
they agreed on some modi-
fications. The position will
now incorporate elements
of economic and commu-
nity development in addi-
tion to development review.
The job was advertised with
a monthly salary range of
$5,864 to $7,127 and Cronin
agreed to a salary within that
range, Engbretson said.
Cronin worked for Asto-
ria as community develop-
ment director from 2015 to
2017. He left that job amid
concerns about how he man-
aged the department, but his
work has garnered positive
reviews from other clients,
including Warrenton city
officials.
Cronin’s hiring coin-
cides with the recent hiring
of a new building official,
Bob Johnston, who worked
most recently as a building
official in cities in Colum-
bia County. Warrenton had
contracted with Clatsop
County for these services,
but back-and-forth rulings at
the state level about whether
or not cities and counties
could use third-party build-
ing and electrical inspec-
tors compelled Engbretson
to look at creating a per-
manent position within the
city’s building and planning
department.
Springfield ends jail
contract with ICE
Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD — Spring-
field has terminated a deal
with U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement that
allows the agency to house
immigrants who are liv-
ing in or entering the coun-
try illegally in the Springfield
Municipal Jail.
The
Register-Guard
reported the Springfield City
Council voted unanimously
Monday to end the ICE con-
tract with the Springfield
Police Department.
ICE had been allowed
to rent up to five of the
jail’s 100 beds at a time for
inmates transferred there
from other ICE detention
centers.
Community
members
and activists have spoken
out in protest against the ICE
contract for months.
A City Council memo
says the jail housed 92 ICE
detainees last year. The jail
held 40 to 50 ICE detainees a
year in previous fiscal years.
WARRENTON — City
commissioners adopted a new
budget Tuesday that, despite
including a number of fee and
rate increases across city oper-
ations, remains similar to this
year’s spending plan.
The $34 million budget
takes effect in July. The city’s
spending authority is $26.7
million. The budget includes
the addition of a half-time
police and court clerk and
increases a half-time pub-
lic works office assistant to
full time. A small increase to
the hours for the city’s library
manager and library assistant
will be paid from an operating
levy voters opted to increase
last year.
“We continue to be con-
servative with personnel
growth while striving to pro-
vide excellent public service,”
City Manager Linda Engbret-
son wrote in her budget mes-
sage. On Tuesday she noted
that many changes coming to
the library as a result of the
increase to the levy won’t get
fully underway until property
tax money begins rolling in
later this year.
With the adoption of the
budget, city commissioners
also conducted second read-
ings of a number of resolu-
tions for fee and rate increases.
These included a 7 percent
increase in water rates and a
5 percent increase in sewer
rates, as well as increases to
rental rates and fees at the
Warrenton Community Cen-
ter, recycling rates, and moor-
age rental rates and fees at the
city’s marinas.
Across the board, the
increases are intended to bring
the city up to date and help
fund future improvements.
The utilities increases, includ-
ing recycling, are expected to
add about $6 a month on the
average customer’s bill. Many
of the marina’s rates and fees
have not been addressed for
nearly a dozen years, city offi-
cials noted.
No one from the public
protested the increases during
comment periods for the first
and second readings and all
the readings passed unani-
mously on Tuesday except for
the water rate increase. Mayor
Henry Balensifer was the sole
“no” vote on this increase. At
a previous meeting, he said he
wanted to stick to a plan to hold
off on any water rate increases
until it was clear what it meant
to have major seafood pro-
cessor Pacific Coast Seafood
back on line. The seafood pro-
cessor has been rebuilding a
plant in Warrenton with plans
to open this summer.
In other business:
• City commissioners
declared two more properties
as nuisances.
The city has begun to more
aggressively pursue property
owners who allow their prop-
erty and buildings to fall into
disrepair and neglect. The city
declared several other proper-
ties nuisances earlier this year.
Commissioners have pushed
for stronger ordinances sim-
ilar to the derelict building
ordinance Astoria instituted
to address neglected buildings
with absentee owners.
“We’re doing a historic
level of code enforcement,”
Balensifer said, but added
that, between the city doing
almost nothing around nui-
sance properties to enforc-
ing city codes full throttle,
“there’s got to be a little grace
in that period”
The nuisance declara-
tions are working, Commis-
sioner Mark Baldwin said.
He pointed to an example of
one property owner who has
started cleaning up his prop-
erty because he worried about
landing on the nuisance list.
“It is having the desired
effect,” agreed Commissioner
Tom Dyer.
Consult a
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LEO FINZI
Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
A small fire, which appears to have been caused by a for-
gotten cigarette, singed the door frame of a unit at Pine
Cove Motel in Seaside Tuesday.
Small fire displaces
family at Seaside motel
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — A small fire
started by what appears to be
a forgotten cigarette displaced
a family of two staying at the
Pine Cove Motel in Seaside
Tuesday evening.
At about 6:30 p.m., the
Seaside Fire Department
responded to a call report-
ing small flames and smoke
smoldering at the bottom of
the door frame outside a unit
at 2481 U.S. Highway 101.
Division Chief Chris Dugan
said the cause appeared to
be a “disregarded cigarette,”
which was left in a nook near
the base of the door outside by
the resident a few hours prior.
With flames only reaching
an inch tall, Dugan said dam-
age was minimal and no inju-
ries were reported. The family
is temporarily displaced, how-
ever, because the flames dam-
aged the door frame enough to
where the room could no lon-
ger be properly secured.
“They were lucky this
didn’t happen at 2 a.m. while
they were asleep, where it
could have been left smolder-
ing a lot longer,” Dugan said.
Motel manager Ken Hart-
mann said the event was
unfortunate, but was thankful
it didn’t turn out to be worse.
“I suppose it’s a part of the
business,” Hartmann sighed,
looking at the singed door
frame.
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Astoria, OR
503-325-2300
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The Oregon
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New transit tax hits Oregonians starting in July
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
PORTLAND — Orego-
nians may notice a new .001
percent deduction on their
pay stubs beginning July 1
that will largely go toward
funding public transportation
around the state.
The new transit tax takes
$1 from every $1,000 of earn-
ings. The tax is projected to
generate nearly $194.6 mil-
lion in the first two years.
About 90 percent of the reve-
nue will go toward mass tran-
sit districts, transportation
districts or counties without
either mass transit or a trans-
portation district and to feder-
ally-recognized tribes based
on an allocation formula.
Five percent goes to pub-
lic transportation providers
based on a competitive grant
process.
The money can be used
for transit services, with the
exception of light rail capi-
tal improvements. However,
revenue can be used to fund
a low-income light rail fare
program.
The tax is part of a $5.3
billion transportation pack-
age the state Legislature
approved in 2017. Lawmak-
ers excluded light rail con-
struction from permissible
uses for the revenue to avoid
political opposition to the
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In honor of July 4th,
The Daily Astorian’s offices in
Astoria and Seaside will be
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come households, procure-
ment of low- or no-emis-
sion buses, reducing gaps in
services, providing student
transit services for grades
9-12 and other basic fac-
tors such as responsible use
of public funds, said Karyn
Criswell, project manager
of the Statewide Transpor-
tation Improvement Fund
Implementation.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
CLOSED
WANTED
Call me
ti
Any
legislation.
Four percent is dedicated
to grants to public transpor-
tation providers to improve
transit between two or more
communities, and the other
1 percent funds a statewide
public transportation techni-
cal resource center to assist
public transportation provid-
ers in rural areas.
The Oregon Transpor-
tation Commission will
decide on project funding
based on priorities such as
improving transit to low-in-
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