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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 20, 2018)
146TH YEAR, NO. 15 DALY’S After $1.8M in fines, a federal case Vacation rental dispute boils in Manzanita By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian MANZANITA — A prop- erty owner hit with $1.8 mil- lion in vacation rental fines has filed a federal lawsuit against Manzanita claim- ing the city’s enforcement is unconstitutional. Sandra Petersen, a co-trustee of the King- wood Trust, which owns the home on Edmund Lane, was fined by the city in Octo- ber for operating a vacation rental without a license and for not paying the lodging tax. Petersen, who lives in Washington state, said the city notified her of the cita- tions in one document, nearly two years after the first alleged violation in Jan- uary 2015. “When I got the letter, I was in total shock,” she said. “It was very unex- ONE DOLLAR WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 CRAZY TRAIN pected. I had no idea that I was disobeying any ordinances.” In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Port- land in June, Petersen has tried to block Manzanita from enforcing the citations, alleging the $1.8 million penalty is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which protects against excessive fines. The city declined to comment. Cities on the Oregon Coast have struggled to rein in property owners who have taken advantage of the explo- sion in the vacation rental market but do not follow regulations or pay lodging taxes. Some property own- ers openly advertise homes on websites like Airbnb and VRBO, but enforcement can be more challenging when owners are less obvious about their rentals or claim to be unaware of licensing and tax responsibilities. According to a court fil- ing, Petersen believed she See RENTAL, Page 7A Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Jeff Daly turns on one of the Joy Train’s many visual features. A nod to history – and imagination – in Astoria By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian K Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian A section of railing is missing at Pier 39 in Astoria after a car crashed through it and plunged into the water Thursday afternoon. Motorist plunges into river at Pier 39 Police say it was intentional By HANNAH SIEVERT The Daily Astorian A Portland woman inten- tionally drove off a wooden bridge and plunged into the Columbia River at Pier 39 in Astoria on Thursday afternoon. The 23-year-old woman was able to swim away from the vehicle and get out of the water after the crash, which occurred after 1 p.m. “Both witness state- ments and conversations with the woman indicate that she intentionally drove off of the pier and was suf- fering from apparent mental health issues,” police said in a statement. eep your eyes peeled and ears open Saturday eve- ning for the Joy Train downtown. Jeff Daly, an Astoria native known for restoring pieces of the town’s history, is putting the finish- ing touches on his Forty & Eight train, a former American Legion parade float that will lead a motley column of vehicles along Commer- cial and Duane streets. Named for the Society of Forty Men and Eight Horses honoring the box cars that carried American sol- diers in France during World War I, the train was originally built by American Legion members on a flatbed truck after World War II and rebuilt several times over decades. The vehicle was passed around Clatsop County and went into dis- repair as the people who built and maintained it died. Daly, who remembered see- ing the truck in parades as a child, spotted the decorative train engine of the vehicle languishing behind the Yankee Trader in Gearhart. He bought the truck — and, later, a rot- ting motor home from Knappa that has become the new platform — for what he is calling the Joy Train. Jeff Daly puts the finishing touches on his latest vehicle renovation. “We wanted to have something fun like the Glam Tram,” Daly said of his open-air downtown taxi, a former minibus from the Los Ange- les Zoo. Helping Daly construct the Joy Train are a collection of friends with metal, carpentry and elec- trical experience. Derik Nelson and Kevin Sealy, fabricators with Columbia Steel in Miles Crossing, built the substructure and frame of the train up from the motor home chassis. They attached the fake train engine to the back of the motor home using a forklift, and installed the window grates, ship hatches and other decorative metal items adorn- ing the outside. “Our day revolves around build- ing random things for people,” Sealy said. “You never know what’s going to come through the door. This time it happened to be a train.” See TRAIN, Page 7A See PLUNGE, Page 7A Bound together By HANNAH SIEVERT The Daily Astorian pward Bound students showed off their summer projects Wednesday evening at the Barbey Maritime Cen- ter with an art show, a photo exhibit and stand-up comedy. The six-week program through Clatsop Community College is for college-bound high school students. In one of the projects, a hand-drawn mural of local wildlife was chalked outside the Columbia River Maritime Museum. U A hand-drawn mural of local wildlife. Hannah Sievert/The Daily Astorian
