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