DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018
146TH YEAR, NO. 16
ONE DOLLAR
‘This is my calling’
Bridge
project
delayed
Bids came in high
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Hannah Sievert/The Daily Astorian
ABOVE: Instructors help students balance on their boards.
BELOW: Shoko Tanaka surfs in the waters of Short Sand Beach.
Women surfers
carve out space on
the North Coast
By HANNAH SIEVERT
The Daily Astorian
hen Lexie Hallahan started
bodyboarding in Seaside in
1989, she remembers being
one of four other women regulars in
the water. It seemed to her like nearly
all the surfers on the Oregon Coast
were men.
These days, there are many
W
women in the lineup at local surf
spots like the Cove in Seaside and
Short Sand Beach at Oswald West
State Park.
While women have been an
important part of surfing’s interna-
tional growth, both on the profes-
sional stage and in popular culture,
they still feel the influence of the
sport’s historically male focus.
Local surfers credit Hallahan and
others for shrugging off barriers and
carving out space for women.
Hallahan put together her first all-
women surf camp more than a decade
ago. That first weekend, she watched
as 16 women transformed from hes-
itant to confident in the waves. She
estimates she has since taught more
than 700 women to surf.
“I got a full-on epiphany out in the
water,” said Hallahan, who teaches
at the Seaside-based Northwest
Women’s Surf Camps. “I was like,
‘Oh, my God, I’m supposed to be
teaching women to surf. This is my
calling.’”
Surf spots can be unwelcoming
for newcomers, especially for inex-
perienced surfers, and some women
say they feel a little extra pressure to
prove themselves.
See SURFERS, Page 3A
Replacement of Astoria’s water-
front bridges could be put off until
next year after bids came back well
over what the city and the state
Department of Transportation bud-
geted for the project.
The city will now need to com-
plete numerous temporary repairs to
keep the structures open for another
year, Public Works Director Jeff Har-
rington said. The city had hoped to
avoid these costs by prioritizing
some immediate repairs and closing
some of the bridges.
The Department of Transporta-
tion received four bids on the bridge
replacement project at nearly $2.2
million more than what has been bud-
geted, Harrington said. The lowest
bid, from Legacy Contracting Inc.,
came in at $10 million. The highest
bid, from Stellar J Corp., was $10.9
million. Astoria received around 90
percent of the project funding from
the state, but is providing the remain-
ing 10 percent.
The six waterfront bridges are at
the base of downtown and provide
access to the piers. The city planned
to replace the Seventh, Ninth and
11th street bridges this October and
then switch over to the Sixth, Eighth
and 10th street bridges next year in
an attempt to minimize the impact on
businesses, residents and visitors.
The city and the Department of
Transportation are “working together
to determine an appropriate path for-
ward,” Cindy Moore, assistant city
engineer, wrote in a letter to stake-
holders last week. “It is very likely
that start of construction will be
delayed a year until October 2019.”
It’s a disappointing setback, Har-
rington said. “We wanted to get it
done and moving this year,” he said.
Nearby business owners were
anxious about what the bridge
replacement work might mean for
them, and operators of the popu-
lar Astoria Riverfront Trolley antic-
ipated the work would delay trolley
operations next spring.
Maintenance work will now occur
in August and September “with mini-
mal public disruption,” Moore wrote.
Three-ton load limits will remain
in place on the bridges, the lowest the
city can go before it would have to
close the bridges to all vehicle traffic.
The city has changed and empha-
sized signs on roads leading across
the bridges and increased enforce-
ment on streets like 11th Street after
inspectors for the Department of
Transportation witnessed numerous
violations of the load limit during
recent inspections. The state told
Moore that if the city can’t enforce
the load limit, the bridges would
have to close to all but pedestrian
traffic.
The state also provided a list of
around $131,000 of recommended
repairs. Moore had hoped to be able
to keep repair costs down to around
$25,000, but that was when she
expected half of the bridges would
be completely replaced this year.
Warrenton family cleans
graffiti at Tapiola Skate Park
Profanity and
drug references
were erased
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
n a Sunday morning ear-
lier this month, Jennifer
Bartlett saw a Facebook post
that troubled her.
A friend posted about graf-
fiti at Tapiola Skate Park
in Astoria. The messages
included the F-word in relation
O
to President Donald Trump
and the police, along with drug
and satanic themes.
“It’s very inappropriate,
and our children are of age
where they can read,” Bartlett
said. “I don’t like the nasty art,
I guess.”
Bartlett, 37, contacted
Laura Dow, her sister. Along
with her children — Taya
Bartlett, 18, and Brody, 6 —
and Dow’s kids — Dominic,
8, and Addy, 9 — the family
decided to have a not-so-lazy
Sunday. Instead, they spent a
chunk of the day painting over
graffiti at the park.
Part the moms’ motivation
was to teach their children a
lesson.
“Making a mess is not OK,
and going out and fixing it is,”
Bartlett said.
Laura Dow
See GRAFFITI, Page 5A
A Warrenton family pitched in to paint over graffiti at Tapi-
ola Skate Park in Astoria.