DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2018
146TH YEAR, NO. 32
Buehler
announces
plan to end
homelessness
ONE DOLLAR
CUTTING
DOWN
Republican candidate
sets goal for 2023
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
State Rep. Knute Buehler, the Republican
nominee for governor, has announced a sev-
en-point plan to end unsheltered homeless-
ness by 2023.
Nearly 14,000 people are considered
homeless in Oregon, an increase of 6 per-
cent between 2015 and 2017, according to a
survey in January 2017 by
Oregon Housing and Com-
munity Services. Clatsop
County was among the top
five counties in the state for
homelessness.
“Under Kate Brown, our
Knute
homeless crisis is getting
Buehler
worse,” Buehler said Mon-
day. “It’s become a human-
itarian, public health and public safety crisis
that needs bolder and more creative leader-
ship from a new governor,”
One proposal in the plan calls for build-
ing 4,000 temporary shelter beds and 4,000
long-term supportive housing beds. He has
proposed paying for the project with a com-
bination of $10 million in state funds and fed-
eral, local, nonprofit and private resources.
State grants would be made to local gov-
ernments and nonprofit and private partners
to build and manage the beds and programs.
See BUEHLER, Page 3A
Astoria City Forester Ben Hayes speaks during a tour
of a logging operation at the Bear Creek watershed.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Astoria’s timber harvests expected to be more complex
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ | The Daily Astorian
A
timber harvest underway in Astoria’s Bear Creek watershed this summer is among the last of the city’s easy-
to-access thinning projects. ¶ Timber prices fluctuate from year to year and timber revenue is never some-
thing the city banks on. But going forward, operations in the watershed are expected to only become more
complex, more involved and potentially more costly. ¶ It’s been a good year for prices, said Jeff Harrington,
the city’s public works director. But, as he told the budget committee in April, the city is vulnerable to market swings.
Harrington and City Manager Brett Estes anticipate less revenue from harvests down the road.
At Hipcamp,
a link to the
outdoors
Like Airbnb, but for
cool campgrounds
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Heavy logging equipment sits at the site.
ALTOONA, Wash. — On a steep hillside
between two former canning towns on the
Washington side of the Columbia River, Sol
Mertz and his partners are busy creating an
idyllic, edible garden for campers at the Rose
Creek Retreat.
Most of the campground’s visitors come
from Hipcamp, a nationwide online reser-
vation network for private campgrounds
launched in 2013 in San Francisco. Hipcamp
recently expanded into Oregon, including
two sites listed in the southeastern corner of
Clatsop County.
“We got started early in Hipcamp,” Mertz
said. “They believed in our concept, and we
believed in their concept.”
Campers can rent three separate areas
at the Rose Creek Retreat. The most pop-
ular is the Rose Garden, a landing above
Altoona-Pillar Rock Road surrounded by
edible plants. The site overlooks wildlife
and passing ship traffic on the Columbia and
comes with a yurt-like sleeping room and a
fire pit.
A stack of logs sits ready to be loaded on trucks.
Hampton Tree Farms is thinning a dense,
spruce-dominated stand on approximately 50
acres of the Bear Creek watershed. The har-
vest is expected to result in gross revenue of
$259,400. After paying for expenses like road
improvements and replanting, the city estimates
$199,500 will land in the capital improvement
fund.
In the future, though, “some of the cuts we’ll
need to do are in tougher areas,” Harrington said.
And, the costs of doing business in the water-
shed — road improvements, maintenance, rock
and labor expenses — are expected to go up.
The Bear Creek watershed, the source of
Astoria’s water, is a protected area now but was
logged heavily by commercial companies in the
distant past. The city conducts small-scale har-
vests, though the trees are not cut to the full
extent allowed.
Recent harvests have targeted clumped
stands like the spruce Hampton is cutting now
— a monoculture of trees that lacks the eco-
logical diversity found in good wildlife habi-
“We never
really truly
know until
we get the
bids.”
Susan Brooks
Astoria’s finance director
tat — or sites thick with Douglas fir introduced
by timber companies in the past that have since
been impacted by Swiss needle cast. The fungus
attacks a tree’s crown and stunts the tree.
Astoria also agreed not to aggressively har-
vest timber for the next decade in exchange for
carbon credits. The city partnered with The Cli-
mate Trust, a Portland nonprofit, to purchase the
carbon credits, an arrangement that has gener-
ated hundreds of thousands of dollars for the city.
The money generated by carbon credits
has had a substantial fiscal impact, said Susan
Brooks, the city’s finance director. The sale of
timber, less so. Although it is a nice, if hard to
predict, revenue source to have available.
“We usually try to get a pretty good estimate
from our forester during the end of the budget
cycle, right before we bring it forward and that’s
probably the best we can do,” Brooks said. But,
she added, “We never really truly know until we
get the bids.”
See TIMBER, Page 5A
See HIPCAMP, Page 5A
Adventurer embarks on a 50-state trek
A stop in Long Beach
By PATRICK WEBB
Chinook Observer
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Rachael Jera-
hian has a plan, but admits she is making it
up as she goes along.
The 34-year-old New York native was in
Long Beach, Washington, this month on an
ambitious trip.
The TV executive’s goal is to set foot in
all 50 states before embarking on the second
phase of her adventure — visiting all 195
countries.
Along the way, she plans to climb the
highest peak on each of the seven continents
and ski at the North and South poles.
She calls it the “Global Grand Slam
Expedition.”
Jerahian grew up in New York and earned
a degree in international broadcast journal-
ism at Kean University of New Jersey. Her
early dream of becoming a reporter took a
different turn when she discovered that she
enjoyed behind the scenes for a produc-
tion company in Manhattan. Since then, she
has produced everything from documen-
tary series to commercials, plus TV shows
including “The Hunt with John Walsh,”
“Duck Dynasty” and the “The Great Amer-
ican Read.”
Her jobs with networks like CNN, Food,
A&E, Discovery, Netflix and Travel have
focused on logistics and budgets while help-
ing creative artists achieve their visions.
A few years ago, after both her parents
died of cancer, Jerahian re-evaluated her life.
“I never got a passport until I was 30,”
she said. “I grew up in New York, trying to
Patrick Webb/Chinook Observer
See TREK, Page 5A
Rachael Jerahian visited downtown Long Beach this month as
part of a 50-state trek.