DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2018
146TH YEAR, NO. 37
JETTY STONES ROLL
THROUGH TOWN
ONE DOLLAR
Neighbors
unsettled
by Goonies
fandom
Tourists bring hassles
to Uppertown streets
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
A neighbor of the Uppertown house
famous for appearing in “The Goonies”
asked the Astoria City Council on Monday
to do more to enforce parking rules in the
neighborhood.
Dan Rhoads, the owner of several food
carts downtown, detailed recent incidents
with movie fans, including one where vis-
itors threatened to beat him up if he didn’t
stop filming them with his phone to show
how they were violating parking rules in the
38th Street neighborhood. Other fans have
flipped him off and yelled at him and his
family.
He believes the encounters are related to
a rash of bad reviews and low ratings for his
food trucks downtown that appeared online
soon afterwards. Rhoads owns Hong Kong
Taco Cart and The Hot Box BBQ, both
located next to Reach Break Brewing on
Duane Street.
TOP: A crane moves rocks into place at the North Jetty construction site. BOTTOM: Workers at the construction site
use heavy equipment to move rocks into place.
See GOONIES HOUSE, Page 5A
Rock used to shore
up North Jetty
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
LWACO, Wash. — Each day, flat-
bed trucks from Big River Con-
struction load up with jetty stones
weighing between 6 and 37 tons at War-
renton Fiber’s Tansy Point dock between
Warrenton and Hammond. They wind
through Warrenton, across Youngs Bay to
Astoria, over the Columbia River on the
Astoria Bridge to Washington and up to
Cape Disappointment State Park.
They wind through Cape Disappoint-
ment State Park and past Waikiki Beach
to a large, sandy construction zone from
which general contractor J.E. McAmis
stages 150,000 tons of stone being added
to the North Jetty.
The $28 million repair of the North
Jetty is part of a larger, $250 million proj-
I
Michael Sarin, co-owner of Big Riv-
er Construction, drives a truck over
the Astoria Bridge to deliver large
rocks to the North Jetty project.
ect to rehabilitate the Columbia River jet-
ties over five years. Built in the early 20th
century with 13 million tons of rock, the
jetties direct the flow of the river out to
sea and prevent shoaling that once caused
numerous shipwrecks and led to the
waterway’s moniker as the Graveyard of
the Pacific.
A 2011 report found the jetties in a
badly deteriorated condition, potentially
endangering a shipping channel esti-
mated by the Pacific Northwest Water-
ways Association to bring in 44 million
tons of cargo a year valued at $24 billion.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
completed previous repairs in 2015, fill-
ing in a lagoon at the base of the North
Jetty and a $20 million rehabilitation of
Jetty A, a strip of rocks protruding from
Coast Guard Station Cape Disappoint-
ment that helps direct the flow of the river
away from the root of the North Jetty.
The 2.5-mile, rubble-mound North
Jetty, like its longer counterpart on the
south side of the Columbia, was origi-
nally built using trestle bridges extended
into the water. Rail cars would carry large
basalt boulders out on the trestle to be
dumped at the end of the line, building up
the rubble pile.
Re-armoring the historic structures
with an estimated 600,000 tons of stone
is not quite so simple.
See NORTH JETTY, Page 5A
Waterfront
bridge
plans may
be on track
Work could start
as scheduled this fall
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Plans to replace Astoria’s waterfront
bridges this year might be back on track.
The Oregon Department of Transporta-
tion officially awarded the project to Legacy
Contracting. The company had submitted
the lowest bid, but the estimate was still well
over what the state and city had budgeted for
the project. The state has since released more
funds.
Cindy Moore, assistant city engineer,
anticipates Astoria will ultimately need to
provide around $440,000 in matching funds.
On Monday, the City Council approved a
supplemental budget to provide $220,000
to cover the unanticipated expenses. Moore
says there will be another request for a
change to the budget when she knows the
final amount of money the city will need to
provide to match the state contribution.
For now, the city is waiting on a sched-
ule from the contractor to determine whether
work begins in the fall. However, it looks
likely work on the six bridges located at the
base of Sixth Street through 11th Street will
start this year as scheduled.
See BRIDGE, Page 5A
Jewell School Board backs health center grant
A narrow vote after
concerns about safety
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
JEWELL — The Jewell School
Board on Monday narrowly approved
applying for a grant to start a campus
health center that would open to stu-
dents and residents, despite concerns
from board members over letting peo-
ple and their health issues on campus.
The school board’s 3-2 approval
clears the Clatsop County Pub-
lic Health Department to apply for a
$60,000 annual grant from the state’s
school-based health center program.
Michael McNickle, the county’s
public health director, said he reached
out to Jewell’s administration to gauge
interest after learning there were more
grants available for medically under-
served communities such as Jewell and
Knappa, whose board he will reach out
to next.
The school district would provide
the building and utilities for the health
center. The county would handle staff-
ing it with a physician’s assistant,
potentially saving the district $10,000
by eliminating the need for a school
nurse. The health center could provide
primary care services such as general
exams, sick visits, treatment of minor
injuries, vaccinations, alcohol and drug
counseling and mental health services.
It could issue prescriptions, but would
not carry pharmaceuticals.
‘THERE IS NO
COMPARISON
FROM WHAT
WE HAVE
NOW TO WHAT
THIS WOULD
OFFER — DAY
AND NIGHT
DIFFERENCE.’
The county opted to avoid the
potential controversy around provid-
ing reproductive health services and
will instead leave that up to commu-
nities, McNickle said. The Astoria
School Board, facing a backlash by
some residents concerned over repro-
ductive health services and parent per-
mission, voted in 2013 not to partner
with Coastal Family Health Center on
a school-based health center.
Jewell is more than 30 miles from
the nearest medical clinic in Seaside.
The school district has a nurse, but she
provides the legal minimum of ser-
vices and is only around three days
a month, said Superintendent Alice
Hunsaker.
Alice Hunsaker | superintendent
See GRANT, Page 5A