The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current, August 27, 2018, Page 6A, Image 6

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    6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Seaside shifts to ‘caution’ on school project
A warning sign on
budget, schedule
I
n a region where generations have
venerated the spawning salmon of
Coho and China creeks as they trav-
eled to the Neawanna River, salmon pro-
tection looms large in the $100 million
Seaside campus building project — the
cost of which has ballooned to more than
$123 million.
Caution flags are flying for both the
schedule and budget of the new middle
and high school campus
in the school district’s
project summary.
Scheduling changes
for fall and winter
work, size reductions in
the campus and tough
decisions on building
R.J. MARX materials have already
been logged in the proj-
ect, approved by voters in 2016.
Regulatory delays, along with
unforeseen impacts like weather and the
economy, could shape a project that aims
to have all district students in their seats
at the new campus by September 2020.
Army Corps
A June timeline anticipated per-
mit approvals by July 18 from the
Department of State Lands and Army
Corps of Engineers. The school district
had proposed a combination of stream
enhancement, wetland and swale creation
to meet regulatory concerns about on-site
waterways.
The Department of State Lands signed
off on the permit application July 26.
The Army Corps has yet to do so.
“The initial mitigation plan submitted
by Seaside School District didn’t ade-
quately offset the impacts to wetlands
and streams that their proposed construc-
tion would incur,” said Corps spokesman
Jeffrey Henon earlier this month. “We are
waiting for them to submit a revised miti-
gation plan that meets those impacts.”
In response, Seaside School District
Superintendent Sheila Roley said, “We
have been working with quality people
who just kind of pushed (up) their
sleeves and said, ‘OK, let’s figure it out
another way,’”
While Corps approval delay is not
unusual, Project Manager Jim Henry said
its timing could have the greatest impact.
In its latest submission, delivered
in mid-August, the district pivoted to
“compensatory mitigation” — offering
environmental actions at other locations
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
View from the new campus site in early July.
to offset impacts to the original site.
School district consultant Jack Dalton
designed a trade-off designating more
wetland mitigation at school property
along U.S. Highway 101, Henry said.
The revised application calls for a
perimeter on district-owned land behind
the bus barn along Neawanna Creek, into
which China Creek and Coho Creek both
flow.
“We’re in the same watershed,” Henry
said. “Now everything seems to be run-
ning on the right path.”
Budget caution
In November 2016, district voters
approved a bond of $99.7 million to build
a new campus to replace schools located
in the tsunami zone. That price tag orig-
inally included professional services and
district expenses.
According to the July 2018 progress
report, the total project cost stands at
more than $123 million.
Expenses for construction alone
total almost $100 million. Professional
services and district expenses comprise
the remainder.
Construction for the middle and
high school building has been adjusted
from $43 million in 2016 to almost $59
million today.
The per-student cost, estimated at
$82,034 in 2016, is now above $96,000.
Despite the increases, the budget is
“on track,” Henry said.
Part of that comes from project
cutbacks.
Earlier this year, architects reduced
the building footprint by about 15
percent, trimming square footage and
adding a third floor to the middle- and
high-school building to reduce founda-
tion costs.
Additional “efficiencies” announced
this month come in plumbing fixtures,
roof drains, floor tile and construction
materials — about 40 items at $30,000 or
$40,000 each, Henry said.
To match expenses, the district lists
revenues of $110 million in bond sales,
with $5.4 million in state matching bonds
and interest.
Property assets — disposition
of the current high school building,
Broadway Middle School, Cannon Beach
Elementary and Gearhart Elementary
School — are anticipated to total $7
million — a “conservative estimate,”
Henry said.
Work on the Seaside Heights
Elementary School renovation and
addition is scheduled for mid-September.
Site-clearing, erosion-control, excavation
and foundation work will continue
throughout the winter. The access road
from the Heights to the new campus site
is tentatively rescheduled for 2019.
Hoffman Construction is working
six days a week to get as much done as
possible before the rainy season.
“The volume of work taking place
in Oregon has everyone associated with
construction stretched beyond capacity,”
Henry said.
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s South
County reporter and editor of the Seaside
Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette.
LETTERS
Don’t dismantle rock
sculptures by river
wish to write my support for the beautiful
rock sculptures that appear along the Asto-
ria Riverwalk. The artist has taken ordinary
objects (rocks) and made them into innovative
pieces of art.
The Daily Astorian recently published a let-
ter by a writer who admitted vandalizing these
difficult to duplicate art pieces (“Please ban
stacking boulders on Riverwalk,” July 19).
We need to support our local artists, and
not vandalize their works. The writer used the
excuse that these sculptures were dangerous.
Perhaps he failed to realize that he was mere
feet away from the Columbia River during
his acts of vandalism. And that the river is far
more dangerous than any sculpture along the
river banks.
DAN NEGLEY
Astoria
I
No evidence of Trump
collusion with Russians
ou know the country is “going to hell
in a handbasket.” There’s a difference
between Donald Trump talking to some Rus-
sians (and that’s all you have, because there
isn’t any evidence for anything else), and Hil-
ary Clinton making a deal with them that
allows certain parties in that nation to control
the majority of this nation’s uranium.
CARL YATES
Seaside
Y
A bridge solution made simple
really good guy” is how our presi-
dent has described Paul Manafort, even
though he hid millions from us in the U.S., and
by doing this he has, I would assume, not paid
the taxes associated with this income.
Could we ask the judge in this case to have
a forensic accountant total up how much we
are owed in lost tax payments? And, because
Manafort is a really good guy, he might autho-
‘A
rize those funds to be spent on the bridge
repairs we need from sixth to 11th streets along
the Astoria Riverwalk. That might just make a
really sad thing that has happened to him, as
the president has described, into proof to the
American people that he is a really good guy.
Not knowing how much money he would
have paid in taxes if his funds were not hidden in
offshore accounts like the rest of us do business,
maybe there would be some left over — after
completion of the bridge work — for the ostrich
farm, so we can all have coats, too. I’d like a side
of boots with my coat, also … size 13, please.
PAT WILSON
Astoria
Buehler is not a moderate
he narrative — carefully constructed, and
funded by billionaire conservative donors
— is that Knute Buehler is a moderate. It’s
a good story. But it’s not the truth. Instead,
at nearly every opportunity in his public life,
Buehler has shown himself to be a reliable
T
voice and vote for the conservative right.
While serving in the state Legislature,
Buehler voted against protecting Roe v. Wade,
voted against expanding access to health care
for hundreds of thousands of Oregonians, and
voted to deny Dreamers — people who have
been living in this state almost all of their
lives — access to much-needed financial aid
at Oregon’s public universities.
Already in this campaign, Buehler has
voiced his support for a virulently anti-immi-
grant ballot measure that would strip Oregon
of its more than three decades-old sanctuary
state status, while praising Donald Trump’s
pardons of the Hammond brothers.
He also opposed Measure 101 last year,
which, had it been defeated, would have cost
hundreds of thousands of Oregonians their
health insurance. These aren’t moderate posi-
tions; they’re conservative ones. Voters in
Oregon should reject Buehler, just like they
did Donald Trump.
BEBE MICHEL
Gearhart
Why should we believe
President Trump?
s of this writing, President Donald Trump
has made 4,229 false or misleading state-
ments in the first 558 days of his presidency.
Talk about fake news. You can see for your-
self at wapo.st/2BdNxEC
Yet, Mr. Trump says repeatedly, “Believe
me.” Why? Why should we believe anyone so
divorced from the truth?
Meanwhile, our nation is under daily
cyberattack from Russia. They successfully
attacked our last election, and they are attack-
ing our next election as this is written. Mr.
Trump met in secret for two hours with the
Russian president recently in Helsinki. What
do we know about that meeting? According
to Mr. Trump at his pep rally, “Everything is
fine. Putin likes me.”
Why, as a nation, do we find any of this
acceptable?
ERIC HALPERIN
Gearhart
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