CLATSOP SMASH: NO. 1 SEASIDE STOMPS ASTORIA SPORTS • 10A
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2018
146TH YEAR, NO. 61
ONE DOLLAR
Advocates
want more
local choice
in electricity
Legislation could
be heard in Salem
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Hayden Halsen stands ready with a rake to help work on a mountain bike trail.
TIRES ON THE
MOUNTAIN
See CHOICE, Page 5A
Knappa
students
struggle on
state tests
Mountain bike
trails coming to
Clatsop County
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
A
dd mountain biking to the list of recreational
possibilities in Clatsop County.
Last week, the North Coast Trail Alliance
began clearing out future riding areas on Lewis &
Clark Timberlands north of Klootchy Creek County
Park. Riders and Greenwood Resources, which man-
ages the timberlands, have agreed to 6 miles of down-
hill, single-track trail to start, with a goal of expanding
to 40 miles over the next few years.
“That’s our goal here, is to make it a destination
of mountain bike trails,” said Chris Quackenbush, the
alliance’s vice president. “We’re already set up for
tourism out here. This network of trails would just
bring more people to the area.”
The alliance is a chapter of the International
Mountain Biking Association. Since its founding, the
group has reached out to public and private landown-
ers seeking a place to ride.
“There’s so much land out here and no one has
tried to work with us. We just ran into a bunch of dead
ends,” Quackenbush said.
David Dougherty, a forester for the timberlands
just off U.S. Highway 26, was driving his truck out
See BIKE TRAILS, Page 3A
A legislative effort is forming to allow commu-
nities in Oregon to buy their own electricity sepa-
rate from investor-funded utilities like PacifiCorp.
The Community Renewable Energy Asso-
ciation is an Oregon group focused on increas-
ing green energy sources as a means of economic
development in a more competitive energy mar-
ket. The group is drafting legislation that would
allow for community choice aggregation, a con-
cept where local governments can choose where to
buy and generate electricity for customers within
their region.
“We believe in the ability for communities to
determine what’s the best power supply portfolio
to best serve their communities,” said Brian Skea-
han, director of the energy association and a former
public utility district manager in Washington state.
Under community choice aggregation, aggrega-
tors pay exit fees to utilities to make up for the loss
of customers. Existing utilities continue to deliver
power, maintain the electrical grid and provide bill-
ing and other services.
Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode
Island, Ohio, Illinois, California and most recently
Virginia have so far passed community choice
legislation to lower power rates and expand their
renewable energy portfolio.
Astoria, Warrenton and
Seaside score better
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Knappa students struggled mightily on last
year’s state aptitude tests in English language arts,
math and science compared to their peers in Clat-
sop County and across the state.
Students begin taking the Smarter Balanced
assessment each spring in third grade through high
school. The assessment is meant to track whether
students are on track academically for college or
workforce training. A score of three or four in each
subject indicates a student is on track.
Fewer than 35 percent of Knappa students were
on track in English language arts, compared to
nearly 55 percent statewide and at least half in the
Astoria, Warrenton-Hammond and Seaside school
Morgan Soller clears brush from the mountain bike trail.
See TESTS, Page 3A
Local brings a life of fitness to Cannon Beach
A weight loss
journey for
former athlete
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
C
ANNON BEACH — Lara
Foster likes to help people
move their bodies better.
It’s a passion that began for
the Cannon Beach local as a
three-sport athlete at Seaside
High School, and now has led
to opening her own personal
training studio.
But where it really began to
blossom was about five years
after graduation, when she was
working as a sports reporter
for the Seaside Signal.
After high school, Fos-
ter attended the University of
Utah, where she abandoned
her life of athletics and focused
on her mass communica-
tions degree. But between the
stress of college and the lack of
structure sports once provided
her, she began to cope by pick-
ing up some unhealthy eating
habits, she said.
“I think it was kind of like a
‘big fish in a small pond’ situa-
tion,” Foster said. “I was good
at sports. But the University
of Utah had 30,000 students.
I looked at the softball team,
and everyone was the best of
the best. I felt discouraged.”
By the time she started cov-
ering the same sports she once
played, Foster weighed about
300 pounds.
“I felt awful,” she said. “It
just felt embarrassing.”
That experience redirected
Foster back into a life of fit-
ness. In 2007, she lost more
Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
See FOSTER, Page 5A
Lara Foster, a former Seaside athlete, opened her own
personal training studio this month.