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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2018
Scammers: Elderly
people are the most
vulnerable to scams
Planners: Opinions mixed
about establishing a limitation
zone in Astoria’s Urban Core
Continued from Page 1A
With consultant Matt Hastie
providing ideas and suggestions,
Tuesday’s work session focused on
form: What the city wants to allow
in terms of the size and scale of new
development versus what is allowed
now. A work session in November
will focus on what’s inside of the
buildings. A third work session will
begin to establish what these build-
ings look like — the skin, said City
Manager Brett Estes.
In general, the majority of plan-
ning commissioners were in favor
of shorter buildings, greater space
between new buildings and the
Astoria Riverwalk, new buildings
that feature setbacks and stepbacks
to open up views, as well as pub-
lic piers alongside new buildings to
give people access to the river.
There were mixed opinions
about whether the city should estab-
lish a limitation zone in the Urban
Core. The zone would prohibit
any kind of development over the
water in lots that are already free, or
mostly free, of development. Com-
missioner Daryl Moore was not in
favor of this proposal, saying he
would instead support a uniform set
of codes to manage development of
the over-water lots.
Several of the commission-
ers said they would prefer no new
development over the water, but
were not opposed to denser devel-
opment on shore.
The Planning Commission
found it to be tricky work as they
juggled comments from the com-
munity with the guidance already
laid out in the Riverfront Vision
Plan.
“You have latitude,” Estes said.
“Actually, right now, you have the
most latitude of any group. Ulti-
mately the City Council is going
to make the decision, but the
City Council relies on you as the
appointed representatives to do the
heavy lifting and to do the inter-
pretation, to make the connections.
That, if there are areas you feel
Continued from Page 1A
‘Head game’
In December, a caller told
an Astoria doctor that Circuit
Court Judge Paula Brown-
hill had issued two warrants
for his arrest after suppos-
edly missing jury duty. To
get rid of the warrants, the
caller told the man to go to
Rite Aid and put $1,200 on
two Green Dot cards.
The doctor said the scam-
mer was convincing and
seemed to know what he was
talking about, according to a
police report. The scammer,
for example, provided the
correct address to the sher-
iff’s office in Warrenton,
when the doctor thought the
office was still in Astoria.
The doctor initially said
he would find a way to trans-
fer the money.
“When you get a pan-
icked phone call from some-
body whose credentials
appear to match up with
a so-called law enforce-
ment agency, next thing you
know they’ve got you in a
panic and you’re, maybe,
not thinking as clearly as
you would if you’re not in an
emotional state,” Dersham
said. Meanwhile, the scam-
mer demanded that the doc-
tor keep in contact every five
to seven minutes.
“They don’t want you
having a conversation with
somebody outside of that
phone party because that’s
going to give an opportunity
for clarity,” Dersham said.
“It’s all a head game.”
When calling back, the
doctor asked the scammer
to identify the county sher-
iff. The man gave the wrong
name and hung up as the doc-
tor questioned him further.
Minutes later, the scam-
mer called back to identify
Sheriff Tom Bergin, claim-
ing that he was momentar-
ily confused during the doc-
tor’s questioning. A sheriff’s
deputy later confirmed to the
doctor that the calls were a
fraud.
should have reduced heights, that
you make the connection and you
state why.”
Residents who spoke at the
meeting continued to urge the Plan-
ning Commission to preserve the
city’s river views with careful,
thoughtful development.
The Riverfront Vision Plan gives
the commissioners some really con-
flicting guidelines, said Commis-
sioner Jennifer Cameron-Lattek,
who was in favor of a limitation
zone and denser development on
shore.
“It also, I think, gives us a real-
istic impression of what it is like to
try to figure out what we want our
city to be,” she added. “We do have
conflicting issues. We don’t want
things to change, but we want jobs
and we want the kind of jobs we
used to have, but we don’t want the
environmental impacts that come
with that.
“I think it is realistic and it also
gives us opportunities to make
compromises.”
The Urban Core in Astoria includes the riverfront from Second Street to 16th Street.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Kitzhaber: ‘Gillnets ... snare and
kill the wild endangered salmon’
Continued from Page 1A
feature people like Larry Cas-
sidy, who has been president of
the Northwest Steelheaders, a
sport fishing group. He has tes-
tified in favor of the Kitzhaber
plan to replace gillnets with
seine nets and he questioned
the results of studies on seine
nets that concluded mortal-
ity rates were far higher than
expected with the gear.
The website declares, “Gill-
nets are nonselective killers.
Keep gillnets off the lower
Columbia,” with the words
superimposed over a video
loop showing salmon being
fished with gillnets, suspended
in nets, swimming freely and
leaping up waterfalls.
“It’s very important for Ore-
gon and Washington to main-
tain this compromise that pro-
tects the wild salmon runs in
the main stem of the Columbia
River, while still allowing the
use of gillnets in off-channel
areas to harvest hatchery fish,”
Kitzhaber said in a statement.
“Gillnets are an indiscrimi-
nate tool for harvesting fish —
they snare and kill the wild and
endangered salmon we are try-
ing to protect, as well as other
river wildlife.”
Jim Wells, a gillnetter and
president of the commer-
cial fishing advocacy group,
Salmon For All, isn’t buying it.
Washington state has not
managed to open a select area
for gillnet fishermen or find a
suitable alternative to gillnets.
Overall, the commercial fish-
ery saw a decrease in what
fishermen got for their catch,
noted a document prepared by
staff to assist the Washington
fish and wildlife commission-
ers in evaluating the policy at
a meeting this month.
The expected large eco-
nomic benefits from the pol-
icy shift have not materialized
for commercial or recreational
fishing. In fact, the recreational
fisheries have only seen “mar-
ginal benefits” with changes to
the percentage of salmon runs
they are allocated. “The expec-
tations in the development of
the policy were not met,” staff
concluded.
Oregon and Washington
agreed to begin the reform pol-
icy in 2013, but have diverged
at times in the years since the
plan was adopted. Last year,
Oregon considered allowing
gillnetters time on the river, a
direction contrary to the orig-
inal plan to phase gillnets off
the main stem by 2017.
Under pressure from
Brown, the Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Commission backed
down. However, when the
commission met in Clatsop
County earlier this year, com-
missioners spoke in support of
gillnetters. Last year, Oregon
fishery staff reported similar
findings about the economic
success of the policy as Wash-
ington’s fishery staff.
“We could see (the pol-
icy) wasn’t performing as it
was originally intended,” said
Tucker Jones, ocean salmon
Columbia River program man-
ager for the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife.
In response, the commis-
sion approved additional smolt
releases to increase production
in certain commercial fishing
areas in the long term, among
other measures.
The summary from Wash-
ington’s fishery managers says
Shelters: ‘If we had the people
power to continue it we would’
Continued from Page 1A
When the shelter program
ran all week, people were
more likely to utilize the help
because they wouldn’t need
to worry about losing a space
outdoors or their belongings,
said Pastor Dawna Svaren,
the chairwoman for the non-
profit. Often, people brought
everything they owned to the
shelters.
The shelter program took
multiple volunteers to coordi-
nate and to handle overnight
shifts. Finding volunteers will-
ing and able to make the time
commitment was a challenge.
“We’re trying to decide
how can we use that volunteer
power to help a greater popula-
tion here,” Svaren said. “If we
had the people power to con-
tinue it we would.”
About 17 percent of Pacific
County’s population lives
below the poverty line, accord-
ing to the Pacific County Eco-
nomic Development Council.
Peninsula
Poverty
Response is working on cre-
ating a complete document
of local resources by Novem-
ber. The nonprofit is also in the
process of starting a newsletter
titled “Hand in Hand.”
“We’ve appreciated those
who have offered their time,
talent and financial support,”
Svaren said. “We hope to con-
tinue as partners with them
to serve those experiencing
homelessness and unstable liv-
ing conditions.”
“the plan’s not working,” Wells
said. “It’s not working for the
sport fishermen, it’s not work-
ing for the commercial guys.
… The select (areas) aren’t
working, target gears aren’t
working.
“With all that,” Wells con-
cluded, “Kitzhaber can say
what he wants.”
Kitzhaber’s stance on gill-
netting came with a politi-
cal price in Clatsop County.
Kitzhaber had won the county
in his three previous cam-
paigns for governor, but nar-
rowly lost during his re-elec-
tion campaign in 2014.
Kitzhaber resigned in
2015 amid an ethics scandal
involving his fiancee. He was
replaced by Brown, who chose
to continue with the reform
policy.
Elderly are vulnerable
Typically, elderly people
are the most vulnerable to
scams.
“If you grew up in an
age where computers were
a part of your world from
the beginning, you’re going
to be much less suscepti-
ble to this kind of stuff,”
Dersham said. “They came
from a generation where if
somebody told you some-
thing, there was often a rea-
son to believe it, and now
we find ourselves in a much
more skeptical culture out of
necessity.”
One of the more danger-
ous crimes to surface lately
is online dating scams.
Between December and
July, victims lost more than
$300,000 on this hoax alone,
Dersham said.
Scammers often pose as
people looking for roman-
tic relationships and build up
trust with victims over a long
period of time before inevi-
tably “needing” large sums
of money for specific rea-
sons such as an arrest.
“The scary ones are the
ones where, once they’ve
developed a relationship or a
rapport with their victim and
they’re able to string it out
over a number of months,”
Dersham said. “They believe
it and they’re not willing to
give up on the dream, and
they’re losing money while
doing it.”
Investigating scams is
becoming even more tricky
as technological develop-
ments allow scammers to
conceal their identities.
Software can be used to
emit a fake phone number
with a local area code —
even with a local govern-
ment agency’s phone num-
ber. It allows scammers to
call from anywhere in the
world.
“Depending on when it is
or where it is, it can be dif-
ficult to investigate,” Asto-
ria Police Deputy Chief Eric
Halverson said. “Some of
that stuff is happening out-
side the county, and dealing
with that is difficult.”
Scammers tend to guide
victims toward prepaid debit
cards found in grocery stores,
such as Green Dot cards, for
payment because informa-
tion can be swiftly and easily
erased once a money transfer
is complete.
“This is becoming the
currency of the criminal ele-
ment,” Dersham said. “It
makes tracing the money
extremely difficult.”
Embarrassment
Due to embarrassment,
victims can also be shy about
reporting times they’ve been
shammed.
“It’s to the point that,
when people call in, I take
note of what scam was
attempted,” Dersham said.
“I’ve triaged my cases to
work on those with an actual
financial loss or with trace-
able information.”
Some scammers have
been caught.
Police arrested Kesha
Ivett Mena, 32, earlier this
year in Florida after she
allegedly stole tens of thou-
sands of dollars from an
elderly man in Clatsop
County. Mark Raymond
Oman, 33, of Long Beach,
Washington, was indicted by
the U.S. Department of Jus-
tice this year for his alleged
role in a Costa Rica-based
telemarketing scheme.
Even then, though, fac-
tors like witness memory and
lack of concrete evidence
can hamper prosecution.
“By the time you get to
where you have a suspect in
this and you have followed
the money and you have
pulled it out, it gets really
complicated really fast,”
Dersham said.
If someone suspects they
are being scammed, it’s best
to call the sheriff’s office or
police department before
handing over money, Der-
sham said. Otherwise, “by
the time it gets to my desk,
it’s too late.”
j oan h erman
for
astoria city council ward 3
T ell m e y our
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october
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P reserve H istoric A storia u S upport L ocal B usiness u A dvocate for A ffordable H ousing
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