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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 2018)
SEASIDE HAMMERS CASCADE IN STATE PLAYOFF GAME SPORTS • 10A DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2018 146TH YEAR, NO. 91 ONE DOLLAR Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Kenny Hansen, homeless liaison officer for the Astoria Police Department, hands John Nordquist a notice to vacate a camp in Astoria. Police take action on homeless camps Move-out notices served By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Astoria police posted move-out notices Friday at homeless camps in the woods. People staying in tents and shelters on city property and near Columbia Memo- rial Hospital will have until Tuesday to clean up their camps and find somewhere else to live. The action comes after weeks of discussion at the City Council about what to do about the camps. City councilors voted to close a loophole in a “no camping” rule and include city-owned forestland. City leaders had believed forestland was already included in the rule and were surprised to find out otherwise. But social service advo- cates and the homeless them- selves say they have few options. John Nordquist, who has been camping in the woods, said Friday he has no idea where he will go, and he is frustrated with the city. See CAMPS, Page 7A New brewery settles in Astoria Leasing space at Astoria Brewing By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Inside Astoria’s oldest active brewery is the city’s newest. David Lederfine and Jim Parker recently started Asher David Brewing & Cellar- works, a tenant operation leasing a four-barrel brew- house at Astoria Brewing Co. on 11th Street. The brewery is named after the son of Lederfine and built from the model of Awesome Ales, a simi- lar tenant brewery Lederfine ran over the past five years at brewhouses around the state. The model came from a friend and political candi- date who promoted regional buying and sharing of med- ical equipment among hos- pitals as a way to cut health care costs. See BREWERY, Page 7A Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian People gather at the Astoria Armory for the memorial service. A TOAST TO JAKE Astoria says goodbye to a memorable son By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian W hen Robert “Jake” Jacob was a kid, he loved the Disney “Davy Crockett” miniseries about the legendary fron- tiersman and folk hero. With his friends, he’d put on his own raccoon skin hat, face down the nearest natural barrier and yell at the top of his lungs, “Crockett charge!” “And they would literally charge into bushes and their goal was to bust right through whether there were stickers or not,” said Greg Jacob, Jacob’s brother, at a celebra- tion of life on Saturday. “That was symbolic of his life.” Several hundred people gathered at the Astoria Armory to remember the crazy ideas and many accom- plishments of the Astoria entrepre- neur and architect. They recounted stories and honored a man who never took “no” for an answer and whose constant refrain, right before he roped someone into a new proj- ect or scheme, was, “Do you have a minute?” Jacob, 69, died of natural causes in his Astoria home in September. He is best known for building the Cannery Pier Hotel, a boutique hotel set over the Columbia River, as well as the role he played in securing the Liberty Theatre and aiding in its restoration. He had the idea to start the Astoria Riverfront Trolley on the Astoria Riverwalk and was behind efforts to ‘HE ALWAYS TOOK CARE OF HIS PARTNERS, HE ALWAYS TOOK CARE OF HIS FRIENDS.’ Terry Rosenau | Robert ‘Jake’ Jacob’s personal representative and longtime friend and early investor in the Cannery Pier Hotel purchase the Armory. More recently, he helped bring the Tourist No. 2, a ferry that once plied the river, back to Astoria. City leaders and longtime resi- dents credit Jacob with helping to build the Astoria that exists today. Mayor Arline LaMear announced the city plans to acknowledge his work by proclaiming April 19, Jacob’s birthday, Robert “Jake” Jacob Day. “Jake was fun. He made Asto- ria cool before The New York Times and the Portland hipsters discovered it was cool,” said state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who consid- ered Jacob a good friend. “He could harness creativity and imagination and turn a dream into a blueprint and make that blueprint come to life.” Naysayers, she said, “were the bane of his existence.” She recalled a time when she was asked to help him work with the Department of State Lands to negoti- ate a lease so he could build the Can- nery Pier Hotel — one of the many hurdles he needed to clear to build the hotel on what had been a bro- ken-down, 100-year-old dock. Later, he took the senator out to see what he planned to do. There was Jacob, “barking like a sea lion about how it’s going to look,” while Johnson stood with him on the rickety dock, eying the water dubiously. “I looked down at the river and silently cursed Jake,” she said. The Armory was crowded with longtime friends, family, current and former employees, trolley oper- ators and newer friends and others touched by Jacob’s contributions. “If you’re thinking, ‘I had a spe- cial relationship with Jake that nobody knows about,’ you’re right,” said former Astoria Mayor Wil- lis Van Dusen, who acted as master of ceremonies. Jacob made friends everywhere he went, Van Dusen said. But even as speakers honored Jacob’s many gifts and achieve- ments, they also acknowledged his demons. For most of his life, Jacob struggled with alcoholism — some- thing he was candid about in his per- sonal writing. At times he sought treatment and help, with varied success. See JACOB, Page 7A Rebuilding a life after losing housing Tucker has found some stability By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian M ary Tucker won’t name the store. But one time she went into this place down- town to get out of the cold and the owner wouldn’t even say, “Hi,” or “Can I help you?” — just watched her suspiciously. It made her feel awful. Tucker was homeless at the time and probably looked the part, too, she said. But she wanted the store owner to watch “Pretty Woman,” a ’90s roman- tic comedy about a business- man and a prostitute, played by Julie Roberts, who fall in love. In one scene, Rob- erts enters a store where the clerks refused to wait on her the day before because of how she was dressed. But now she has money — and an expen- sive new wardrobe. “Big mis- take!” Rob- erts tells the sales- girls bran- Mary Tucker dishing her many pur- chases from other stores. “Big! Huge!” She walks out without buy- ing a thing. Tucker thought about that scene as the store owner watched her, but she lingered only long enough to get warm. “I wished I was someone who was still allowed to pick up nice things,” she said. Tucker came from money, but hit hard times early after her mom died. Originally from Topeka, Kansas, she moved to Portland more than 20 years ago, fleeing domestic vio- lence. She brought her young son with her but had to leave a daughter behind. She moved again, to the Long Beach Pen- insula in Washington state. Though she has moved away from the coast a couple of times, it keeps drawing her back. Astoria, in particular, feels like home even though it was where Tucker lived without a home for a year and a half after she left a relationship and lost her housing. It’s where she has decided to stay now that she has a job in Warrenton and a place to live — a friend helped pay the deposit. Tucker never planned to be homeless, and had no road map when she landed on the streets. “I was lost, confused,” she said. “I didn’t know where to go. I had no idea for resources.” She was a single woman, without young children and without addiction or substance abuse issues. There weren’t as many obvious avenues open to her for assistance. See TUCKER, Page 7A