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JEWELL, KNAPPA WINTER SPORTS PREVIEWS PAGES 9A-10A DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2018 146TH YEAR, NO. 108 ONE DOLLAR Student homelessness grows with Warrenton More than half of county’s homeless students By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian The Warrenton-Hammond School District recorded more than half of Clatsop County’s 315 homeless students last school year. The county saw a slight overall decrease in stu- dent homelessness from 324 in the 2016-17 school year, according to a recent state report, driven by a decline from 96 to 53 in Seaside. Astoria saw a slight increase in homeless- ness, from 81 two years ago to 89 last year, while Knappa dropped from 22 to 13. Warrenton, the region’s most affordable and fastest-growing housing market, recorded 160 homeless students last school year, up from 125 in 2016-17 and nearly 51 percent of the county’s total. With nearly 16 percent of enrolled students documented as homeless, Warrenton recorded the eighth-highest percentage of any school district in the state, up from the 12th-highest in last year’s report. Homelessness has multiple definitions under federal law. More than 82 percent of homeless stu- dents in Clatsop County were sharing the housing of others because of economic or other hardships. Less than 6 percent, all in Astoria and Seaside, were living in hotels, motels or other temporary com- mercial housing because of economic hardship. See HOMELESS, Page 7A Planners focus on Urban Core Ban on new hotels over river possible By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian The Astoria Planning Commission examined the guts of the Urban Core Tuesday night, discussing what kinds of uses should be allowed in the dense mix of commercial, residential and overwater build- ings downtown along the Columbia River. City staff and consultants presented a series of recommendations that included zone changes, height limits and revisions to what kind of devel- opment would be allowed outright in certain areas. The Urban Core extends from Second Street to 16th Street and is the final piece of the city’s Riverfront Vision Plan, which guides development along the river. The recommendations are not final and the Plan- ning Commission will discuss them further at future meetings. Commissioners took their first stab at defining what will be allowed in the Urban Core in October when they discussed the types of buildings and views they would like to see along the river. In January, they ‘A NEW ADDICTION’ CrossFit pilot program aimed at helping addiction recovery By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian T oni Ramvick was timid at first. Sure, she used to be an athlete. Some of the 34-year-old’s fondest memo- ries are playing softball and bas- ketball in Knappa. But that was before her life was turned upside down by her addiction to opioids and alcohol. So when she was referred by Jordan’s Hope for Recovery to try a new CrossFit class designed for recovering addicts, she was natu- rally cautious. “I hadn’t been in a gym in years,” she said. Fast forward one month, and now the Friday night class has become the favorite part of her week. “I love the feeling of when you’re done with it all … the sense of accomplishment,” she said. Ramvick is one of a handful of people trying PowerCLEAN — a yearlong pilot program sponsored by the Columbia Pacific Coordi- nated Care Organization to offer a free, group exercise class to low-in- come recovering addicts. Though the program, pitched by David Wray of CrossFit 1811 in Astoria, is geared toward people on the Oregon Health Plan, any- one who is at least 48 hours sober is welcome. Similar programs are rolling out across the country, but it is a first for Clatsop County. “We were excited about this proposal because it addresses an Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian TOP: Crossfit coach David Wray, center, warms up the class before a workout. ABOVE: David Wray, far left, encourages Konlim Bokor during the warmup. area of support the community has said they need more of,” said Nancy Knopf, a community health partnership manager at Colum- bia Pacific CCO. “It’s a very dif- ferent way of supporting people in recovery.” A sobering realization Helping recovering addicts has been a lifelong passion proj- ect for Wray. As the child of two addicts, he vividly remembers the strain drug abuse put on personal relationships. He reached a tip- ping point as a teenager after his mother caused and died from a drunken-driving crash. “I saw what addiction and alco- holism did to my life and wanted to help,” Wray said. He decided to join law enforce- ment with a focus on helping peo- ple with addiction, working at the Clatsop County Jail for nine years before becoming a parole and pro- bation officer for the county’s drug court. It was there the glaring need for sober activities became apparent. “It was hard to recommend my clients to go do a sober activ- ity when there wasn’t much out there,” he said. Making his gym the sober activity didn’t cross his mind until See CROSSFIT, Page 7A See URBAN CORE, Page 7A The state hides how children die on Oregon’s watch State knew a Warrenton teen was at risk By MOLLY YOUNG The Oregonian Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Students attended a candlelight vigil in Warrenton in 2017 to remember the life of Trevor Secord. Trevor Secord nearly died at 14. He drank so much liquor that his blood alcohol rose to a level that would have killed many adults. Emergency responders rushed him from Warrenton to a Portland hospi- tal. Friends were so convinced he was going to die that they told his family about the adult who provided him alcohol. Oregon child protec- tion workers decided not to investigate. The next time the state Department of Human Ser- vices received a call about Secord, the boy who dreamed of building shelters for home- less people was dead. He was struck and killed by a pickup truck on U.S. High- way 101 while drinking with friends. Any time a child dies from likely abuse or neglect within a year of child welfare work- ers being asked to check on the child, the public should be informed. Oregon law requires the state to do a prompt review and disclose what went wrong. But state officials have failed to issue those reports in a timely manner — or at all — in the case of every child who has died since March 2017. A year and nine months went by before the state pub- licly acknowledged Sec- ord died after child pro- tective workers received numerous reports that, in ret- rospect, showed a “theme of neglect” that the agency failed to act on. A reviewer who read through case files concluded that a call-taker should have passed along the report about Secord’s near-death from alco- hol poisoning to a case worker to investigate. See CHILDREN, Page 3A