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