DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2018
146TH YEAR, NO. 111
ONE DOLLAR
Sea lion
shootings
sound
alarm
Gunshot deaths
unusually high
By SAMANTHA RAPHELSON
National Public Radio
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Developers have expressed an interest in focusing more on live music at the Astoria Armory.
NONPROFIT SEES NEW LIFE AT
ASTORIA ARMORY
Potential
for a modern
concert venue
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
R
obert “Jake” Jacob had a vision
in 2013 when the Columbia
River Maritime Museum put
its storage space at the Astoria
Armory up for sale.
“Creating a ‘Friends of the Armory’
is my goal, so that we can preserve this
amazing community asset for multi-
ple uses and events — some of which
would be economic drivers for us here,”
the developer, who died this year, wrote
in a letter to The Daily Astorian enticing
the public to tour and take interest in the
building.
After nearly five years of excis-
ing the Armory’s buried environmen-
tal demons with the support of finan-
cial lender Craft3, Friends of the Astoria
Armory last week took possession of the
building, beginning a new chapter of its
renovation into a modern performance
venue.
Craft3 provided the Friends a $550,000
loan, $338,000 of it to purchase the build-
ing. The rest will go into adding another
emergency exit, which will increase the
venue’s capacity from 750 to 1,500.
The Friends will install more Amer-
icans with Disabilities Act-accessi-
Since September, at least eight dead sea
lions that washed up on the shores of Wash-
ington state were shot and killed with guns,
according to the National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration.
Several other California sea lions are sus-
pected to have died from “acute trauma”
caused by humans, says Seal Sitters Marine
Mammal Stranding Network, which
responds to reports of stranded or dead sea
lions. The group reported that a carcass of a
sea lion with its head chopped off was found
in late November along the shores of Seattle.
It’s illegal under the 1972 federal Marine
Mammal Protection Act to shoot marine life,
such as sea lions and dolphins. Those who
violate the act can face up to $28,520 in fines
and up to a year in prison.
But that hasn’t stopped some fishermen
from shooting sea lions anyway. For decades,
fishermen and sea lions have been locked in
a fierce battle for dominance over one of the
region’s hottest commodities: salmon.
“It’s kind of a feeding frenzy at times,”
says Michael Milstein, a spokesman for
NOAA Fisheries, which is investigating
the recent sea lion shootings. He said that
the number of sea lions found shot dead is
unusually high for this time of year.
The fight for salmon in the Puget Sound
has grown increasingly tense in recent years,
Milstein says. Puget Sound Chinook salmon
have been listed under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act since 1999, due to climate change
and habitat loss.
Sea lions often scoop up thousands of
dollars’ worth of salmon that fishermen have
hooked on their lines, Milstein says. They
are “smart, effective predators” with a his-
tory of aggravating fishermen, who say sea
lions threaten their livelihood.
“We know that seals and sea lions … now
in Puget Sound probably consume around
six times the amount of salmon that people
are catching,” Milstein says. “So they have a
big appetite, and the challenge is to balance
that against the needs of everyone else that
depends on these resources.”
See SEA LIONS, Page 7A
Mike Davies discusses plans for the Astoria Armory.
ble bathrooms, refurbish the large win-
dows under the vaulted lamella roof and
improve the building’s sound system and
acoustics. The city of Astoria guaranteed
$90,000 of the loan to assist with window
restoration.
“What we’ve been doing so far has
been by hook and by crook, by grant and
donation,” said Mike Davies, president of
the Friends’ board.
Craft3, a nonprofit lender specializ-
ing in high-risk rural projects with a big
potential community impact, purchased
the building in 2014 from the museum to
help the Friends form and focus on oper-
ating the venue. The hope was that the
Friends would take over in about a year,
said Craft3’s CEO, Adam Zimmerman.
A small army of volunteers with the
Friends — whose only employee has
been Community Director Robyn Kous-
tik — refurbished the venue, remod-
eled the lobby, ran the concession stand
and kept the building staffed during
events. They developed a steady stream
of events, such as their semiweekly skate
nights, amateur wrestling, birthday par-
ties and other private rentals.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
See ARMORY, Page 7A
Sea lions compete with fishermen for
prized salmon.
Local musician makes lifelong passion a career
Roadhouse
rocker stays
under the radar
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
EASIDE — Almost 40 years
after moving to Seaside,
Bruce Smith still meets each
day with a sense of bemuse-
ment about how he got here.
Smith makes his living
playing music, creating what
he brands as “Texas Road-
house Rock” — think a cross
between Bruce Springsteen
and U2. Since the 1980s he
and his colleagues have made
S
six albums and gone on multi-
ple tours throughout the West,
even making a pit stop at the
famous South by Southwest
festival in Austin, Texas, one
year.
This fall, Smith was
awarded the Outstanding
Texas Roadhouse Rock Artist
at the Producers Choice Hon-
ors event, a Las Vegas awards
show designed to recognize
up-and-comers in entertain-
ment, for his contribution to
the genre.
While he is a familiar face
at many North Coast festivals
and functions, Smith has built
his career — and much per-
sonal glee — upon clandes-
tinely leaving Seaside to play
music across the West Coast
under the radar.
“I’ve always found humor
in it,” Smith said. “Maybe
because it doesn’t sound real.
I don’t even believe it’s real
sometimes.”
Perhaps it feels surreal
because of where his story
starts. Smith grew up in a fam-
ily with 10 kids in rural Texas.
Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
See SMITH, Page 7A
Bruce Smith, a musician, has lived in Seaside since 1980.