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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 27, 2018)
A7 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2018 Aya: He became the voice of tsunami preparedness Continued from Page A1 As a child, those skills fueled Aya’s sense of humor and propensity for pranking, said Hawley , who knew Aya since elemen- tary school. He remem- bers one day when Aya fi g- ured out how to hook into the school’s bell system and rang the bell early during a physical education class. “He was just incorrigi- ble until he graduated high school ... until he went into the Army,” Hawley said. “But he was great fun to be around.” Aya graduated from Gabel Country Day School in 1943 and soon after decided to join the Army. After World War II, Aya attended Stanford Univer- sity, where he earned his degree in philosophy, but soon after served in the Army again in Stuttgart, Germany, during the post- w ar A llied occupation of Germany. In 1953, Aya moved to San Francisco, where he began his career as a researcher and statistician for the Pacifi c Bell Tele- phone Co. He continued to serve in the Army Reserve before retiring with the rank of major in 1968. After more than 30 years, he retired from Pacifi c Bell in 1984 and moved to Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Al Aya looked over equipment at the Cannon Beach Fire-Rescue Main Station that controls the tsunami warning system in 2017. Cannon Beach . Warning system Aya’s curiosity and incli- nation to create came to defi ne his local legacy in unexpected ways. Shortly after moving to Oregon, Aya was elected to the fi re district’s board , where he led the charge to design and install the famous “moo- ing” community warning system (COWS) for tsuna- mis at a time when tsunami danger was not at the fore- front of the community’s mind. In fact, Aya himself voted against funding the system the fi rst time around as a board member. “It’d been 21 years since the last tsunami in 1964, and at the time it seemed like a waste of money to invest in alarms when these events were so rare,” Aya said in a 2017 interview. But two days after the vote, Aya remembered see- ing a group of children building a sandcastle at the edge of the surf with no adults watching them. The sight made him wonder how these kids would know about a tsunami warning and inspired him to research and discover the threat of a tsunami hitting the Pacifi c Northwest was much more likely than people assumed at the time. Rainmar Bartl, who knew Aya both as a friend and colleague on the P lan- ning C ommission, remem- bers him talking about his research and “being ahead of his time” when it came to tsunami preparedness. “At the time it was kind of revolutionary,” Bartl said. Before he knew it, Aya became the voice of tsu- nami preparedness, lead- ing the drive to establish a warning system that was a fi rst of its kind in U.S. and has been used as a model for others down the coast. In the 1990s, Aya led the push to move the town’s fi re station out of the tsu- nami inundation zone on Spruce Street and build the new station at higher ele- vation at Sunset Boulevard, said Garry Smith, the fi re district’s board president, who worked with Aya for years. “If it hadn’t been for his persistence I’m not sure if (the new fi re station) would have happened when it did,” Smith said. “He had the foresight and drive to get things done at the dis- trict. He contributed not just to the COWS and the fi re station, but to all the proj- ects, whether it had to do with the trucks, the equip- ment, fundraising ... He was an avid supporter of the fi re department.” Finding humor But even in something as serious as a tsunami warn- ing system, Aya found a way to incorporate humor. When it came to test the warning system, he worried about how the public would react after hearing the loud alarms over and over for multiple days. To lighten the mood, Aya decided to use a pre- recorded “mooing” sound he found in a BBC sound effects library instead of a regular siren. “I was emailing with an author friend of mine, who is an arch conservative guy, about the problem. As a joke, I thought because the acronym for our system was COWS — for Com- munity Warning System — that maybe we could broad- cast a mooing sound,” Aya said in 2017 . “He thought it was hilarious, and I fi gured if someone serious like him thought mooing was funny, maybe less serious people would, too.” Though Aya retired from the fi re district in 2015, his voice is still the one that tells everyone to get to higher ground. “It’s kind of ironic ... now he’s gone, but his voice is going to live on as the one who tells you to evacuate as long as that system is in place,” Smith said. Price: Homelessness is another challenge for the city Continued from Page A1 The incoming coun- cil will miss Price and Nemlowill’s experience, LaMear said. The mayor said she has always been impressed by how Price researche s and prepares for each meeting, while Nem- lowill was an eloquent and common-sense voice on diffi cult issues. “I think it’s challeng- ing,” LaMear said . “I found that being on the Planning Commission was wonder- ful preparation for being on the c ouncil and being on the c ouncil was certainly essen- tial, to me, to being mayor. They’ll have some catching up to do.” ‘Pretty fun’ “I don’t know if it’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” Price said of her time on the City Council. “But it has been pretty fun.” Price ran unopposed for the Ward 3 seat in 2014, campaigning on, among other things, promises of government transparency and accountability and development that “respects Astoria’s heritage, authen- ticity and natural beauty.” She vowed to encour- age projects that were fi s- cally responsible, sustain- able and served the public. She pushed to move drunk- en-driving cases from the city’s Municipal Court to Clatsop County Circuit Court, a policy shift she shared with her husband, District Attorney Josh Mar- quis , who had sued the city over jurisdiction. Price feels she met many of her goals. Along with Nemlow- ill, Price focused on ways to ensure Astoria remained a year-round community. Her focus often turned to housing , though both she and Nemlowill struggled with how exactly city gov- ernment could, or should, fi ll that gap. Both council- ors zeroed in on homestay lodging as a related, but concrete, issue. Like other cities, Asto- ria has grappled with the rise of Airbnb-type vaca- tion rentals of entire houses. In Astoria, these rentals are not allowed but are diffi - cult to regulate. Price and Nemlowill believe vaca- tion rentals have the poten- tial to change the character of the city’s neighborhoods and reduce the amount of housing available to aver- age workers. Both Price and Nemlow- ill pushed for, if not a cap or outright ban, at least stricter rules around homestay lodging. In December, the City Council adopted a homestay lodging permit, which includes fees, reg- ular inspections and other requirements. “I want to keep Asto- ria a unique experience just like you do,” Price told homestay lodging opera- tors at the time. “It’s just empirically clear that limit- ing short-term rentals is the way to do that.” But there have been some challenges in her efforts to preserve or cre- ate what she envisions for Astoria. Price was vocal in her opposition to a pawn shop that opened downtown in 2017, asking, “Can we ban pawn shops?” and citing concerns about used gun sales. But the shop’s appli- cation was already in pro- cess and some in the com- munity questioned why one business should be singled out . Last year, when the Parks and Recreation Depart- ment was looking at ways to refi ne its budget and was forced to cut programs, Price, along with Brown- son, suggested implement- ing a $3 fee on residential water and sewer bills— an idea that took staff time to research but that, in the end, was shot down. Nem- lowill, in particular, was not supportive , wondering how a fee on a necessary ser- vice like water was fair or directly related to parks . ‘Down to enforcement’ Price said the new reg- ulations on homestay lodg- ing were one of the more important things she helped accomplish . But the issue also highlighted an endur- ing challenge, and one that frustrated her. “All of these things come down to enforcement,” she said. But enforcement has been hampered by scant city resources and understaffed departments, especially where City Council pri- orities hit the Community Development Department. “It’s really held us up,” she said. “It holds every- body up.” Getting fully staffed next year is crucial for the city, she said. Price also wishes the City Council could have made more progress on devel- oping Heritage Square, the city block next door to C ity H all that hosts the Garden of Surging Waves and the American Legion but is also home to a hole in the ground where an old lot caved in. The hole has remained fenced-off and an eyesore. In 2015, the City Coun- cil considered building a new library and mixed-use housing project at Heritage Square. Price, along with then-C ouncilor Russ Warr, reversed course after seeing the estimated $29.7 million to $38.7 million price tag. The project was later rejected in favor of renovat- ing the Astoria L ibrary . Another challenge the city faces, and one Price was involved with while on the council, is how to address homelessness. Price served on a home- lessness solutions task force LaMear led with Police Chief Geoff Spald- ing. She voted with other councilors to strengthen the city’s “no camping” ordinance to address ille- gal campsites in the woods. Price walked through the camps when crews went to move the homeless out, asking people if they had been put in touch with social services. The task force and the City Council have not iden- tifi ed concrete solutions for addressing homeless- ness, but Price and LaMear believe the discussions forged stronger relation- ships between social ser- vice groups, city leaders and other stakeholders. ‘Disappointed’ Price began the year hop- ing to continue her work on the City C ouncil, though in a different role. She announced her intention to give up her seat and run for mayor in June after LaMear said she would not seek re-election. Price encour- aged Herman to run to replace her on the council. But in August, Price withdrew from the race, cit- ing family reasons. “I was very disappointed I had to drop out of the mayor’s race,” she said. But, she added: “I’m com- fortable with the decision I made. It was the right deci- sion for me.” She is not sure if she will run for any other elected position again. “Having the honor of being elected to offi ce to be a caretaker for this jewel of the Pacifi c Northwest is one of the greatest things that I’ve ever been able to do,” she said before a City Coun- cil meeting in mid-Decem- ber. “I thank all of you.” Read this book, and you’ll understand a lot about what makes Oregon Oregon. — Jackman Wilson, Editorial Page Editor, The Register-Guard “Grit and Ink” tells a story that is very worthy of being told. — Kerry Tymchuk, Executive Director, Oregon Historical Society Small-town family business history at its best. —Richard Baker, U.S. Senate Historian Emeritus NOW AVAILABLE AT Elk: ‘You just can’t predict what they’re going to do’ Continued from Page A1 said she and others have wit- nessed people feeding elk near the spot where the cow climbed on the car, a civil infraction in Warrenton. The Warrenton Police Department has received more than 60 calls about elk over the last three years, Sgt. Jim Pierce said. Most concern elk laying in the road and damaging prop- erty, with rarer instances of aggressive behavior by the animals. Pierce said h e has never heard of an elk going out of its way to approach a car, but called it “a good reminder that these guys are wild, and you just can’t predict what they’re going to do.” IN PRINT AND eBOOK FOR KINDLE Also available from local booksellers or call 800-621-2736 books.eomediagroup.com/grit-ink