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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DEcEmbER 28, 2018
LaMear: Housing crunch, homeless loomed large during her term
continued from Page A1
Dusen. She decided to run
for the post after Van Dusen,
the city’s longest-serving
mayor and part owner of
Van Dusen Beverages Inc.,
announced his retirement in
2014.
Large shoes to fill,
everyone said. But under
LaMear’s watch, the city
formed a task force to
address homelessness, made
the decision to renovate the
Astoria Library instead of
building a new one, took
steps to control develop-
ment along the riverfront,
approved tricky public
works outlays and weighed
in on several contentious
construction projects.
LaMear is a person who
likes to find win-win solu-
tions, yet there haven’t been
many in front of the City
Council this year. Instead,
the final months of her four-
year term have been riddled
with difficult issues — new
permits for homestay lodg-
ing, or land use knots like
the four-story waterfront
hotel that involved sev-
eral rounds in front of city
boards, multiple denials,
two appeals.
LaMear was one of three
votes to uphold the devel-
oper’s final appeal and push
the Fairfield Inn and Suites
on to its next phase, but
it was not a decision she
found easy to make. Around
the same time, she listened
to business owners at the
end of Pier 11 who were
worried about losing money
as a state and city project to
replace waterfront bridges
turned their storefronts into
construction zones.
Though LaMear has
served on the City Coun-
cil since 2008 and, before
that, was on the Planning
Commission, she said noth-
ing had prepared her for her
first month of being mayor.
“I kept thinking, ‘Why in
the world did I want to do
this?’ And, ‘Can I do this
job?’” she remembered.
Now the last six months
have been just as daunt-
ing as the first. While she
is proud of what the coun-
cilors and city staff have
accomplished
together
during her time as mayor,
she leaves City Hall with
mixed feelings.
“Sometimes I felt like I
couldn’t make up my mind
about an issue,” she said.
“I often empathize with
both sides. There are things
I wish we would have
accomplished.”
Leadership style
LaMear wonders what
would have happened if she
had been more forceful in
her leadership. Maybe the
fully abandon the idea of a
new library, but she did not
want to keep expending city
resources on the question of
what to do. She joined the
rest of the council in 2017
to unanimously support a
plan to renovate the existing
library.
Now she serves as pres-
ident of the foundation that
is working to raise money
for the project, work she
plans to continue after her
term as mayor ends.
Library Director Jimmy
Pearson is happy to have her
aboard. She has consistently
been a staunch advocate, he
said, and she has been the
public face of the renova-
tion for as long as Pearson
has been the director.
“I think she’s the per-
fect spokesperson for the
library,” he said.
Housing and
homelessness
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Arline LaMear poses for a photo outside of the Astoria Library.
council could have gotten an
earlier start on developing
codes for the Urban Core,
the final piece of the city’s
Riverfront Vision Plan,
which guides development
along the Columbia River.
Maybe they could have
made headway on Heritage
Square, where an empty,
caved-in lot still yawns
downtown. Or maybe they
could have implemented a
citywide plastic bag ban,
an issue LaMear personally
considered very important
though she let it drop after
others argued it was minor
compared to other looming
priorities.
The mayor strove toward
consensus and was often
willing to change her mind
if a councilor or resident
brought up a point she had
not considered.
If people arrived at a City
Council meeting concerned
about an agenda item, she
would pause and open the
meeting to public comments
to let them share their opin-
ions. When it came time
for the councilors to debate
with each other or ask ques-
tions, LaMear was usually
the last to speak.
In an effort to encour-
age openness, LaMear
also established informal,
monthly “Meet the Mayor”
events at City Hall. She
would sit with constituents
around a table, answer their
questions, discuss issues,
make notes to take back
to the council later. Some-
times, only one person
might show up. Other times,
as many as a dozen would
attend.
“I wanted to be sure I
was in touch with what peo-
ple were feeling,” she said.
“I wanted them to feel free
to speak their mind.”
Van Dusen, who first
joined the City Council in
1985 before being elected
mayor in 1990, served with
LaMear on the council. He
said he is proud of the job
LaMear did as mayor and
he has high hopes for her
replacement.
“I think it takes a real
disciplined effort to lis-
ten,” Van Dusen said. “To
be able to listen to the com-
munity. And you have to
balance what your constit-
uents want, what the tax-
payers want, and also what
you think is the best for the
town. Normally, they line
up together. Sometimes
they don’t.”
He is most proud of how
LaMear, a retired librarian,
stuck to her commitment to
improve the library.
The project — approved
after protracted debates
about whether to construct
a new building or reno-
vate the existing 50-year-
old building on 10th Street
— did not have as broad
support as projects like the
Astoria Aquatic Center or
the Astoria Senior Center,
Van Dusen said.
“It meant a lot to her, it
still means a lot to her, that
we improve our library,”
Van Dusen said. “I was very
proud of her, the way she
stood up (for it).”
LaMear pushed hard
for a new, modern library.
In 2015, the City Council
considered building a new
library in combination with
housing and retail at Her-
itage Square next to City
Hall. The Garden of Surg-
ing Waves memorializing
the contribution of Chinese
immigrants to the city had
opened on Duane Street the
year before, but a caved-in
lot remained on the east
side of the garden. The City
Council backed away from
the mixed-use project, how-
ever, after seeing the esti-
mated multimillion-dollar
cost.
LaMear was not ready to
LaMear also hopes to
remain involved in find-
ing solutions to Astoria’s
housing crunch and issues
around homelessness. Both
topics loomed large during
her term.
This year, the City
Council added forestlands
to the city’s “no camping”
ordinance to address home-
less camps in the woods.
At the same time, LaMear
and a homelessness solu-
tions task force she led with
Police Chief Geoff Spald-
ing discussed the best ways
to move people out of the
woods humanely and con-
nect them to services.
The results were mixed.
Many of the people simply
moved their camps else-
where and are still home-
less. The task force’s work
remains vital, though,
LaMear argued. Jones said
he is interested in continu-
ing the task force as mayor.
“We wanted some con-
crete things to come out
of this task force and we
wanted to have some solu-
tions,” she said. “A lot of
relationships were forged
between agencies that per-
haps weren’t as strong. We
have a better understanding
of what each group does
and what their limitations
are. We have a long way to
go.”
LaMear still believes
one of the best ways to help
the homeless would be to
establish a daytime drop-in
center where people can
take showers, do laundry
and access other resources.
Efforts by the nonprofit
Filling Empty Bellies to
open a center stalled this
year.
As mayor, LaMear
lent city support to a new
Helping Hands facility in
Uniontown. The nonprofit
offers services to homeless
people looking to land jobs
and find housing.
Members of the task
force and LaMear identi-
fied the lack of low-income
housing as a barrier when
it came to helping people
who are homeless.
Over the last two years,
the City Council supported
the purchase of the historic
Waldorf Hotel, between
City Hall and the library, by
a Portland-based affordable
housing developer. Innova-
tive Housing plans to cre-
ate as many as 40 units of
workforce housing in the
neglected hotel.
Overall, LaMear is
proud of the strides the city
has made to improve. She
is thankful for the part she
had in making some of it
happen, but she doesn’t feel
she can take much of the
credit. She and the coun-
cilors have all benefited
from an “outstanding” and
hard-working city staff, she
said. She will miss working
with them and her fellow
councilors.
But what will she not
miss?
“Well,” LaMear paused,
considering her words care-
fully. “Part of what I won’t
miss is people who have
complaints but who don’t
offer solutions.”
Business: Sales have grown every year
continued from Page A1
including Little Denmark
and Nordic Batik. Matthews
and her husband purchased
Finn Ware from the sisters
in 2010 during the trough of
the recession.
“It was a little scary,
because everything had just
crashed, but I thought there
was potential in the store,”
she said.
Matthews updated the
website and added an online
store. Sales have grown
every year, she said. There
aren’t many stores like hers,
even in the Portland area, and
Matthews feels the new loca-
tion is providing a service to
fellow Scandinavians.
Lisa and Kevin Malcolm
announced in August they
would be adding a second
location to Frite & Scoop
near Pacific University in
Forest Grove in a vacant for-
mer ice cream shop. But the
couple recently announced
they would not be moving
forward with the expansion.
“The scope of the proj-
ect expanded to the point to
where it wasn’t responsible
for us to continue on with
it,” Kevin Malcolm said.
Gimre’s Shoe Store was
one of the last Astoria busi-
nesses to expand into the
Portland metro area, open-
ing a location in downtown
Saara Matthews
Saara Matthews, owner of Finn Ware in Astoria, opened a
second location called Nordic Finn Ware in November inside
the Nordia House in Portland.
Hillsboro in 1986. Broth-
ers Pete and Jon Gimre were
approached in the 2000s by
one of their biggest vendors,
New Balance, about open-
ing a concept store in Pio-
neer Place shopping mall in
downtown Portland. They
would eventually grow to
include more locations in the
Seattle metro area.
Several years ago, Pete
Gimre took sole ownership
of the Astoria location and
left his brother to run the
rest of the shoe stores as a
separate business.
“It was too much for me,”
Pete Gimre said. “My love
has always been in Astoria.
The travel, time and energy
was too much for me.”
The key to success in a
far-flung location is a good
staff, managers and a rea-
sonable landlord in areas
with higher rent, he said.
Gimre’s also had the back-
ing of New Balance, similar
to Matthews’ support from
the Nordic Northwest group.
“It’s exciting. It’s fun,”
Pete Gimre said. “But it does
take dedication and constant
work.”
Matthews has a three-
year lease in the Nordia
House with Nordic Finn
Ware.
“I think it will take that
long to get a handle on it,”
she said. “I’m optimistically
nervous about the coming
year.”
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