146TH YEAR, NO. 151
ONE dOLLAR
DailyAstorian.com // TuEsdAY, JANuARY 29, 2019
Coast Guard
will get paid
as shutdown
ends, for now
Operations are getting
back to normal
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
The Coast Guard started getting back
to normal on Monday after the longest
government shutdown in U.S. history
was temporarily halted.
Community groups are hopeful but
bracing in case Congress and President
Donald Trump cannot reach a compro-
mise on border security by Feb. 15, when
another disruption is possible.
Chief Petty Officer David Mosley,
a spokesman for District 13 in Seattle
overseeing Sector Columbia River, said
about 3,500 enlisted Coast Guard person-
nel in the region had been working with-
out pay since Jan. 15, along with more
than 150 civilian employees furloughed.
That included more than 500 enlisted
Coast Guard and 14 furloughed civilian
employees in the sector.
During the partial shutdown, the Coast
Guard stopped doing “things that were
considered nonessential,” Mosley said.
“If it needed a new coat of paint, it didn’t
get it.”
That included regular buoy mainte-
nance by the Aids to Navigation Team
Astoria on Tongue Point, except in the
case of emergencies. Training was also
curtailed, and the winter version of the
Coast Guard’s semiannual Advanced
Helicopter Rescue School was canceled.
The Coast Guard is expected to receive
back pay by Thursday, along with pay-
checks on Friday and Feb. 15 while gov-
ernment funding lasts. There is no con-
tingency in place if the shutdown restarts.
An estimated 9,600 federal employ-
ees in Oregon were furloughed or work-
ing without pay during the shutdown.
Another federal agency with a major
presence on the lower Columbia River
is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, which oversees fisheries,
weather and other biological functions.
“NOAA continued to provide essen-
tial services during the lapse in funding
thanks to the dedication of its workforce,”
Michael Milstein, a regional spokesman
for NOAA, said in an email. “NOAA
is currently assessing how the lapse in
funding may have affected operations.
As that information becomes available,
we will share but we do not have further
announcements to make at this time.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden joined 28 oth-
ers in the Senate who wrote a letter call-
ing on the Trump administration to pro-
vide back pay to the more than 800,000
federal workers affected by the shutdown
as soon as possible, regardless of pay
schedules.
“This government shutdown made it
clearer than ever just how dedicated civil
servants are to their jobs, and how vital
those jobs are to the nation,” the senators
wrote. “We ask that you publicize when
exactly these civil servants can expect to
receive their back pay, and we hope it will
arrive very soon.”
During the shutdown, the community
stepped up to help unpaid federal work-
ers. Be the Light food pantry, organized
by Stacey Benson and a small army of
local volunteers, provided groceries and
daily living needs to more than 2,300
people over two weekends.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The daily Astorian
Stanley Custer waits for the Astoria Warming Center to open.
FOR THE ASTORIA WARMING CENTER, A
‘GROWING UP PROCESS’
Emergency shelter
now in a better place
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
T
ABOVE: Gregor Ledferd prepares food at the Astoria Warming Center. BELOW: The
warming center in Astoria prior to opening for the night.
he Astoria Warming Center, one
of the few local options for home-
less people seeking emergency
shelter on cold winter nights, is in a very
different place than it was last year.
Changes and policies drafted in
response to neighborhood complaints
feel more routine, and the warming cen-
ter’s leaders have started to turn their
gaze both outward and inward in a new
way.
A midseason neighborhood meet-
ing scheduled for Saturday will provide
feedback from the community about
operations this winter. Board members
are confident they have kept promises
they made when they first went through
a lengthy and sometimes contentious
process to get a conditional use permit
from the city in 2017.
The permit, which must be renewed
each year, included formal commit-
ments to the neighborhood and allowed
the warming center to continue operat-
ing out of the basement of First United
Methodist Church on 11th Street.
“I kind of see it as a ‘growing up’
process,” said Janet Miltenberger, trea-
surer for the warming center’s board.
Board members have started to for-
malize how they operate this season.
They are working on a management
plan and a longer-term vision. More
local businesses and restaurants are
donating and providing food. Volunteer
recruitment and fundraising efforts have
become a central focus.
See Shelter, Page A4
See Coast Guard, Page A3
New smart meters track power usage
Some people are alarmed
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Pacific Power will start rolling
out new smart meters in Clatsop
County in February that track power
usage by the hour.
The project is part of a $117 mil-
lion investment by the private utility
in 590,000 smart meters across Ore-
gon, including 24,000 in the county.
The installations will begin on the
north side of the county and move
south, with completion expected
between the end of April and early
May.
The smart meters have a com-
munications module that uploads
power usage data via a secure wire-
less mesh network to Pacific Pow-
er’s servers. About six weeks after
installation, customers will be able
to look at their hourly power usage
on a secure website.
“From other customers with smart
meters, they have better insight into
their energy use,” said Alisa Dunlap,
a regional business manager with
Pacific Power in northwest Oregon.
“They can take a look when things
are spiking, which internal issue
might be occurring.
“Right now, customers have to
call us when the power is out,” she
said. “These meters will automati-
cally notify us, so outages should be
shorter.”
Cory Estlund, Pacific Power’s
manager of field support, said there
are about 70 million smart meters
across the U.S. More than two-thirds
of Oregon homes and businesses
have them. The utility waited sev-
eral years to allow the technology to
be refined and come down in price
before investing.
“The difference is they have a
communication module that lets us
handle data,” Estlund said. “Now we
can do things remotely without hav-
ing to roll out a truck and look at a
meter.”
The change to online meter-read-
ing will cut 100 positions from
Pacific Power’s statewide workforce
of 5,500, including six in Clatsop
See Meters, Page A3
Pacific Power
Pacific Power’s new smart meters
include a communications module
that sends hourly power usage data
to the utility’s servers. The data will
be available to customers online.