DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2019
146TH YEAR, NO. 155
ONE DOLLAR
SEASIDE
Couple pays
settlement
over Miss
Oregon
City, school district stand
behind the Phillips’
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — The city and the Sea-
side School District are standing by City
Councilor Dana Phillips and Seaside
School District board president Steve
Phillips after a settlement with the Ore-
gon Department of Justice over their han-
dling of the Miss Oregon scholarship
program.
The settlement was reached after the
state alleged unlawful trade practices.
They agreed to pay $150,000 to the
Oregon Community Foundation for the
Tiffany Phillips Memorial Scholarship
Fund, named for the couple’s 17-year-old
daughter, who died in a 1998 car accident.
The couple had been involved with the
Miss Oregon pageant for decades. They
will make restitution in three installments
and must permanently resign from any
office, directorship or position of author-
ity with the Miss Oregon Scholarship
Program and Oregon Scholarship Foun-
dation. They are also prohibited from
being financially involved in any non-
profits or charities.
The agreement “shall not be consid-
ered an admission of a violation for any
purpose.”
Dana Phillips denied that the couple
personally profited from the pageant. The
Oregonian reported Friday that the cou-
ple pocketed $336,584 from the scholar-
ship fund.
“It’s not true,” Phillips said. “We
did everything we possibly could and
answered questions all along.”
The agreement with the state does not
allege fraud, she said. “At no time did
we ever use the Miss Oregon pageant
for personal gain or wrongdoing. This is
a situation that’s really sad and hard to
swallow.”
Phillips said when she left her role as
director of the pageant in 2015, financial
documentation was shredded, a situation
compounded by a computer crash that
destroyed a system backup.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Competitors take to the air after a jump on the course during the Northwest Arenacross Nationals event at the Clatsop County
fairgrounds. See more photos of the racers online at DailyAstorian.com
Arenacross
cruises into Astoria
By COLIN MURPHEY
The Daily Astorian
T
See Settlement, Page A8
Young riders get ready to compete at the arenacross event.
he Clatsop County
Fair and Expo
played host to the
high adrenaline Northwest
Arenacross Nationals event
over the weekend, which fea-
tured motorcycle racers of
all ages competing on a dirt
course before hundreds of
fans.
The sport, known as arena-
cross, is a mix of traditional
off-road motorcycle racing
that takes place indoors.
Sen. Johnson trashes state auditor’s plan
to allow citizens to select audit targets
Idea falls flat at
committee hearing
By NIGEL JAQUISS
Willamette Week
Steve and Dana Phillips signed a
settlement with the Oregon Department
of Justice over their handling of the Miss
Oregon pageant.
For about an hour last week,
Kip Memmott, the audits director
for the Oregon Secretary of State,
was having a pretty good run in
front of the Legislature’s Joint
Committee on Audits.
Under Secretary of
State Dennis Richard-
son’s leadership, the
audits division has deliv-
ered a series of hard-hit-
ting audits over the past
Betsy
two years, as Richardson
Johnson
promised when he ran in
2016.
Some people on the receiving office,
end of those audits — including there’s
Gov. Kate Brown, whose
Department of Human
Services has been blis-
tered, and the Portland
Public Schools board,
which took a beating in
a recent review — have
accused Richardson, the
only Republican who
holds statewide elected
of playing politics. But
no question that the sec-
retary of state has taken seriously
the responsibility of serving as
the public’s watchdog.
Memmott’s testimony in
front of the committee was
nearly finished when Steve Elz-
inga, Richardson’s legal advisor,
approached him and appeared to
whisper a message.
Memmott then introduced an
See Johnson, Page A8
Local author calls all freaks
Minnick plans a
show in May
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
H
ave a freakishly enter-
taining talent to share
with the public?
Local author Christopher
Minnick and a small group
of volunteers are organizing
the inaugural Astoria Freak
Show, an extravaganza in
May benefitting physical
accessibility initiatives.
The volunteers are look-
ing for performance artists
who can safely perform their
acts inside Jill McVarish’s
Secret Gallery on 10th Street
during May’s Second Satur-
day Art Walk.
“There are traditional
freak show things going
back to the Jim Rose (Cir-
cus) Sideshow from the
‘90s, like contortionists
or bed-of-nail walkers or
sword swallowers — peo-
ple who can lift things up
with piercings through their
tongue,” Minnick said.
Minnick is drawn to the
freak show in part from his
affinity for clown culture,
detailed in his fictional novel
“Ferment” from 2017, and
his upcoming sequel, “Pick-
led Punk.”
In Sacramento, Minn-
ick was the co-founder and
chief fun officer of the Insti-
tute of Fun, a company pro-
ducing wine tastings, movie
screenings, concerts and
other social events. A year
ago, he and his wife, Marga-
ret, relocated after falling in
love with Astoria while on a
trip to the Oregon Coast.
See Minnick, Page A8
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Christopher Minnick, left, and Mickki Langston are two of
the volunteers behind the Astoria Freak Show, a benefit
extravaganza to be held during May’s Second Saturday Art Walk.