FIREARMS SALES BOOM, BUT ‘GUNPOCALYPSE’ LOOMS IN OREGON
COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL • INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2019
146TH YEAR, NO. 162
Community energy bill
pitched in Legislature
ONE DOLLAR
Methadone
treatment
planned
for Seaside
New clinic will fi ll a
need in three counties
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — A new clinic that will
provide methadone to treat heroin and
prescription opioid addiction could open
this fall .
CODA, a Portland-based drug treat-
ment provider, is negotiating a lease with
Terry Lowenberg for a former real estate
offi ce on South Holladay Drive off U.S.
Highway 101.
The clinic could treat up to 300 peo-
ple, said Tim Hartnett, CODA’s exec-
utive director. Along with methadone,
people could receive other federally
approved medication-assisted treatment
for drug abuse, such as buprenorphine or
naltrexone.
“We help people in the deep end of
the pool,” Hartnett said at a City Coun-
cil meeting Monday night. “We help peo-
ple who not only have drug and alcohol
problems, but are tangled up in poverty,
tangled up in the criminal justice system,
the child welfare system. We work with a
very complicated caseload.”
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
John Orr, left, helps load solar panels onto the roof of the Judge Guy Boyington Building in downtown Astoria.
An alternative to
private utilities
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Tim Hartnett | executive director of a
Portland-based drug treatment provider
C
ommunity choice aggrega-
tion, an effort to allow commu-
nities in Oregon to buy elec-
tricity separate from investor-funded
utilities like Pacifi Corp, recently
became a bill introduced in the state
Legislature.
With the legislative effort begin-
ning, community choice advocate
Alan Hickenbottom made his pitch
Tuesday night at the Columbia Forum
in Astoria for why the model can cre-
ate more renewable energy inno-
vation, cost savings and economic
development.
Under community choice aggre-
gation, a concept so far approved by
eight states, authorities created by cit-
ies, counties and other local govern-
ments buy their own energy and pay
exit fees to utilities to make up for the
loss of customer base. Existing utili-
ties continue to deliver power, main-
tain the electrical grid and provide
billing and other services.
Hickenbottom, the Oregon project
manager for Local Energy Aggrega-
tion Network, has pitched the idea as
a modern shake-up on an antiquated
energy delivery system that can lower
already competitive energy rates for
customers and drive innovation not
‘WE HELP PEOPLE
IN THE DEEP END
OF THE POOL. ... WE
WORK WITH A VERY
COMPLICATED
CASELOAD.’
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Alan Hickenbottom speaks about community choice aggregation during a Columbia
Forum event in Astoria.
possible under utilities seeking the
cheapest power.
“If you can move economic and
political decision-making power to
the community, all sorts of interest-
ing things may be able to happen,” he
said.
He pointed to the Redwood Coast
Energy Authority, an aggregator buy-
ing power for Humboldt County,
California.
response to rolling blackouts to pro-
mote energy effi ciency initiatives,
became an aggregator for the county
of about 136,000 people in 2017. It
now purchases power for 93 percent
of electric accounts in the county, said
Richard Engel, Redwood’s director of
power resources.
“For us, one of the drivers for it
was reducing greenhouse gas emis-
sions locally,” he said. “It also slightly
reduces retail costs for customers.”
Humboldt experience
Redwood, formed in 2003 in
The Columbia Pacifi c Coordinated
Care Organization, which oversees the
Oregon Health Plan in Clatsop, Colum-
bia and Tillamook counties, has sought a
local methadone treatment option because
of the high cost of paying for people to
get help in the Portland metro area.
Andy Mendenhall, the chief medical
offi cer at Central City Concern, which
works on homeless, poverty and addic-
tion issues in Portland, said there is a lack
of treatment in rural areas. Hospitaliza-
tions associated with opioid abuse in the
three counties are well above the state-
wide average.
“Part of the opportunity presented by
the CODA continuum here in the Sea-
side community is to provide a hub for
patients to receive treatment,” he said.
“I see an opportunity to close the
treatment gap, and allow people to get
treatment locally, and that’s good for
those individuals, their families and the
community.”
When the prospect for a methadone
clinic on the North Coast surfaced last
summer, city leaders in Astoria and War-
renton recognized the need but were cool
to the idea of a location in their cities.
See Energy, Page A7
See Clinic, Page A7
Warrenton might expand nuisance property rules
City wants to add
nuance and fl exibility
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — Last year,
city leaders declared more prop-
erties in Warrenton nuisances than
they ever had before.
Now the city is examining
changes to the nuisance property
rule to add nuance and fl exibility.
“We can condemn a building or
declare it a nuisance, but we don’t
have anything in the middle,” City
Commissioner Rick Newton said at
a meeting Tuesday.
The City Commission consid-
ered a draft ordinance that would
defi ne and address chronic nui-
sances, derelict buildings and
junk cars. The new sections would
also defi ne property maintenance
standards.
The basic nuisance ordinance
has allowed the city to begin deal-
ing with properties that had long
been an issue, but the staff hopes
to tackle even more problem areas
with the expanded code.
Mayor Henry Balensifer, while
indicating he approves of the
changes overall, said he was con-
cerned about making it clear that the
intent of the law is not to become
a sort of “Big Brother,” policing
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
See Rules, Page A7
Warrenton is concerned about nuisance properties.