A7
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2019
Fleet: ‘It’s just amazing how hard the industry has been hammered’
Continued from Page A1
“Back in the day, if the
weather was too rough to
go out (in the Pacifi c), you
could just go sturgeon fi sh-
ing. They don’t have that
option anymore. It impacts
people making that 100-mile
trip to this area. If they can
only catch one fi sh, it’s not
worth it compared to back
in the day when there were
more options.”
Fishery managers in Ore-
gon and Washington state
set seasons and quotas based
on stock assessments to pro-
tect dwindling sturgeon and
salmon species.
Increasingly,
charters
have begun to offer more
bottom-fi shing trips as
salmon and sturgeon seasons
have become less depend-
able. However, the roughly
17-mile trek to the popu-
lar fi shing grounds off Tilla-
mook Head leaves little mar-
gin for profi t.
The recreational bot-
tom-fi shing season will offi -
cially open in Washington
state waters on Saturday, but
charters aren’t anticipating
heavy bookings until halibut
starts in May.
Still, skippers are nostal-
gic about a different era for
charter fl eets on both sides of
the Columbia River.
“In the mid-’70s, we
were running from the 15th
of April until the middle of
October just doing salmon
fi shing,” said Pat Schenk,
owner of Sea Breeze Char-
ters in Ilwaco.
“I made 166 trips in a row
in 1976. It was all salmon. It
was crazy,” he said. “We had
an outfi t called Columbia Bar
Charters at the time. We had
16 boats out of our offi ce. We
were sending out 150 people
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Port: Staff estimates $20 million needed for repairs
Continued from Page A1
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
The Port of Astoria has closed the East Mooring Basin
causeway because of a rotten substructure.
doubly important to get the
community’s buy-in during
June and July before submit-
ting the plan to the state, she
said.
Of the original $19.7 mil-
lion in loans from Business
Oregon, the Port and its ten-
ants have paid the amount
down to nearly $11.9
million.
The loans have fi nanced
several projects to retain and
grow Port tenants over the
years. More than $4.4 mil-
lion was pumped into the
West Mooring Basin. Nearly
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grant with a larger pot of
federal disaster relief funds.
McArthur’s comments
hit home with Port commis-
sioners, who largely sup-
ported more oversight and
accountability.
“I’d welcome some
supervision,” Commissioner
Robert Stevens said.
The Port recently formed
an ad hoc committee of
regional fi nancial experts to
fi nd ways it might make and
save more money. McAr-
thur’s draft will use those
recommendations. It will be
Consult a
ASTORIA
TRANSIT CENTER
McArthur called for
reports from the Port to the
state every six months, along
with deliverables to ensure
the agency is making prog-
ress and following the plan.
The Port is in desper-
ate need of state help, with
staff estimating $20 million
in repairs to bring its central
waterfront into proper work-
ing order.
The Port recently closed
the East Mooring Basin
causeway after state bridge
inspectors found much of
the support structure rot-
ting. The state recommended
closing the east side of Pier
2 by April unless signifi cant
repairs are made.
The Port recently agreed
to surrender a $1.5 million
state infrastructure grant to
put a new deck on the west
side of Pier 2 after learning
of more foundational sink-
ing. The agency was unable
to come up with the local
match after trying unsuc-
cessfully to pair the state
$4 million went into reno-
vating a World War II-era
hangar and utilities at the
Astoria Regional Airport to
keep electric tug manufac-
turer Lektro in Warrenton.
More than $10 million
helped relocate Bornstein
Seafoods from downtown
Astoria to the Port’s central
waterfront, part of the agen-
cy’s strategic plan in the
2000s to create a seafood
and boat-working cluster
around processors on Pier 2
and a large boatyard on Pier
3.
The
seafood
and
boat-working cluster on Pier
3 largely went by the way-
side in a new strategic plan
in 2010, after Westerlund
Log Handlers approached
the Port with a lucrative
partnership exporting timber
to China.
McArthur’s
document
will largely be an update
of the same plan, focus-
ing on the Port’s existing
businesses, with a roadmap
toward bringing in more rev-
enue , she said.
According to Kevin Cup-
ples, the city’s planning
director, ODOT emailed
approval of the plan shortly
before Tuesday’s public
hearing.
The Planning C ommis-
sion originally approved the
application in November,
but it came with a high price:
a condition of no left turns in
or out of the property.
With an estimated 1,300
daily trips anticipated, com-
missioners were wary of
adding to already long traf-
fi c backups, especially in the
summer .
Developers would have
needed to come up with the
full cost of an estimated $3
million to add the turn lane.
Main & Main appealed
to the City Council , argu-
ing that the cost of the turn
lane would exceed the cost
to build the store.
In February, the City
Council sent the application
back to the Planning Com-
mission with one instruc-
tion: make left-turn require-
ments proportional to the
project cost.
The revised proposal,
prepared by the develop-
er’s traffi c engineer, satisfi es
both the City Council and
the concern related to safety
and traffi c impacts, attorney
Dave Phillips said on behalf
of the developer .
While it is a “Band-Aid”
fi x, Chris Hoth, the Planning
Commission chairman, said
“it is a solution, and ODOT
seems happy with it. I’m
always reticent to do these
things, but I think the con-
ditions have been met here.”
Even with the approval,
a new challenge to the City
Council may be in the works.
After the meeting, Karl
Anuta, an attorney for Pro-
tect Pacifi c Northwest, called
the Planning C ommission’s
process “improper.”
“The Planning Commis-
sion looked at, relied on and
adopted a document that was
never given to the public
before this hearing,” Anuta
said, referring to the ODOT
email.
He said he plans to con-
duct a traffi c analysis of the
revised plan.
“If this in fact solves
the problem, we won’t be
opposing,” Anuta said. “But
I can’t tell you right now
whether that’s going to be
the case or not.”
Dover,
meanwhile,
looked to the future in a
process that has already
stretched almost a year.
“I’m happy we got the
approval,” Dover said.
“We’re ready to go after all
the appeals periods expire.”
Continued from Page A1
The labor bureau’s
report in January painted
an unfl attering picture of
many lawmakers and staff,
some of whom publicly
complained that the report
was inaccurate and they
hadn’t be interviewed.
“I frankly wish he did
more work,” Kotek said in
January. “His investigation
was very limited and based
on a few sources. I don’t
know why he didn’t take
more time. Maybe it had
something to do with him
leaving.”
Amid
the
national
#MeToo
reckoning
over sexual harassment,
two female state sena-
tors came forward in late
2017 to allege sexual
harassment by Sen. Jeff
Kruse, a Republican from
Roseburg.
Kruse
resigned
in
March 2018 after an out-
side investigation found
he touched women at work
inappropriately for years
without their consent.
In its January report,
the labor bureau detailed
what it said was substan-
tial evidence that legisla-
tive staff and leaders didn’t
act appropriately or swiftly
enough to curb harassment
at the Capitol.
The report found that
legislative leaders didn’t
take
“immediate
and
appropriate
corrective
action, or in many cases,
any action, in response to
complaints of incidents
of sexual harassment that
they knew or should have
known about, in particular
regarding former Senator
Kruse but also with respect
to other members of the
Legislative Assembly.”
The report described
how several women who
complained of harassment,
from interns to employ-
ees, were in many cases
advised by legislative offi -
cials not to discuss the alle-
gations for fear that talking
about it could be perceived
as retaliatory.
“The record suggests
respondents had a higher
concern for people who
had allegations brought
against them rather than
for people bringing for-
ward complaints of inap-
propriate conduct they or
others had experienced,”
the report stated.
The report also men-
tioned how Courtney told
an employee in his offi ce
could “either resign, be
fi red or demoted” because
he didn’t like that she was
dating a state representa-
tive. This person told the
labor bureau that she was
told that if she resigned,
Courtney’s offi ce would
pay her fi ve months’ salary
with benefi ts.
Another
employee,
referred to as Employee A,
reported that a person who
was working in the Cap-
itol — who had sexually
assaulted her before they
worked in the Capitol —
asked her to describe her
sexual relationship with
another person.
Employee A “was cau-
tioned against talking
with anyone regarding
the complaint, investi-
gation, or recommenda-
tions,” because it could
be perceived as retaliating
against the person who had
inquired, by Legislative
Counsel Dexter Johnson,
according to the report.
Yet another employee,
Employee B, reported
that Courtney’s commu-
nications director, Robin
Maxey, offered to buy her a
beer at an event, and “stood
so close as to be touch-
ing the side of his body
with hers,” and repeated
that even after she moved
over to the other side of
the bar. He then sent her
song lyrics that she consid-
ered “sexually lewd,” over
Facebook. Maxey resigned
after BOLI released its
report.
Two interns who worked
for Kruse — who were not
identifi ed in the report, but
later came forward pub-
licly — were also men-
tioned in the BOLI report.
The settlement states
that the two will drop law-
suits they fi led against the
Legislature that sought
$6.7 million.
Anne Montgomery and
Adrianna
Martin-Wyatt
interned for Kruse when
they were law students
during the 2017 session.
They claimed in their suit
that legislative leaders
didn’t do enough to pre-
vent harassment or change
Kruse’s behavior toward
them.
“Defendants expressed
callous indifference to
reports of Kruse’s miscon-
duct, and fostered an envi-
ronment wherein com-
plaints were discouraged
with threats of retaliation,
legal exposure, and nega-
tive career implications,”
the lawsuit states.
According to the law-
suit, Kruse subjected both
women to sexual ban-
ter and unwanted touch-
ing, and that behavior
seemed common knowl-
edge among legislators and
staff.
Kruse, according to the
lawsuit, addressed Mont-
gomery as “little girl,” “my
baby lawyer,” and “sexy,”
multiple times.
He asked about her sex
life, touched her thighs,
placed his head on hers as
she sat at her desk work-
ing, and gave frequent, lin-
gering hugs.
Kruse
asked
Mar-
tin-Wyatt about her sex
life, asked to be invited
over to her house at night,
wrapped his arms around
her and slid his arms down
the front of her body across
her breasts, touched her
hips, hugged and squeezed
her tightly and massaged
her shoulders while she
was working on the com-
puter, according to the
lawsuit.
Both women took steps
to avoid Kruse’s touch-
ing and comments. Mar-
tin-Wyatt obtained addi-
tional work with another
state legislator, and spent
half the day in that sena-
tor’s office, but ultimately
left her position early in
the middle of the 2017
session.
Montgomery stopped
wearing makeup, started
wearing baggy clothes and
moved her desk to work in
another legislator’s office.
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Settlement: Kotek described investigation as ‘very limited’
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Seaside: Even with OK, new challenge may be coming
Continued from Page A1
a day, making two or three
trips. It was wide open.”
Schenk estimated there
were 150 charter boats out of
Ilwaco at the time, compared
to about 17 today.
“Westport had around 250
charter boats, now it’s about
20,” he said. “It’s just amaz-
ing how hard the industry
has been hammered.”
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