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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, ApRIL 10, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
Founded in 1873
JOHN D. BRUIJN
production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK
Q&A on changes at the newspaper
F
ollowing our March 19 announce-
ment that The Daily Astorian
will become The Astorian, with a
three-days a week, mail-delivered pub-
lishing schedule as of May 7, I’ve heard
from readers with questions about the
change.
I thought I’d share some of those
questions, and my answers, with you.
also receive the Seaside Signal weekly
on Saturday.
Will the subscription
rate change, too?
At $11.25 a month, you will get the
same local news in print plus extra sec-
tions of the paper you aren’t getting now,
like American Profile and Spry, and start-
ing in June more manufacturer coupons.
The subscription also includes unlimited
access to the e-edition and dailyastorian.
com website, recently revamped with
more video and multimedia.
We haven’t raised rates in years, but
we can keep our subscription rates the
same because of savings in delivery
costs. The rate on the newsstand will be
$1.50, reflecting bigger value in bigger
issues. Watch for a special renewal offer
coming next week that offers subscribers
a gift card for renewing this month.
Why the change?
It’s important to make
business changes that
will enable us to con-
tinue to serve Clatsop
County — now and in
the future. Our newspa-
KARI
per delivery costs con-
BORGEN
tinue to go up, and it
makes sense to partner
with the postal service for delivery. They
are in the professional delivery business
and do it every day.
Although we will publish three days
a week instead of five, our coverage will
remain the same, and the three issues
each week will contain all of the local
news that we’re now publishing in five.
I get my mail at a post office box.
What if I want to change to just
online subscription?
We have an online-only subscrip-
tion that takes into account the savings
in delivery, newsprint and ink. For $8 a
month, you can get unlimited access to
the website, e-edition and soon a break-
ing news app for mobile devices.
Why Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday?
We’re working on detailed plans for
what the three-day-week editions will
look like, but the broad outlines are tak-
ing shape.
Tuesday’s newspaper has long been
our grocery insert day, and will con-
tinue to include those ads along with
two sections. The A section will include
local news and sports. The B section
will include Water Under the Bridge, a
new, pull-out TV schedule, features and
classifieds.
Thursday has been and will continue
to be home to the Coast Weekend arts
and entertainment section, to give you
a head start on planning your weekend.
The A section will include local news
and sports. The award-winning and pop-
ular In One Ear column will lead the B
section.
Saturday’s edition is the new day for
our weekend package, with Weekend
Break, American Profile/Spry, national
grocery coupons and weekend sales.
During prep sports season, you’ll get Fri-
day night results for local football and
basketball teams. Seaside residents will
What’s happening to the comics
page? What about the crossword
puzzles and horoscopes?
We’ll have expanded features, com-
ics, puzzles and horoscopes in the B sec-
tion of every edition. You won’t miss
any of your favorite features on the off
print days.
What about my carrier?
Although it makes the most sense for
our business to move the print delivery
to mail, it’s also the hardest part of the
change. We will celebrate our past and
current carriers with a farewell barbe-
cue at our office on the last day of car-
rier delivery, May 3 at 11:30 a.m. We
are also offering them additional incen-
tives to deliver during the last month of
service.
Other questions or suggestions?
please let me know at kborgen@dailyas-
torian.com or 503-325-4955.
Kari Borgen is publisher of The Daily
Astorian.
Prime Chinook fingerlings held in a temporary holding
pond at the old site were released to sea this week.
Water
under
the bridge
Norwegian ships are beautiful. They’re not
pretty, maybe, and they’re not cleanly scrubbed
sea-going hotels. But they are functional, and to
some, functionality is beauty.
Take the Mosgulf. She is one of the biggest
ships to come into the Port of Astoria. She’s 546
feet long and, when loaded, draws 36 feet. But
she can reach Japan in 13 days.
And that’s not bad, considering she displaces
more than 28,000 tons fully loaded.
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2009
Warrenton resident Debra Meeuwsen leaned into the
SeaPort airplane window and craned her neck to take in
the bristled landscape Saturday along the route from Port-
land to Astoria.
“That’s got to be Vernonia,” she said, pointing at a clus-
ter of buildings nestled in the trees. “There’s nothing else
between here and there.”
With a quick check over her shoulder at the cock-
pit four short rows away, she hopped up from her seat,
crossed the narrow aisle and leaned over her husband’s
shoulder to catch the view from his window.
“This is so cool,” she said.
SeaPort Airlines has shuttled nearly 250 paying cus-
tomers between Astoria, Newport and Portland in its first
month of service. So far, so cool.
But not so cheap.
The company has claimed $130,696 in grant-funded
subsidies for the first three weeks of service on top of
$62,386 in start-up costs.
The Port of Astoria and the city of Newport are trying
to stretch around $4.5 million in subsidies from state and
federal grants as far as possible while SeaPort works to
make its service self-sufficient.
Ticket sales, so far, have brought in $17,571.
There’s a reason all the athletes in Monday’s
Daily Astorian Invitational track meet in Seaside
had a little more “spring” in their step.
Temperatures in the 60s had coaches smiling,
jumpers soaring, runners recording personal
best times, and throwers ... well, throwers don’t
really care about the weather.
50 years ago — 1969
Astoria has been invited to enter the Crab Cooking
Olympics in San Francisco May 19-20, but no one has
come forward yet to lead the team.
“I’ve gotten no response,” Dr. Ed Harvey of the Otter
75 years ago — 1944
Walt Norblad, Astoria attorney and captain in the Army
Air Corps’ air combat intelligence, has been named to
his bomber command’s “general court,” which hears all
major crimes and serious cases.
Norblad is the junior officer on the court. He has been
very active in court-martial work, obtaining considerable
reputation for his outstanding defense of men he has been
assigned to represent at court-martial hearings. The for-
mer Clatsop County representative is with a command of
Martin B-26 Marauders operating out of England.
Walt Norblad in the Army Air Corps (1944).
Trawl Commission said today of his efforts so far to orga-
nize an entry in what San Francisco plans to be an annual
event.
Is Astoria, the dowager city of Oregon, who
sits enthroned at the mouth of the Columbia, get-
ting too big for her ... er ... pettiskirts?
A survey this past week revealed that more
than 500 families have moved into Astoria this
year, all including at least two persons, and some
with several children.
Best source of information on not “what’s
new?” but “who’s new” is Mrs. Louis Washer,
head of the Welcome Wagon. In a record com-
piled by months from March 1968 to March
1969, she and her assistants called on 569 new
families here. Largest influx was in August-Sep-
tember, with 91 families coming here to set-
tle; July and August had 86 and June-July 90,
showing the greatest growth during the summer
months.
The old Chinook Hatchery in Washington state is once
more operational!
Early in the 1930s, when it became illegal to use traps
on the Columbia, it was abandoned to time and history by
the trap men who had maintained and supplied it with fish
for spawning purposes since 1896.
Following a second visit of public roads
administration and state highway engineers here
Monday, a definite project involving the recon-
struction of the road between Astoria and the
new naval hospital will be prepared at once by
the PRA for submission to the 13th naval district
for approval. The plan contemplates widening of
the Williamsport road and the realignment and
widening of the Nehalem highway to the hospi-
tal. Cost $330,000.
Hugh Bernard Boyle Jr., 21-year-old member of a
Navy armed guard crew on a Liberty ship, is in Astoria
on a short leave visiting his wife, Mrs. Meriam Boyle and
children, and his mother, Mrs. Irena C. Parker Boyle. He
will leave Friday.
Boyle’s ship carried supplies to islands in the south-
west Pacific, leaving San Francisco in November 1943
and returning in March 1944. Islands visited included
Mila Efate, Espiritu Santos, Guadalcanal, Florida
(Tulagi), Munda, Morton, all in the New Hebrides or Sol-
omon groups.
Besides frequently being a target, the ship Boyle
sailed on itself sank several enemy vessels. The ship hit
a reef in the Solomons and for a day was such a good
target for enemy fire that Boyle reported things really
uncomfortable.
Before entering the Navy, Boyle worked as a crane
man for CRPA and did excavation at Tongue Point.