The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current, April 29, 2019, Image 7

Historic Oregon Newspapers

The daily Astorian., April 29, 2019, Page A7, Image 7

Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR

About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2019)

Prev Page of 10 Next Prev Issue Next Text PDF JP2 (1.4 MB) Clip/Print Image

Return to Top

Prev Page of 10 Next Prev Issue Next

Newspaper Page TextA7 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2019 Funeral home: ‘Back in the day, you needed this space, but not with new technology’ Continued from Page A1 “I’d like for more people to feel comfortable coming in,” Anderson said of the Astoria location. “Even on nice days, when the weath- er’s good, I’ll open up the doors here, and I’ll be run- ning back and forth.” Anderson offers cups of coffee and tours of the three-story, 10,000-square- foot building, from the chapel and viewing rooms down to the basement cre- matorium and embalming rooms, where he does his own body preparations. “In the past, I think it used to be one of those kind of scary, dark things,” he said. “It’s the unknown portion that I think is really scary to people.” The intersection of 12th Street and Franklin Avenue is an undertakers row, with Hughes-Ransom, Cald- well’s Luce-Layton Mortu- ary and Ocean View Cre- mation a nd Burial Service on three corners. The under- takers collectively handled the arrangements for around 90 percent of the more than 1,000 deaths reported in Clatsop County between 2016 and 2018. Local funeral home owners say around 85 per- cent of their customers get cremations. The percent- age of cremations ﬁ rst over- took burials for the ﬁ rst time in 2015, according to the National Funeral Director s Association . The changes in the industry have left Anderson with a lot of empty space. Upstairs, he is turning a former casket room into a two-bedroom apartment, and a former urn room into a studio, hoping to start renting in the fall. “It’s empty space up here, so why not for gen- erating revenue and help- ing someone out with hous- ing? ” he said. “Back in the day, you needed this space, but not with new technology.” Renee Caldwell, of Cald- well’s Luce-Layton Mor- tuary, said she lucked out with a signiﬁ cantly smaller building than Hughes-Ran- som. Cremations only bring in around $1,000 a cus- tomer, while burials bring in exponentially more, she said. “If I had all burials, I’d be making more money,” Caldwell said. “The prob- lem is your taxes and every- thing else still go up every year. I think people are just concerned with their budgets.” Brian Dutton, who opened Ocean View in 2008, has an even lower overhead than Anderson and Caldwell. He rents a small, ground-ﬂ oor show- room, attached to separate rental units above, with no mortgage or property taxes to cover. He’s skipped on an embalming room, ﬁ nd- ing many customers forego that step. “I don’t have a chapel to have services in,” Dut- ton said. “Most people who are having a service ... are not calling it a funeral. They’re calling it a celebra- tion of life. They’re wanting to have it somewhere more upbeat. A funeral chapel is not a fun place to have a cel- ebration of life.” Anderson is hoping his open-mindedness will bring in more people to the spa- cious Hughes-Ransom . He invites people to bring in props and decorate the chapel for their needs. They can even press the button for their loved one’s cremation. “Those are things that healing-wise could be good for them,” he said. “I’m no one to tell them how their grieving process should be.” Farmland: County lost 1,312 acres Continued from Page A1 like the U.S. in general, is steadily losing farmland. That has raised concerns not only about food produc- tion and security, but also ﬁ sh and wildlife habitat pro- vided by working farms and ranches. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts the Census of Agriculture every ﬁ ve years. It provides a full count of farms across the country, broken down by income, crops and pro- duction practices. What the numbers show is a decline in the amount of farmland for every cen- sus taken over the p ast 20 years. Between 1997 and 2017, total land in farm production fell roughly 6% nationwide, from approxi- mately 954.7 million acres to a little more than 900 million acres. The downturn is even steeper in Oregon, from 17.6 million acres in 1997 to 15.9 million acres in 2017, or nearly 10%. That’s an average of 85,000 acres, or 132.8 square miles, of farms each year. Jim Johnson, land use and water planning coor- dinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said the state is clearly los- ing farmland. Less obvious are the reasons why. “(The census) doesn’t tell us what the land that was in farms was changed to,” Johnson said. Drawing conclusions practically requires a coun- ty-by-county examination. For example, Klam- ath County, in s outhern Oregon, lost the highest percentage of farms and 20 Oregon land in farms (millions of acres) 17.7 17.1 16.4 16.3 16 million: Down 9.6% from 1997 15 Source: 2017 Ag Census Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group 10 1997 ’02 ’07 ranches from 2012 to 2017 — 165,417 acres, or 25.7%. But Johnson said much of that land may only be tem- porarily out of produc- tion, due to lingering water shortages and uncertainty in the Klamath Basin. On the other hand, Mult- nomah, Washington and Clackamas counties — which make up the Portland metro area — lost 40,807 combined acres, likely to urbanization, Johnson said. “I can’t think of a lot of land, especially crop- land, that wouldn’t be kept in production in the Willa- mette Valley unless it was being converted to some- thing else,” he said. Clatsop County lost 1,312 acres — from 16,382 down to 15,070 — an 8% decline. Fiala’s grandparents bought the property that would become Fiala Farms, north of the Tualatin River, in 1906. The family had a small dairy and grew cab- bage and other row crops to sell at a fresh market in e ast Portland. Today, Richard Fiala runs the farm with his sib- ’12 2017 lings, Anne, Doug and Wes. They grow a vari- ety of fruits and vegeta- bles for sale at their farm- stand, and host all types of events from about mid-July through Halloween. Farming around the nearby suburbs of West Linn and Lake Oswego, Fiala said the area is well within arm’s reach of urban development — espe- cially if farms do not have a succession plan or con- servation easement to keep the land in agricultural production. “What we’ve seen in the last 30 years is speculators and developers come in when a farm hasn’t stayed in the family,” Fiala said. Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would provide $10 mil- lion over the next bien- nium to fund the state Agri- cultural Heritage Program, created in 2017 as a volun- tary grant program to help farmers and ranchers with succession planning, ease- ments and other conserva- tion strategies. The funding measure, House Bill 2729, is up for consideration in the Leg- islature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee. Nellie McAdams, a con- sultant formerly with the Rogue Farm Corps, has advocated strongly for HB 2729. With two-thirds of Oregon’s farmland set to change hands over the next 20 years, McAdams said it is imperative to stem fur- ther losses. “Those agricultural lands are not permanently protected,” McAdams said. “Once agricultural land is developed, it permanently falls out of production. You can’t un-build a Walmart.” Johnson, with the Ore- gon Department of Agri- culture , said land use plan- ning goals adopted by the state in 1973 have slowed the rate of decline for farm- land, but acknowledged that issues still remain. Goal 3, speciﬁ cally, requires coun- ties to identify farmland and establishes an exclu- sive farm use zone that lim- its development. “We’ve still got issues with conversion of farm- land,” Johnson said. “We still have to get into pol- icy discussions about urban growth, and where it’s going to occur.” Otherwise, McAdams said she wonders when the losses will add up to a breaking point. “For an urban city- dweller, that means you don’t have access to local food, you don’t have food security, and you would also lose open space habitat that almost every farm offers,” McAdams said. “We need to act now to reverse the loss of farmland from agri- cultural production.” Hulti: ‘Some bills may just be there to start a conversation’ Continued from Page A1 “Being able to ﬁ g- ure out the entire pro- cess has been very educa- tional,” he said. “I had no idea the process of what the bills go through. I’ve also learned about how some bills die. Some bills may just be there to start a conversation.” Hulti’s internship ends with the semester in May, although he sees himself taking on another while at Willamette. After grad- uating in 2020, he plans on taking a break before charting his next step, be it graduate or law school. “Before taking the internship, I’d not really thought about any politi- cal career,” he said. “Deﬁ - nitely learning the inner workings … it’s something I could think of doing.” CLASSIFIEDINDEX classifieds NOTICES MARINE Special Notices ............................. 104 Boats for Sale................................. 251 Public Notices ............................... 107 Boating Parts & Accessories ..... 254 Announcements .......................... 110 Boats Wanted ................................ 257 Boat Trailers ................................... 260 PERSONALS Marine Supplies & Equip. .......... 266 Lost & Found ................................. 181 Boat/RV Storage ........................... 269 Personals ........................................ 184 Fund-raisers ................................... 188 RVs & Trailers RVs & Travel Trailers ............ 301-307 AUTOMOTIVE Campers, Utility Trailers .... 310-313 Antiques/Classic Vehicles ......... 201 Automobiles .................................. 204 REAL ESTATE SUVs/Trucks .......................... 207-210 Open Houses ................................. 501 4WD .................................................. 213 For Sale ................................... 504-513 Vans .................................................. 216 Lots & Acreage .............................. 516 ATVs/Motorcycles ........................ 219 Income Property .......................... 519 Truck/Auto Parts .......................... 222 Manufactured Homes ................ 522 Detailing ......................................... 225 Commercial Property ................. 525 Tires & Wheels ............................... 228 Real Estate Wanted ..................... 531 RENTALS Properties for Rent ............. 601-613 Rooms & Roommates................. 616 Commercial Rental ...................... 619 Vacation Rentals .......................... 622 Storage Space ............................... 628 Wanted to Rent ............................ 634 RV/Mobile Home Space ............ 637 PETS/LIVESTOCK Animal Boarding .......................... 701 Feed-Hay-Grain ............................ 704 Pets & Supplies ............................. 710 Horses & Tack ................................ 713 WE GETRESULTS MISCELLANEOUS CALL TODAY TO PLACE YOUR AD Fuel, Heating & Firewood ......... 807 Furniture & HH Goods ................ 810 BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES TV & Electronics ........................... 811 Business Opportunities ............. 643 Antiques & Collectibles ............. 813 Business for Sale .......................... 644 Jewelry ............................................ 814 Arts & Crafts ................................... 816 503-325-3211 or 800-781-3214 Email: classifieds@dailyastorian.com Web: www.dailyastorian.com HELP WANTED Help Wanted .................................. 651 APPLIANCES & EQUIP. Work Wanted ................................. 652 Tools & Heavy Equipment ........ 851 Lawn & Garden Equipment ...... 854 SERVICES Appliances ..................................... 860 Childcare/Adult Care .................. 661 Medical Equip. & Supply ........... 866 Services ........................................... 664 Farm Equipment .......................... 923 coa st weekend Y ou r loca l gu ide to A rt, En terta in m en t, Food & Fu n THE DEADLINE FOR CLASSIFIED ADS is 1 p.m. the day before your ad is scheduled to run 107 Public Notices Occasionally other companies make telemarketing calls off classified ads. These compa- nies are not affiliated with The Daily Astorian and customers are under no obligation to participate. If you would like to contact the attorney gener- al or be put on the do not call list, here are the links to both of them Complaint form link: http://www.doj.state.or.us/ finfraud/ Go. Do. coastweekend.com Have you seen our FEATURED ADS? Only viewable on our website, www.dailyastorian.com. Call 503-325-3211 for more information! coa stw eek en d.com Classified ads work hard so you don’t have to. Call 503-325-3211 to place your ad today! All classifieds require pre-payment 107 Public Notices 181 Lost & Found Behind on payments? Divorce/ Bankruptcy? Major Repairs Needed? Bad Tenants? Inheritance? House Vacant? Foreclosure? Call us TODAY and make your problem go AWAY! Cash Offers, Confidential, Close Quickly! (503)717-2531 $5,000 REWARD$ Please help us find our large Black & White Newfoundland boy 181 Lost & Found 251 Boats for Sale Call ALEX (213) 507-6616 Lost something precious? Looking for the original owner? Lost & Found ads are FREE for the week! One photo is included Give The Daily Astorian Classifieds a call today! (503)325-3211 or (800)781-3214 1987 19 Ski Centurion TruTrac II w/Trailer & Tubing & Safety Equipment Ford 351 240HP 480 hours; Fresh water use only; Winterized annually $7,000. Gearhart, Oregon. Call 503-338-9774 SPECIALTY SERVICES W E URGE YOU TO PATRONIZE THE LOCAL PROFESSIONALS ADVERTISING IN T HE A STORIAN S PECIALTY S ERVICES . T O PLACE YOUR S PECIALTY S ERVICES AD , CALL 325-3211. www.DailyAstorian.com SHOP LOCAL! Check the Business Directory daily to utilize the local professionals advertising in The Astorian. To place an ad in our Business Directory, call 503-325-3211.