TRACK ATHLETES SNAG STATE TITLES
SPORTS • A8
146TH YEAR, NO. 226
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2019
$1.50
Thiel’s
Music
store
closes
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
Photos by Edward Stratton/The Astorian
Portland Timbers fans gathered Sunday at Camp 18 Restaurant in Elsie to bless a section of log, a 2-inch round of which will be
cut off by mascot Timber Joey for each goal scored by the soccer team at Providence Park.
BLESSING THE TREE
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
E
LSIE — The log has been blessed.
Now home goals can (hopefully)
commence.
Fans of the Portland Timbers soc-
cer team gathered en masse on Sunday
outside Camp 18 Restaurant on High-
way 26 to bless a section of Douglas
fi r, a 2-inch round of which team mas-
cot Timber Joey will lop off each time
the team scores a goal.
Jim Serrill — former mascot Timber
Jim — had been exciting fans at Provi-
dence Park with his chainsaw since the
1970s, until his retirement in 2008. His
replacement Joey Webber —
known as Timber Joey
— took over and felt
the tradition needed to
continue.
More than a decade
ago, Serrill, Webber
and a group of fans
traveled to Timber Junc-
tion, including a side trip
to Camp 18 for breakfast, to
acquire the fi rst log of the season.
“We actually loaded up the trailer
by hand with the fi rst Timbers log in
2009, and helped a guy out who was
suffering from diabetes, got his wood
split for him,” Webber told the crowd
Sunday at Camp 18.
The ceremony has grown, with
Timbers fans packing a banquet
room at Camp 18. Instead of Timber
Joey fi nding, scaling and delimbing
a tree, Hampton Lumber fi nds a log
between 18 and 24 inches thick need-
ing removal for safety or disease con-
cerns. The log, often from the forests
of Clatsop County, this year came from
near Grand Ronde.
After gorging on breakfast and pre-
senting a check for more than $4,200 to
See Camp 18, Page A6
Thiel’s Music Center, a staple in
downtown Astoria since 1974, has closed
its Commercial Street store but hopes to
reopen at a different location this summer.
A sign on the window states that
the store is moving to a sister shop in
Longview, Washington. But employee
Rick Weiler, who helps manage the
Longview store, said owner Rick Holt
“really likes Astoria and he wants another
store back up and running.”
Holt has already fi lled out an applica-
tion for a new location in Astoria, accord-
ing to Weiler. Holt was not available for
comment.
Holt, who bought the business from
the Thiel family in 2000, decided to close
the Commercial Street store following
the sale of the Osburn-O’Brien Building
to developer Joe Barnes earlier this year.
The bottom fl oor of the Osburn-
O’Brien Building, located on 14th Street
between Commercial and Duane streets,
See Music store, Page A6
Lawmakers
eye windfall
From left, brothers Gabriel and Levi Xochihua grab 2-year-old Douglas fi r seedlings
for planting next to the loggers memorial at Camp 18.
The Portland Timbers’ tree-blessing ceremony Sunday was overseen by former
mascot Jim Serrill, left, known as Timber Jim, and the current mascot Joey Webber,
known as Timber Joey.
State revenue growth
creates more options
By MARK MILLER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon has come into an
unexpected windfall, and now it’s up to
lawmakers to fi gure out what to do with it.
Personal and corporate income tax col-
lections during the 2019 tax fi ling season
were dramatically higher than state econo-
mists expected . While much of that money
will go back to taxpayers next year in the
form of Oregon’s unique “kicker” rebate,
the new forecast gives legislative bud-
get-writers about three-quarters of a billion
dollars more to work with as they decide
how the state will spend its money over the
next two years.
They aren’t getting too excited, though.
“It may seem strange, but the revenue
forecast does not change the method in
which we’re budgeting,” said state Rep.
Dan Rayfi eld, D-Corvallis, who co-chairs
the budget-writing committee. “We are still
looking at reduction options. We are still
being cautious and prudent about how we
spend the resources that the state has.”
Decisions on agency spending touch
See Windfall, Page A6
Latino adviser brings business expertise from U.S., Mexico
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
EASIDE — Hermenegildo
Ochoa, a Latino business advi-
sor with Clatsop Community Col-
lege, remembers managing more
than 30 branches of the Bank of
Mexico. But he also remembers the
cartels, violence, bribes and death
threats faced by businesspeople
large and small, including himself.
Ochoa has since taken to a low-
er-key role on the North Coast help-
ing the Latino business community
follow the rules and succeed in a
more law-abiding environment.
Ochoa, 71, was a certifi ed pub-
S
lic accountant in Mexico who
spent most his career in fi nance,
human resources and insurance.
He also spent 10 years as a busi-
ness teacher at the University of
Mexico.
He moved to the North Coast in
2010 from El Paso, Texas. There,
he’d regularly commute between
Texas and Juarez, a city in the Chi-
huahua state of Mexico with a rep-
utation for cartels and violence.
“At that time, I was an insur-
ance agent,” he said. “The criminal
people, if you have a small busi-
ness or big business — it doesn’t
matter — they come to talk with
you. They send a message to give
money. And if you didn’t give
money to them, then in some cases
they kill you.”
Ochoa decided that life was no
longer for him. He had family in
the Pacifi c Northwest and relo-
cated to the North Coast in 2010.
He ran a business trucking supplies
to Hispanic businesses in Clatsop
County and the Long Beach Penin-
sula in Washington.
Ochoa took English courses at
the college, where instructor Eileen
Purcell found out about his experi-
ence as an accountant, banker and
human resources manager. The
college had issues holding onto
Latino business clients who could
not speak English, Ochoa said. His
skillsets, combined with his native
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Hermenegildo Ochoa is an adviser
at Clatsop Community College for
Latino business owners.
tongue, made him a perfect can-
didate to reach out to the region’s
Latino business community.
Ochoa advises about 30 clients
— mostly restaurants, landscapers,
construction contractors, main-
tenance providers and other ser-
vice-oriented businesses — across
Clatsop and Tillamook counties,
along with two from Washington.
He takes business owners through
the steps of starting a business in
Oregon and following labor and
other laws, while showing them
how to incorporate technology and
streamline their operations.
“The most important thing is to
create a culture,” he said. “That’s
a big problem. In Mexico, if you
want to have a business, you can
open the door of your home, put out
a table, and you can start immedi-
ately. But here in the United States,
we have laws. We need to respect
the laws.”