A3 THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2019 Family honors Warrenton Grade School teacher Hartley volunteered for children’s charity By NICOLE BALES The Astorian WARRENTON — Dee Hartley, a second-grade teacher set to retire from Warrenton Grade School, got a surprise on Tuesday at the school’s year-end assembly. Alexis Joseph, Wade Chosvig and their grand- mother, Gail Antilla, hon- ored Hartley in front of faculty, students and their families for her long time service to Ronald McDonald House Charities in Portland. The recognition was especially personal , as Hart- ley spearheaded an effort to support the family after Chosvig was born with s pina b ifi da and hydrocephalus on June 10, 1999 . From then on, Hartley turned Ronald McDonald’s p ull t ab p rogram into a math project for her students. The program invites schools and other groups to collect pull tabs from aluminum cans and deliver them to their local Ronald McDonald Nicole Bales/The Astorian Wade Chosvig and Alexis Joseph honor Dee Hartley at Warrenton Grade School’s year-end assembly. House. The h ouse melts and recycles the aluminum to offset expenses. Hartley heard of Chos- vig’s condition from Joseph , who was in her second-grade class at the time. Hartley was stunned when Joseph told her they were not able to bring her little brother home as he was fl own to Port- land shortly after delivery at Columbia Memorial Hos- Rates going up in Warrenton pital in Astoria. The family spent the following year at Ronald McDonald House in Portland. “Every year as Wade has undergone multiple sur- geries Mrs. Hartley at the end of every June has been there with a car full of pull tabs, a hug and support,” Joseph said at the assembly in the school’s gymnasium. “Thank you for being a shin- Cap and trade: Cap would regulate nearly all sectors of the economy Continued from Page A1 A 5% hike for water, 4% for sewer By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian WARRENTON — Sewer and water rates are going up in Warrenton again, a com- bination of escalating opera- tional costs and the city play- ing catch-up after years of not increasing rates. The water rate increase is less than it was this fi scal year, noted City Manager Linda Engbretson at a City Com- mission meeting Tuesday. After next year, the increases will be even less under the city’s current schedule. But some on the City Commission are curious what it would look like to take care of the costs once and for all by raising rates more drastically to get the city up to the level they say it should have been at years ago. The 5% proposed for next fi scal year “is just enough that most people don’t notice it,” Commissioner Mark Bald- win said. But the complaint he keeps hearing, he said, is, “Well, you’re going to raise rates again.” It’s sort of a “death by a thousand cuts,” Mayor Henry Balensifer said. “What I’m saying is this is a Band-Aid ,” Baldwin said, asking, “Could we look fur- ther down the road?” City staff plans to come back with a report on what an “all at once” type of increase might look like . Past commis- sions had opted to ease the increases in over time. The City Commission held a fi rst reading for a 5% increase to monthly water rates and a 4% increase to monthly sewer rates. Both increases would add only a few dollars to the average cus- tomer’s bill starting in July. Costs are also going up for recycling by just over 2% , as are costs for the disposal of hazardous household waste. Clatsop County is nearing completion on a permanent facility for hazardous waste and applies a surcharge of $3.50 per ton to fund the haz- ardous waste program. The county requested that Recology, which handles recycling services for War- renton and garbage and recy- cling services for other cities , to increase the surcharge to $5 per ton to help cover the costs of building and operating the facility. City c ommissioners noted that, for now, people must travel out of the area to deal with hazardous waste and agreed an increase to the sur- charge made sense. But they demanded Recology provide wind latches for recycling bins ahead of any increase to rates for recycling services. The latches keep the lids closed and prevent recycling from spilling down streets on windy days. “There’s no sense in hav- ing recycling if your recy- cling’s on the road,” Balen- sifer said. A Recology representative at the meeting agreed and said the company could provide wind latches for all the recy- cling bins in Warrenton ahead of a rate increase. ing light when the world doesn’t seem so bright.” Joseph and Chosvig pre- sented Hartley with a plaque and fl owers and she was applauded and given a stand- ing ovation. “The school year has always been a hard time for me to say goodbye because it’s an ending and we were all excited for the birth of her sibling and when she got At about 20 minutes, it was easily the shortest of the 20 hearings the bill has endured. Business trade groups have long opposed the bill, but individuals working in industry have also made themselves seen in hearings for months. Wednesday was no dif- ferent, as log truckers ral- lied in front of the Capitol before fi lling the hearing room and overfl ow room, dressed in their well-worn pants, boots and suspenders. They apparently didn’t feel heard in the brief hearing, so they took to their trucks. For an hour and a half after the hearing, they performed an auditory assault on law- makers, driving around the building blowing their loud air horns to make sure they were literally heard. Under the cap-and-trade program, a 52 million met- ric ton cap will be placed over 80 percent of the state’s emissions. It would regulate nearly all sectors of the economy, excluding agriculture and forestry. Entities regulated by the cap which are emit- ting at least 25,000 met- ric tons of greenhouse gas- ses per year will have to buy allowances from the state for each ton over the limit. If companies overestimate their need, they can sell those allowances on a mar- ketplace linked to Califor- nia and Quebec, Canada. If they don’t buy enough, they can likewise purchase some on the marketplace. The state will make fewer allowances available over time, a mechanism intended to force industry to undertake conversions that reduce emissions. The tar- gets are a 45% decline from 1990s levels by 2035 and an 80% decline by 2050. It’s a wildly progressive proposal. Oregon’s plan is in part based on Califor- nia, but Oregon’s econ- omy is much smaller. The hope is to show other states that such a plan can work in smaller and more rural states. However, Republicans have been staunchly against the idea, saying it will dec- imate the rural way of life, where people work in mills and factories that would be hurt by cap and trade. They drive longer distances, mak- ing the estimated 16 cent- per-gallon increase in gas costs more signifi cant. To that end, Republicans made a last-ditch effort to change the bill with amend- ments drafted by industry and one that would remove the emergency clause. Both those proposals failed on party-line votes, as they did the day before in the Ways and Means Natural Resources Subcommittee. back she brought a picture,” Hartley recalled . “With all endings come new begin- nings and that’s what it felt like. This little boy’s life was starting and when I saw Alexis in the hall and learned about Ronald McDon- ald that seemed like a good start to another start to help something.” Her students would use the pull tabs over the school year to help them learn to count to the thousands. Some years, her class col- lected tens of thousands, and in other years, hundreds of thousands. Over time, sur- rounding elementary schools and high schools began to collect pull tabs to donate to Hartley’s class . Hartley said in 20 years her classes have collected 3. 2 million pull tabs. “Every year there’s always one person in the class who says one of their family members stayed there ... so they already know about Ronald McDonald House and it makes it real,” Hartley said. Every year, Hartley and Antilla lay out all the tabs at the year-end assembly and tell everyone how much they Consult a PROFESSIONAL have a Medicare Q: I Advantage plan and would like to switch to a Medicare Supplement Plan and prescription plan. When can I do this? Steve Putman Medicare Products 503-440-1076 Licensed in Oregon and Washington putmanagency@gmail.com sealants are a clear A: Dental coating place in the deep JEFFREY M. 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