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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019
IN BRIEF
New school activity bus
will debut in Seaside
SEASIDE — A new activity bus will join Seaside’s
fl eet of school buses this school year.
With extended leg room and overhead storage, “it’s
like an airplane,” Michelle Wunderlich, a school board
member who head’s the transportation committee, said
with a laugh. “Except it doesn’t take off.”
On Tuesday evening, the school board unanimously
approved the $187,343 purchase of the bus.
The hope is the extra space will allow students to get
more rest on their way home after sporting events, specif-
ically on school nights. League games regularly require
student-athletes to ride for more than an hour each way.
During the playoffs, students can ride up to fi ve hours.
Providence Seaside unveils plans
for new emergency rooms
SEASIDE — Fred Loser remembers when things
were so quiet at Providence Seaside Hospital that they
would send doctors home for lack of business.
“When I came here in 1990 and ‘91, there were days
when there was nobody here. With a full staff, they’d
send people home to save expenses,” the Seaside resi-
dent said. “Now look at it — you can’t even get in the
door.”
Today, emergency room manager Cherie Echelbarger
said the emergency room sees about 10,000 patients a
year.
“Transforming our emergency services is going to
be really monumental here at Providence and the care
we are able to provide the people who use our services
here,” said Don Lemmon, the chief executive of Provi-
dence Seaside.
The $5 million project is expected to be completed
in June.
Washington hosts free day at parks
Washington State Parks is hosting a “free day”
Sunday in honor of the National Park System’s 103rd
birthday.
Day-use visitors will not need to purchase a Discover
Pass to visit state parks.
A Discover Pass — $30 annually, $10 for a day pass
— is usually required with any vehicle entering a state
park in Washington. The pass is still required on Wash-
ington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department
of Natural Resources lands.
Herman holds meet and greet
Astoria City Councilor Joan Herman is holding a
“Meet the Councilor” event from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednes-
day in the Flag Room of the Astoria Library, 450 10th St.
All are welcome to come, or drop in, and ask any
questions or share concerns about city-related projects.
For questions, email Herman at jherman@astoria.or.us
— The Astorian
DEATHS
Aug. 20, 2019
HUTT, Mary, 94, of
Warrenton, died in War-
renton. Hughes- Ransom
Mortuary is in charge of
the arrangements.
Aug. 16, 2019
GEISLER,
Donna
Lee, 68, of Knappa, died
in Portland. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
MEMORIAL
Friday, Aug. 23
MATTHEWS, Michael “Skip” — Memorial at
4:30 p.m., on the dock, at the end of Sixth Street, on
the Columbia River.
ON THE RECORD
DUII
• Eric Dawane Smith,
30, of Astoria, was
arrested Tuesday morn-
ing on 45th Street and
Lief Erikson Drive for
driving under the infl u-
ence of intoxicants. His
blood alcohol content
was 0.14%.
•
Brian
Douglas
Campbell, 36, of Glad-
stone, was arrested Sun-
day on the 400 block
of W. Marine Drive for
driving under the infl u-
ence of intoxicants. His
blood alcohol content
was 0.17%.
Disorderly conduct
•
Kelsey
Dawn
Nguyen, 22, was arrested
Monday on the 800 block
of W. Marine Drive for
disorderly conduct in the
second degree.
• Trace Morris, 47,
was cited and released
Sunday at Providence
Seaside Hospital for dis-
orderly conduct.
Strangulation
• Travis Lee Row-
land, 34, of Seaside, was
arrested Monday in Sea-
side for strangulation.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Sunset Empire Transportation District Board, 9 a.m.,
Astoria Transit Center Conference Room, 900 Marine Drive.
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PAINTED
LADY
Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
Dancers took over the Painted Lady Lavender Farm in Ilwaco on Saturday for the eighth annual belly dance festival.
Hood to Coast goes green
Move toward
sustainability
By KATHERINE
LACAZE
Seaside Signal
O rganizers of the Hood
to Coast Relay are making
strides during this year’s
race to adopt more sustain-
able event management
practices and mitigate waste.
The roughly 200-mile
relay draws about 19,000
participants, along with
thousands of volunteers and
spectators, who travel from
Timberline Lodge on Friday
to Seaside on Saturday .
“We have a responsibility,
but also the ability to reach
a lot of people within the
race community, so we can
help drive social change,”
Hood to Coast spokesman
Dan Floyd said. “There’s so
much we can do at our own
event.”
Although
the
orga-
nizers
have
internally
attempted small measures
for improved waste manage-
ment over the past decade
or so, they are undertaking
a more concerted effort this
year through a partnership
with Elysium Events, a sus-
tainable event management
company out of Portland.
Elysium founder and
owner Lindsey Newkirk
said in this initial year, they
are using “a little bit of a
softer approach to just try to
get people information,” and
bring awareness to the mas-
sive amount of waste cre-
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
The Astoria City Council
tentatively denied a project
that would have converted a
5-unit apartment building on
Commercial Street into Airb-
nb-style rentals.
The unanimous decision
upheld a Planning Commis-
sion vote in June to deny the
application from Steward-
ship Homes LLC. The Tigard
company appealed the Plan-
ning Commission’s denial,
saying the commission’s
concerns over lack of park-
ing and the loss of long-term
rentals did not apply.
But city councilors added
to the list at the appeals hear-
ing Monday, saying they
did not believe the use was
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get into a recycling stream
— rendering it too diffi -
cult to sort — the entire
load will be sent to a land-
fi ll, Newkirk said. Elysium
has a strategy for helping in
this area by providing back-
of-house sorting to remove
contaminated items. Groups
of students from Glencoe
High School and Roosevelt
High School have volun-
teered to help with sorting
in exchange for bottles and
cans that can be depos-
ited for money at the Ore-
gon Beverage Recycling
Cooperative.
As Newkirk pointed out,
however, “It’s all the more
environmentally preferred
to prevent waste from occur-
ring in the fi rst place.” Par-
ticipants are encouraged to
use a refi llable water jug or
bottle instead of single-use,
disposable plastic bottles,
and buy snacks in bulk or
put together homemade
snacks in reusable contain-
ers, as opposed to individu-
ally wrapped items.
a good fi t for the neighbor-
hood. They questioned how
the project would benefi t the
city.
City Councilor Roger
Rocka noted the two-story
building’s proximity to a
community park and the
First Baptist Church. Though
located in a commercial zone,
the feeling of the neighbor-
hood is decidedly residential,
he said.
Councilor Jessamyn West
pointed to the c ouncil’s goals
established earlier this year,
one of which is to support
efforts to increase Astoria’s
long-term housing supply.
The councilors did com-
mend Matt Gillis, of Stew-
ardship Homes, for his care
of other buildings he owns in
the city.
Gillis and Garrett Ste-
phenson, the lawyer repre-
senting Stewardship Homes,
said they understood the con-
cerns about housing .
“But,” argued Stephen-
son, “I think, at a very central
level, that’s a citywide prob-
lem and that’s not for this
application to solve.”
Nor is there any require-
ment for Gillis to offer hous-
ing at affordable or work-
force rates, he noted.
A ban on converting res-
idential units into short-term
rentals was not under con-
sideration when Stewardship
Homes submitted its appli-
cation, Stephenson said. He
also argued against using the
perceived lack of on-street
parking as grounds for denial.
But concerns about hous-
ing remained a sticking point
for city councilors and peo-
ple opposed to the project.
Sara Lu Heath, execu-
tive director of the Astoria
Downtown Historic District
Association, wrote that the
association has heard “from
our membership that there
is not adequate workforce
housing in Astoria, and this
is hindering attempts to hire,
expand, and in some cases
just keep normal business
(hours). Losing this asset is
not in the best interest of our
year-round community.”
City staff will rewrite
their fi ndings to refl ect the
City Council’s arguments.
The City Council plans to
fi nalize its denial of the
appeal at a special meeting
on Tuesday.
ROCKFORD
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MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ated at large events, such as
the “Mother of All Relays.”
The main challenges with
Hood to Coast are the num-
ber of people out on the
course and the numerous
exchange points that man-
ifest almost as individual
“minievents along the way,”
Newkirk said.
One step this year is
implementing a strategy to
ensure recycling is done
correctly through build-
ing awareness and dissem-
inating useful information.
Organizers are providing a
sorting guide with tips on
reducing waste at exchange
points where vendors are
serving food and bev-
erages. Participants can
access the guide using the
recently introduced race
app — which also provides
safety and course informa-
tion to keep people updated
about weather or last-minute
changes.
Many people may not
be aware, for instance, that
if too many contaminants
Astoria shoots down vacation rental project
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2019 by The Astorian.
Hood to Coast Race Series
Runners at the starting line of the Hood to Coast Relay.
Teams also can sign an
online pledge to commit to
preventing creating waste. If
every van were to convert to
reusable water jugs and bot-
tles, they could collectively
avoid an estimated 157,000
single-use disposable plas-
tic bottles throughout the
course of the race.
The implementation of
these strategies will allow
organizers to establish met-
rics for determining the
event’s average resource
recovery rate and gauging
waste reduction efforts in the
future, as well as identifying
new sustainable solutions
and waste prevention incen-
tives that could be used.
“This year, we’ll at least
be able to create a baseline,”
Newkirk said. “We can use
that baseline for creating
goals for increasing that
recovery rate over time.”
This will be the 30th
year Hood to Coast has used
Seaside to host the p arty at
the beach for participants.
Like the varied terrain and
starting point at Timber-
line Lodge on Mount Hood,
Floyd said, the party on the
beach is one of the iconic
aspects of the event that peo-
ple have come to expect .
“They defi nitely like
coming and experiencing a
lot of the same things,” he
said. “We are selling people
on the venue as much as the
actual race.”
Teams fi lter into town
from early morning until
night during the second day
of the race, and the public is
welcome to join the party.
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