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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019
New editor named at The Astorian
IN BRIEF
Port sues boat owner for
running into Pier 3
The Astorian
The Port of Astoria is suing a boat owner for
$147,000 in alleged damage to Pier 3.
The Port claims the fi shing boat Marathon, owned
by Marathon Fisheries out of Lincoln County, ran into
Pier 3 in July, causing a large portion of the dock to fall
off into the Columbia River.
Astoria Police Offi cer Matt Hansen confi rmed the
accident by speaking with crew members and review-
ing video footage, according to the Port. The agency
received a quote from marine contractor Bergerson Con-
struction for $147,000 in necessary repairs, later con-
fi rmed by a surveyor hired by the Marathon’s insurers.
“Despite clear liability and sum certain damages that
were confi rmed by defendant’s own contracted sur-
veyor and are not subject to reasonable dispute, defen-
dant Marathon recently failed to respond to the Port’s
attempt to resolve this matter out of court, and has
instead forced the Port to fi le this lawsuit to enforce its
right of recovery,” the Port’s lawsuit said.
Astoria police ask for help
fi nding missing man
The Astoria Police Department is asking people to
help them fi nd a missing person.
Thomas Joshua Hayes, 41, of Astoria, was last seen
in the Long Beach, Washington, area
on July 18. He is commonly known as
“Josh” and “Worm,” police say.
He is a Hispanic male with dark hair
and a mustache and goatee. He is 5 feet
6 inches tall and about 140 pounds. He
was wearing black athletic style shorts,
a red T-shirt and a backpack.
Thomas
Hayes was recently experienc-
ing diffi culty breathing and suspected Joshua Hayes
to have an undiagnosed respiratory
illness.
Anyone with information can contact Detective
Thomas Litwin at 503-325-4411 or tlitwin@astoria.
or.us.
Sunset Empire rec district
selects new board member
The Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District
selected Rodney Roberts to fi ll the vacant board Posi-
tion 1 seat on Tuesday. This is the second appointment
this year. In February, Roberts temporarily fi lled the
Position 5 seat left vacant by Alan Evans.
“I am thankful to have been chosen! I really believe
in SEPRD. They provide a much needed service to the
community,” he said. He’s “looking forward to working
with the board and staff at the district.”
Roberts was one of three candidates interviewed at
the district’s work session earlier this month, along with
Patrick Duhachek and Katharine Parker.
The Position 1 seat had been held by Veronica Rus-
sell, who stepped down in June.
“I’m excited to work with Rodney again. It was nice
to see so much interest from people about serving on the
board, which can be a pretty thankless position,” said
Skyler Archibald, the district’s executive director.
— The Astorian
Judge knocks down ballot measure
on whale watching rules
Whale watch tour companies have knocked a pro-
posed orca protection initiative off the November bal-
lot in San Juan County, Washington. The ballot measure
would have asked voters to greatly increase the stand-
off distance between boats and endangered orcas.
San Juan County is normally a prime feeding area
for the dwindling population of southern resident
killer whales. However, this year, the critically endan-
gered orcas have been largely absent from the archipel-
ago, probably because their preferred prey of Chinook
salmon are scarce.
— Northwest News Network
DEATHS
Aug. 20, 2019
HAIKKILA, LeRoy
“Roy,” 96, of Estacada,
formerly of Astoria, died in
Estacada. Estacada Funeral
Chapel of Estacada is in
charge of the arrangements.
KAUL, Janet of Sea-
side, 77, died in Seaside.
Hughes-Ransom
Mor-
tuary is in charge of the
arrangements.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Seaside City Council,
7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broad-
way.
TUESDAY
Astoria Library Board,
5:30 p.m., Library Flag
Room, Astoria Library, 450
10th St.
Astoria City Council,
5:30 p.m., special session,
City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
Warrenton City Commis-
sion, 6 p.m., 225 S. Main
Ave.
Astoria Planning Commis-
sion, 6:30 p.m., City Hall,
1095 Duane St.
Established July 1, 1873
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
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explicit prior approval.
The Astorian has a new
editor.
Derrick DePledge, a vet-
eran journalist who has held
editing and reporting roles
at the newspaper for the
past 4 1/2 years, will lead
the newsroom.
He replaces Jim Van
Nostrand, the editor for
the past two years, who
has accepted a job as Mis-
souri state editor for Gate-
house Media, leading 22
newspapers.
“There was no question
who would be our next edi-
tor,” said Kari Bor-
more equitable. He
gen, The Astorian’s
has also covered city
publisher. “We are
government in Asto-
fortunate to have
ria and Warrenton.
the combination of
“At our best, we
leadership, experi-
hold up a mirror to
ence and knowledge
our community,” he
Derrick
of our community
said. “Our staff rec-
DePledge
that Derrick brings
ognizes we live in
to the role.”
a unique, historic
DePledge, 53, has served place that deserves a news-
as managing editor, dep- paper to match.”
uty managing editor and
DePledge has more than
reporter at The Astorian. He 30 years of experience as
has written about the gaps a journalist, including a
in Clatsop County’s mental decade as a Washington,
health safety net and policy D.C., correspondent and a
changes intended to make decade as a state govern-
the criminal justice system ment and politics reporter
Warrenton settles with Shilo Inn over back taxes
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
WARRENTON — The
city has reached a settlement
with Shilo Inn over thou-
sands of dollars in unpaid
lodging taxes.
The agreement fi nal-
ized this month required the
hotel to pay the city $94,812
— an amount Shilo Inn has
since paid in full following
the signing of the settlement ,
according to April Clark, the
city’s fi nance director.
Around the time Warren-
ton fi led its lawsuit against the
hotel earlier this year, Shilo
Inn owed just over $188,000.
By July, the hotel made sev-
Warrenton has sought lodging taxes from the Shilo Inn.
eral payments, but still owed
over $120,000 in unpaid
taxes, fi nes and interest.
Shilo Inn has had “an
extensive history of late pay-
ment of transient room taxes”
By MALLORY GRUBEN
The Daily News
LONGVIEW — Mil-
lennium Bulk Terminals’
years-long proposal to build
a coal terminal in Longview
received another blow this
week after a state appeals
court sided with the Wash-
ington Department of Natu-
ral Resources’ 2017 decision
to deny the company a sub-
lease needed to build a dock
in the Columbia River.
The decision reversed
a previous decision by
Cowlitz County Superior
Court Judge Stephen Warn-
ing that DNR acted “arbi-
trarily and capriciously” in
denying Millennium sub-
lease for aquatic lands leased
by Northwest Alloys Inc.
But the state appeals court
said DNR’s consideration of
Millennium’s fi nancial con-
dition and business reputa-
tion was “expressly autho-
rized under the lease” with
Northwest Alloys, according
to court documents.
“And the additional infor-
mation DNR sought from
Millennium, which Millen-
nium failed to provide, was
relevant to DNR’s inquiry.
Accordingly, we conclude
that DNR’s denial of consent
to sublease was not arbitrary
and capricious,” the judges
wrote in an opinion pub-
lished Tuesday.
Northwest Alloys is a
subsidiary of Alcoa, which
bought Reynolds Metals
Co. and its Longview alumi-
num plant in 2000. In 2008,
DNR renewed the aquatic
lands lease with Northwest
Alloys, and the lease barred
Northwest from subleasing
the land without the DNR’s
consent.
The $680 million project
cannot move forward with-
out the sublease.
Northwest
Alloys
requested a sublease for Mil-
lennium in 2010, but DNR
5
$
Bill Wagner/The Daily News
The site of the Millennium Bulk Terminals proposed coal
export facility.
denied it in January 2017,
citing Northwest Alloys’
failure to provide DNR
with essential information it
requested about Millennium.
That included fi nancial
documents, which DNR rep-
resentatives say would have
shown whether Millennium
was fi nancially fi t to take
care of the aquatic prop-
erty, according to court doc-
uments. DNR noted that the
previous subtenant, Chinook
Ventures, “failed to obtain
the required state and local
regulatory permits for its
petroleum coke business and
failed to provide adequate
environmental controls,” the
court opinion says.
Millennium
appealed
the 2017 denial in Cowlitz
County Superior Court,
where Judge Warning sided
with company. He ruled that
DNR acted “arbitrarily and
capriciously” when it denied
the permit.
Soon after, several envi-
ronmental groups and DNR
appealed to the State Court
of Appeals. The groups
argued that DNR’s denial
was fair because Northwest
Alloys refused to provide
adequate information about
Millennium’s fi nances and
business reputation.
The state appeals court
judges reversed Warning’s
ruling and ordered the Supe-
rior Court to issue a new
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order affi rming DNR’s sub-
lease denial.
In a prepared statement
issued late Tuesday after-
noon, Millennium stated,
“We disagree with the Court
of Appeals decision. ... The
Court of Appeals got it
wrong and we will explore
all available remedies, legal
and otherwise, to continue to
move our project forward.”
The statement contin-
ued: “Lost in this decision
is the fact that Millennium
has already spent millions
of dollars to clean up the site
and remedy violations from
the previous tenant — Chi-
nook Ventures. Our compa-
ny’s fi nancial commitment
to the site cleanup, and the
recent growth in new rev-
enue-generating
business
activities on the site, demon-
strates our strong fi nan-
cial position and our com-
mitment to creating shared
value with our local commu-
nity,” according to the state-
ment, attributed to Kristin
Gaines, Millennium’s senior
vice president of regulatory
affairs.
Hilary Franz, DNR’s
Commissioner of Public
Lands, released a statement
Wednesday applauding the
court decision.
“The company repeatedly
refused to comply with rea-
sonable requests for infor-
mation related to its pro-
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posal. Washington’s aquatic
lands are too important to
risk on projects that are
not transparent and fi nan-
cially sound,” Franz said.
“I’m committed to mak-
ing sure Washington’s pub-
lic lands are used to improve
our state, now and well into
the future. That means pro-
tecting our environment and
our economy. Millennium’s
proposed coal terminal does
neither.”
The
environmental
groups that joined DNR in
the appeal also celebrated
the decision.
“DNR manages state
lands for the benefi t of the
public, not for the bene-
fi t of hedge fund investors
gambling on coal exports,”
Marisa Ordonia, an Earth-
justice attorney represent-
ing the conservation groups,
said in a prepared statement
early Tuesday evening. “The
Court of Appeals confi rmed
that DNR was appropri-
ately cautious about expos-
ing Washington to a dam-
aging and risky coal export
terminal, particularly given
Millennium’s
deception
early in the state permitting
process.”
Ordonia pointed to the
court’s opinion, which states
that Millennium “intention-
ally concealed the extent of
its plans for the coal export
facility in order to avoid
full environmental review”
when it fi rst sought per-
mits for the project about a
decade ago.
Millennium initially fi led
a permit to export 5.7 mil-
lion tons of coal annually.
But in 2011, internal emails
discovered from its parent
company, Australia-based
Ambre Energy, indicated
company executives dis-
cussed exporting as much
as 20 million or 60 million
tons. The fi nding led to alle-
gations that Millennium had
mislead public agencies.
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and did not respond to mul-
tiple written demands by the
city to pay what was owed,
according to the original law-
suit fi led by the city.
Beginning in September,
Shilo Inn will need to pay
its regular lodging taxes to
the city on a monthly basis
“without invoicing, or any
other notice or demand by
the c ity,” according to the
settlement.
Other cities have fi led
lawsuits against the com-
pany over unpaid taxes. Sea-
side has sued the hotel chain
twice in recent years for back
taxes. Portland fi led a lawsuit
against the company in Feb-
ruary seeking $314,000 in
unpaid taxes.
Appeals judges uphold denial of coal export lease
COPYRIGHT ©
Entire contents © Copyright,
2019 by The Astorian.
MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF
CIRCULATIONS, INC.
in Hawaii. He also spent
four years as the top elected
leader in Hawaii for the
Pacifi c Media Workers
Guild, a labor union that
represented 200 newspaper
workers.
DePledge and Van Nos-
trand both worked at the
Washington Bureau for
Knight Ridder Newspapers,
though at different times.
“In 35 years in the news
business, I’ve seen few edi-
tors better than Derrick
at leading and mentoring
young reporters,” Van Nos-
trand said. “I’m leaving the
newsroom in good hands.”
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