147TH YEAR, NO. 28
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Water
district
votes to
dissolve
$1.50
BACK TO SCHOOL
Oversees dam and
other property
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
The Skipanon Water Control
District board has voted to dissolve.
For more than a half-century,
the water district has had over-
sight of three federally financed
flood-control structures on the Ski-
panon River — the Eighth Street
Dam, the Middle Control Structure
and the Cullaby Lake Water Con-
trol Structure.
“The district seeks to cooper-
atively and transparently do this
process of dissolution,” Tessa
Scheller, the board’s chairwoman,
told Clatsop County commission-
ers on Wednesday night.
“We haven’t done it before. We
don’t know anybody around who
has, but we want to do it coopera-
tively and transparently.”
The water district — gov-
erned by an elected board — is
in no hurry and wants to plan for
the orderly transition of assets
and responsibilities, Scheller said.
She told commissioners the dis-
trict owes no money and owns no
property.
The county will likely become
responsible for the Cullaby Lake
structure, while Warrenton will
likely take control of the Eighth
Street Dam, Monica Steele, the
interim county manager, said. The
Middle Control Structure was
decommissioned.
“(It is) pretty unusual to have the
government go away, but we want
to do it well, probably because we
invested so much in the process.
We don’t just want to walk away
from it, which we obviously could
by just simply resigning,” Scheller
said in an interview.
“We really do wish the county
and city of Warrenton well in man-
aging these two last dams,” she
said. “I hope very much the Eighth
Street Dam will go away and be
turned into a bridge like planned,
and I think the county will be just
fine operating the little Cullaby
dam.”
Edward Stratton/The Astorian
Warrenton-Hammond School District used part of its Measure 98 funding on a back-to-school night for incoming ninth graders at
Warrenton High School.
Schools invest to keep
students coming back
New money to improve
graduation rates
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
EASIDE — Chelsea Archibald
was working as a pastry chef at the
Stephanie Inn in Cannon Beach
when she saw a listing for a new culi-
nary teacher at Seaside High School and
decided to take a chance. Now in her
second year, Archibald runs four daily
classes in one of the high school’s most
popular programs.
Seaside’s investment in a culinary
instructor was part of around $750,000
a year added to the budgets of Clatsop
County school districts by Measure 98,
a voter-approved initiative to improve
graduation rates, add career-technical
classes and expand students’ access to
college credits.
As school districts invest, they are
S
Chelsea Archibald
Chelsea Archibald, top left, was hired
as a full-time culinary instructor at
Seaside High School using Measure 98
funds meant to support career-technical
learning opportunities.
also creating school improvement plans
to secure even bigger pots of money
from the Student Success Act. The new
gross receipts tax is projected to add $1
billion a year in funding for K-12 initia-
tives statewide.
Oregon voters passed Measure 98 in
2016 to help improve the state’s dismal
graduation rate of 74%, the third-worst
in the U.S. The measure added $170 mil-
lion over the past two years earmarked
for dropout prevention, career-techni-
cal courses and expanded college credit
opportunities.
The state’s graduation rate increased
to 78.7% statewide last year, the fifth
year of improvement but still nearly 6%
behind the national average.
Measure 98
New and improved programs have
popped up at school districts around
the county — construction in Jewell,
See Back to school, Page A6
See Water district, Page A5
Instructor gets keys
to auto program
Rowing
toward
history
Vocational
classes in
Warrenton
Ditton hopes to
row alone across
the Pacific Ocean
By EDWARD
STRATTON
The Astorian
By LUCY KLEINER
The Astorian
Last week, a small yel-
low boat flanked with color-
ful doodles of cartoon sea ani-
mals silently moved down the
Columbia River. On board
was one passenger, Lia Dit-
ton, who navigated and rowed
the five-day trip from Portland
to the Hammond Marina in
Warrenton.
Next spring, that little boat
and navigator will attempt
to do something even more
impressive: row across the
Pacific Ocean. Alone.
“I’m on a mission to be the
first woman to row the North
Lucy Kleiner/The Astorian
WARRENTON —
For the past nine years
at South Medford High
School, James Veverka
helped develop an auto-
motive program that
taught students the ropes
of working on cars and
eventually sent them to
work at local auto shops
and dealerships.
Veverka aims to do
the same in his new
position as automotive
and metal fabrication
instructor at Warrenton
High School.
See Veverka, Page A5
Professional ocean rower Lia Ditton prepares her row boat at the Hammond Marina.
Pacific,” Ditton said. “Possi-
bly the first person to row land
to land.”
But first, she has to master
the Oregon Coast.
Ditton, 39, is professional
boat racer, sailor and ocean
rower from London. She first
sailed across the Atlantic solo
at 24 as part of her fine arts
degree. In 2010, she rowed
across the Atlantic Ocean with
a partner in 74 days.
“I’d never felt so connected
to the ocean,” she said. “I’ve
spent a lot of time on it. It’s my
life, it’s my career, but for the
first time I felt really part of it.
“The oars are like these
extensions of your arms. You
feel the ocean. You suddenly
learn that water has different
textures, different conditions.”
And so she set her sights on
solo-rowing across the larg-
est and deepest ocean in the
world.
“Every year, somebody
goes out there and fails,” she
said of the North Pacific cross-
ing. “As a navigator, I started
to be really curious about why
that might be.”
What Ditton found is that
the last 50-mile segment
before boats reach the West
Coast is the hardest of the
entire trip. The only two peo-
ple, both Frenchmen, who
previously rowed across the
North Pacific required help
from a tow on that final leg.
Ditton’s goal is to cross the
ocean — 5,500 nautical miles
from Japan to San Francisco
— without any assistance.
See Rower, Page A5
Edward Stratton/The Astorian
The Warrenton-Hammond School District used Measure
98 funds to help hire James Veverka and start developing
an automotive and metal fabrication program in a new
shop going up next to Warrenton High School.