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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2019
STRIKING FOR CLIMATE
IN BRIEF
Colin Murphey/The Astorian
Michelle and Marcus Liotta have been awarded the 2019
DeMuro Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation
by Restore Oregon for their restoration of the M&N
Building in Astoria.
Liottas honored for
restoring M&N Building
The M&N Building in Astoria was one of 12 proj-
ects awarded the 2019 DeMuro Award for Excellence
in Historic Preservation by Restore Oregon.
Launched in 2013, the award is the state’s high-
est honor for the preservation, reuse and revitalization
of architectural and cultural sites. It is named for the
late architect Art DeMuro, who, among other projects,
designed the Mill Pond neighborhood in Astoria.
Marcus and Michelle Liotta purchased the M&N
Building in 2016. They restored the building, once
listed among Restore Oregon’s Most Endangered
Places, and stabilized the foundation using earth
anchors. The Liottas have since fi lled the building with
several new tenants, including South Bay Wild Fish
House, Hill’s Wild Flours, Terra Stones and the Recla-
mation Marketplace, a vintage bazaar run by Michelle
Liotta.
The Liottas will receive the award Nov. 1 at the
Restoration Celebration gala.
Hunters and fi shermen get their day
Saturday is National Hunting and Fishing Day.
The date coincides with the opening of buck deer
season — the biggest day of the hunting year. More
than 100,000 hunters are expected to participate. Elk,
duck and pheasant hunting seasons open in the com-
ing weeks, and 2019 marks a record year for tuna, with
recreational anglers catching more than 100,000 fi sh.
Oregon’s estimated 703,000 hunters and anglers
spend more than $929 million on hunting and fi sh-
ing, supporting an estimated 14,700 jobs, according to
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Sunset Empire transit district
seeks applicants
The Sunset Empire Transportation District seeks to
fi ll two open positions on the district’s board.
Applicants must be registered voters in Clatsop
County. Applications will be accepted through Oct. 14
at 5 p.m.
The appointees will serve until the next district
election in 2021. The board is responsible for opera-
tions policy and oversees a budget of about $8 million.
Applications are available on the transit district’s
website or may be picked up at the Astoria Tran-
sit Center, 900 Marine Drive, or the Seaside Transit
Offi ce, 39 N. Holladay Drive.
Completed applications may be emailed to jeff@
ridethebus.org or dropped off at either location.
— The Astorian
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Seaside City Council/Plan-
ning Commission, 6 p.m.,
joint workshop, City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Astoria City Council,
6:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
TUESDAY
Seaside Community
Center Commission,
10:30 a.m., Bob Chisholm
Center, 1225 Avenue A.
Port of Astoria Commis-
sion, 4 p.m., Port offi ces, 10
Pier 1 Suite 209.
Seaside Library Board,
4:30 p.m., Seaside Public
Library, 1131 Broadway.
Clatsop Care Health Dis-
trict Board, 5 p.m., Clatsop
Care Memory Community,
2219 Dolphin Ave., War-
renton.
Sunset Empire Park
and Recreation District,
5:15 p.m., workshop, Bob
Chisholm Community
Center, 1225 Avenue A,
Seaside.
Astoria Library Board,
5:30 p.m., Astoria Library
Flag Room, 450 10th St.
Miles Crossing Sanitary
Sewer District Board,
6 p.m., 34583 U.S. Highway
101 Business.
Seaside Planning Com-
mission, 7 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Established July 1, 1873
Circulation phone number:
503-325-3211
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Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Renée Rowe, of Indivisible North Coast Oregon, fl ashes her sign to passing cars during the Global Climate Strike in Astoria on
Friday. Dozens lined Marine Drive to raise awareness for the need to act on climate change.
Grocery Outlet to break ground in Seaside
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
SEASIDE — Grocery
Outlet will break ground in
Seaside on Monday, repre-
sentatives of the discount
grocery chain confi rmed.
In March, the Plan-
ning Commission gave its
unanimous OK for the new
18,000-square-foot Grocery
Outlet.
A 175-foot-long “turn
pocket” along U.S. Highway
101 southbound into Ave-
nue N will satisfy the state
Department of Transporta-
tion and the Planning Com-
mission’s requirement for a
left-turn lane. The turn pocket
will be developed before the
new store opens.
In
Astoria,
devel-
opers want to build a
16,000-square-foot
build-
ing on a triangle-shaped lot
where Commercial Street
runs into Marine Drive. The
back of the store would face
23rd Street, across from the
new Astoria co-op slated to
open in December.
An Astoria Design Review
Commission decision could
come in early October.
Wildfi re council tells
governor to update
fi refi ghting tools
By SAM STITES
Oregon Capital Bureau
Improving Oregon’s abil-
ity to fi ght wildfi res could
cost an estimated $4 bil-
lion, according to the Gov-
ernor’s Council on Wildfi re
Response, which has outlined
more than 50 recommenda-
tions the state needs to update
its fi refi ghting priorities and
techniques.
At its fi nal meeting Thurs-
day, the council presented
nine months of work that it
will give to Gov. Kate Brown
in early November.
When the governor cre-
ated the council in January, it
was asked to determine if the
state was set up for success,
said Matt Donegan, the coun-
cil chairman.
“Is what we have today
sustainable given the increase
in wildfi res that we’re see-
ing?” Donegan said. “I think
the general message back
from our committees is
no. Many of these systems
were built for another era
and need to be updated and
modernized.”
The primary charge of the
20-member group, Donegan
said, was to fi nd the right
strategy that hit key areas
of interest, such as saving
human lives and protect-
ing public health, protecting
homes and buildings, remov-
ing excess fuel from forests,
creating green jobs and revi-
talizing rural communities.
The council determined
that the state needs to reorient
some older systems in its fi re-
fi ghting protocol that are out-
dated for the modern wildfi re
realities. That includes the
way the state monitors public
health related to wildfi res and
smoke, emergency response
to the fi res, disaster recovery
measures, public education
about wildfi res and improved
research efforts at Oregon
State University.
Spending more
resources
Proposed changes would
include a multi billion dol-
lar, multi decade fuel mitiga-
tion initiative to reduce the
proliferation and severity of
Oregon wildfi res. An invest-
ment in fuel mitigation is
expected to come from both
state and federal dollars, as
well as expanded private sec-
tor investment and public-pri-
vate partnerships.
“The estimates that we
hear, it’s going to be $4 bil-
lion in terms of total costs,”
Donegan said. “It’s larger
than any one entity. This is
going to take the collective
power of the public-private
partnership.”
Recommendations
to
expand fi re suppression
efforts could mean major
changes to the state’s wild-
fi re response, specifi cally in
areas that will help protect
fi refi ghters, safeguard build-
ings and structures, and help
the state meet social, eco-
logical and economic goals,
Donegan said.
“In an era of climate
change, fuel buildup and pop-
ulation growth, we’re going to
have to spend more resources
in suppressing fi re,” he said.
“There is a hope that a cor-
relation between fuel loads
and suppression, overtime as
we invest more in mitigation
both with the wildland-urban
interface and the landscape,
that we can see our suppres-
sion cost decline.”
Donegan said state land
use planning tools could be
used to create cost savings by
taking hard looks at defensi-
ble space fi re control meth-
ods — creating landscaped
buffers around structures
designed to reduce fi re dan-
ger — as well as building and
zoning codes to create state-
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Sam Stites/Oregon Capital Bureau
Gov. Kate Brown addresses the Governor’s Council on
Wildfi re Response at the World Forestry Center in Portland on
Thursday.
wide standards in community
fi re suppression planning.
After the council pres-
ents its recommendations in
November, it will be up to
the governor and the Legis-
lature to develop options, set
priorities for recommended
actions and fi nd a way to
fund the estimated $4 billion
of investment in state’s wild-
fi re preparedness, response
and suppression.
“I’m really pleased with
the council’s work,” Brown
told reporters after the coun-
cil meeting. “This is a diverse
group of Oregonians that
came together to spend a
lot of time and energy to
address the changing needs
of our communities across
the state as it relates to wild-
fi re. It is absolutely instru-
mental that the state play a
role in bringing all the parts
together to create healthier
public lands, healthier for-
ests and of course, health-
ier and safe communities for
Oregonians.”
Smoky summers
for some
Improved fi re response,
more resilient landscapes and
better fi re and smoke adaptive
communities to keep Orego-
nians healthy topped the gov-
ernor’s list of priorities after
hearing Donegan’s pitch.
As an example of fi re and
smoke adaptive communi-
ties, Brown pointed to the
Rogue Valley, where, for the
past several summers, resi-
dents have dealt with horrid
air quality due to wildfi res.
“The Oregon Shakespeare
Festival typically does an
outdoor production. They
had to cancel about 24 or 25
of their outdoor productions
in 2018,” Brown said. “I
want to make sure our com-
munities like Ashland and
Medford have places to go if
there is that type of smoke so
that vulnerable populations,
whether its seniors, children
or people with asthma, have
places to go.
“We don’t want the Rogue
Valley smoked-in for six to
eight weeks. It destroys their
summer. It’s not healthy,
and it’s not good for the
economy.”
Speaking with reporters
after the council meeting,
Brown didn’t say where the
state would fi nd the $4 billion
it could need to make changes
suggested by the council. She
promised to fi nd ways to pro-
vide Oregon’s Department
of Forestry — which faces a
four-year, $100 million back-
log of debt for fi ghting fi res
on federal and private land —
with the necessary resources
it would need to continue
fi ghting state wildfi res.
“We’re
asking
(the
Department of Forestry) to
work under a structure that
was created in the 1900s to
fi ght fi re in what we’re see-
ing is substantially chang-
ing conditions,” Brown told
reporters. “I’m relying on
the work of the fi re council
to make recommendations to
changes in structure, changes
in fi nance and changes in
tools the (agency) needs to do
their jobs. This department is
a one of the fi nest in the coun-
try, and we want to make sure
they have tools and resources
they’ll need in the future.”
The Oregon Capital
Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group,
Pamplin Media Group and
Salem Reporter.
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