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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2020)
WINTER ADVENTURES »INSIDE AY THURSD 23 JAN. 2020 T NIGH DATE HOME FROM GE 2 PA HOLD L POET LOCA KSHOP S WOR GE 4 PA R TS FO S ST GRAN NEW CAL ARTI LO 10 PAGE A CHIL P L E Y ESCA OUT CHECK D WEST OSWAL PARK STATE PAGE 18 e Ch ines awing CASH dr $ at , Jan. 25 m - 8pm wings 6p Play Dra • Free M 8:08pm ASINO.CO THURSD AY, JAN UARY 0 // 23, 202 WBC 147TH YEAR, NO. 89 DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020 $1.50 GROCERY OUTLET Astoria hears group’s appeal City Council could decide next month By EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian The Grocery Outlet appeal came before the Astoria City Council on Tuesday, with the developer asking for collaboration to ensure an agreeable project and city staff admonishing councilors to avoid outside cont acts that could undercut their decision. Main & Main Capital Group has been trying since last year to get city permission to build a 16,000-square-foot grocery store on a triangular lot where Exchange Street runs into Marine Drive. The store would be located just north of the Astoria Mini Mart and across 23rd Street from the new loca- tion of the Astoria Co+o p. The Design Review Commission denied the proposal over several issues, including safety concerns for pedestrians crossing a driveway entrance to the store on Marine Drive. After being denied, Main & Main sought a fresh hearing from the City Council. Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian Astoria High School students Annalyse Steele, left, and Allyson Pritchard review their upcoming precalculus exam with classmates in Jessica Todd’s class. New approach to math hits stride Tests as a learning tool By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian M See Grocery Outlet, Page A6 Astoria OKs rules over downtown development City Council fi nishes Urban Core standards Colin Murphey/The Astorian Graduation rates have improved at Astoria High School. Grad rates continue to go up in county By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian By EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian The Astoria City Council on Tues- day unanimously approved new build- ing rules in the Urban Core section of the Riverfront Vision Plan guiding develop- ment along the Columbia River. The Urban Core, a swath of down- town and waterfront properties between Second and 16th streets, is the last of four sections of the Riverfront Vision Plan. City c ouncilors have approved new development rules for Bridge Vista in Uniontown, the Civic Greenway east of downtown and the Neighborhood Green- way in Alderbrook. Graduation rates across much of Clatsop County continue to climb . On-time-graduation — defi ned by the state as taking four years — has continued to go up across Ore- gon, according to state fi gures. The statewide graduation rate for the class of 2018-19 was at 80%, ahead of last year’s rate but still below the national high school graduation rate of 85% recorded in the 2016-17 school year. Astoria High School jumped to 85.8 %, up from what had been its highest graduation rate in over a decade recorded in the prior school year. The numbers follow a trend that has held steady for several years now in Astoria. “That’s a big jump that we’re very pleased to see,” said Lynn Jackson, the principal. He and Superintendent Craig Hoppes credit a dedicated staff with the rising graduation rate. They also pointed to other measures the high school and school district have taken over the years, such as hiring graduation coaches, increasing and creating programs to engage a wide See Grad rates, Page A6 any of the Astoria High School students in Phil- lip Ero’s calculus class had struggled to answer one of the ques- tions on a recent test. The formulas they deployed had only complicated the question and the answer, Ero told them. “The solution is very elegant,” he promised with the air of someone eagerly waiting for you to open a gift he knows you will love. Ero handed out blank copies of the test they had already taken. The stu- dents broke into groups of three or four. They took turns fl ipping through the test pages, scribbling out equations and talking about how they reached their answers. Midway through class, as students solved that one tricky problem with Ero’s help, there were actual exclama- tions of delight — and also frustration that they hadn’t seen the solution at the time. Astoria High School is entering its fourth year of using a curriculum and teaching method that fl ips traditional math instruction and student assess- ment on their heads, and the new approach is working, administrators and teachers say. Before switching to the College Preparatory Mathematics curriculum in 2016, too many students were strug- gling in math, said Liane Donovan, the vice principal. The Common Core standards for math and English language arts adopted in Oregon a decade ago require students to get further in their understanding of math than they ever had before, she said. See Math, Page A6 See Downtown, Page A6 Marlantes novel inspired by family history Author spoke at Columbia Forum By NICOLE BALES The Astorian Karl Marlantes, a bestselling author who grew up in Seaside , was inspired by his family history when writing his latest novel, “Deep River.” Marlantes grew up in a multi- lingual household hearing Finn- ish, Greek, English, Norwegian and Swedish. He said the cultural, reli- gious and political differences cre- ated a sense of “cultural schizophre- ‘IT’S ALMOST ALLEGORICAL IN WHAT WE FACE IN OUR COUNTRY TODAY. WE HAVE THE INDIVIDUAL AND WE HAVE THE COLLECTIVE.’ Karl Marlantes | author nia,” which in many ways inspired the central themes of the novel. He discussed his family’s history, their background in the forestry and fi shing industries and his reasons for writing the novel to nearly 200 peo- ple during a Columbia Forum talk Tuesday night at t he Liberty Theatre in Astoria. The novel is about three Finn- ish siblings who fl ed to the United States in the early 1900s and settled in a logging community in south- west Washington state. Each of the siblings grow to express and repre- sent different perspectives — one is deeply religious, the other is an entrepreneur and fearless logger and their sister, Aino, is an idealis- tic communist. Aino, the heroine and princi- pal character in the novel , begins her story arc as a fanatical commu- nist who was a leader in the effort Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian See Forum, Page A6 Bestselling author Karl Marlantes discussed his latest novel, ‘Deep River,’ at Columbia Forum at the Liberty Theatre on Tuesday night.
