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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020
Seaside aims to keep starfi sh lights bright
IN BRIEF
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Voters to decide on tax levy
for county fairgrounds
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners
voted Wednesday to ask voters to adjust a tax levy for
the county fairgrounds.
The current rate is 5 cents per $1,000 of assessed
value and expires in 2021. Voters approved a renewal
of the tax levy in 2016 at a reduction from 7 cents per
$1,000 of assessed value.
The vote in May would be whether to go back to 7
cents per $1,000 in 2021.
The county says the increase will help respond to a
rise in operating and building maintenance costs and
provide the opportunity for more events and programs.
New tobacco retail fee goes
into effect in February
A new tobacco retail license fee will go into effect
Feb. 8.
County commissioners approved an ordinance
in January which gives the county the authority to
license and inspect tobacco retailers to ensure they fol-
low Tobacco 21, which outlawed the sale of tobacco
products to people under 21 years old.
The annual fee of $350 will cover the costs associ-
ated with education and enforcement.
County backs enterprise zone
for Fort George Brewery
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners
voted Wednesday to approve an enterprise zone agree-
ment with Fort George.
Fort George plans to invest about $12.5 million to
redevelop the former Astoria Warehousing property
and applied for a 15-year tax abatement on invest-
ments to the property.
The Astoria City Council and Port of Astoria Com-
mission approved the brewery’s application earlier
this month.
County marks anniversary
of big Cascadia earthquake
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners
declared Sunday Cascadia Earthquake Awareness
Day.
The declaration is to encourage resilience plan-
ning for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and
tsunami.
Sunday is the anniversary of the last massive earth-
quake and tsunami along the zone in 1700.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
Jan. 23, 2020
In NOWAK,
Brief Delores
E., 79, of Astoria,
died in Astoria. Sky-
line Memorial Gardens
Funeral Home in Port-
land is in charge of the
arrangements.
Jan. 21, 2020
FLUES, Donna Jean,
79, of Astoria, died in
Astoria.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
Jan. 20, 2020
POWERS, James, 59,
of Warrenton, died in
Warrenton. Hughes-Ran-
som Mortuary is in charge
of the arrangements.
Jan. 17, 2020
M O D U N - G R O W,
Yvonne Darlene, 82,
of Warrenton, died in
Warrenton. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
RIEKKOLA, Robin
Edith, 65, of Astoria,
died in Astoria. Ocean
View Funeral & Cre-
mation service of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
BIRTH
Jan. 8, 2020
ALFARO-LURIEL, Rebecca and LURIEL, Jose, of
Keizer, a girl, Luna Paige-Maria Luriel, born in Salem.
Grandparents are Joni and Greg Alfaro, of Astoria, and
Jose and Ana Luriel, of Stayton.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Jewell School Board, 6 p.m., Jewell School Library, 83874
state Highway 103.
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway.
TUESDAY
Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob
Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A.
Clatsop County Human Services Advisory Council, 4 to
5:30 p.m., Room 430, 800 Exchange St., Astoria.
Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., Flag Room, 450 10th St.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main
Ave.
Astoria Planning Commission, 6:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
SEASIDE — Starfi sh
need your help.
No, not just the ones in
the ocean. We’re talking
about the sea star lighting
along Broadway downtown .
The popular lights,
which have proved a dis-
tinctive seasonal hallmark
of the visitor experience,
came to town in the late
1990s.
Members of the Sea-
side Downtown Develop-
ment Association are seek-
ing funds to maintain the
bulbs and keep them shin-
ing bright.
Stephanie
Stevenson,
of the Cotton Club and
Rascals, announced the
fundraiser at Thursday’s
breakfast meeting of the
downtown association.
On Feb. 5, from 8 a.m. to
5 p.m., 50% of the proceeds
from any of the handcrafted
drinks — coffee, tea, shakes
— at Cafe Latte in the Sea-
side Carousel Mall, owned
by Julie Jesse, will go to
starfi sh bulb replacement.
The lighting is in place
along Broadway and Holla-
day between the third week
Seaside Downtown Development Association
Starfi sh lights are an attraction in Seaside.
in September to the third
week in May.
Along with the fl ower
basket program, the starfi sh
lighting is one of two beau-
tifi cation projects sponsored
by the downtown develop-
ment association.
“We’ve always done
fundraisers for the fl ower
baskets, but never the star-
fi sh,” Stevenson said .
Keith Chandler, the gen-
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Tillamook County,
St. Helens were
targets for disruption
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
Tillamook County was
struggling to get its com-
puter and telephone systems
running again after it was
hit by a cyberattack, a week
after a nearby city lost data
and computer programs in
another apparent attack.
“All computer systems
are offl ine at this time, our
website is down and the
phones are working inter-
mittently,”
Tillamook
County offi cials announced
in a statement on Thursday.
At a meeting Wednesday, the
day the attack was noticed,
county offi cials referred to
it as a ransomware attack,
according to Laura Swan-
son, a local reporter who was
present.
“The county will be oper-
ating ‘old school’ for a few
days,” County Commis-
sioner Mary Faith Bell told
Swanson, a reporter from
the Tillamook County Pio-
neer online news site. “No
credit cards, and we’ll have
to come up with work-
arounds to take care of
county business.”
Ransomware is malicious
software that encrypts a sys-
tem, effectively locking out
its users. The attacker prom-
ises to decrypt the informa-
tion if paid.
County offi cials said in a
statement there is no indica-
tion that the personal infor-
Andrew Selsky/AP Photo
The Tillamook County Board of Commissioners heard fi nal
testimony in January on the application by tech giant
Facebook to use an oceanfront lot as a landing spot for a
submarine fi ber-optic cable.
mation of employees or res-
idents has been accessed or
misused. But experts said it
may be too soon to tell.
St. Helens, in Columbia
County, experienced a dis-
ruption in computers, emails
and telephones starting on
Jan. 14. The disruption is
still ongoing, though some
of it has been overcome, city
spokeswoman Crystal King
said Thursday.
The city government
said in a statement Wednes-
day that its phones and
some emails and computers
were still offl ine, affecting
all departments, including
City Hall, the library, pub-
lic works and police. Emer-
gency 911 phone number
and nonemergency dispatch
lines were unaffected.
King said in an email
Thursday that St. Hel-
ens engaged cybersecurity
experts to help investigate
“the suspicious activity and
to help restore access to pro-
By LIAM MORIARTY
Jefferson Public Radio
The Jordan Cove Energy
Project has abruptly with-
drawn its application for a
key permit from the state .
In a letter dated Thurs-
day , project developers told
the Oregon Department of
State Lands that the com-
pany was withdrawing the
application effective Friday.
No reason was given,
but earlier this week, the
department had denied Jor-
dan Cove’s request for a
fi fth deadline extension for
off
20
Select
the application.
It’s not immediately
clear what the withdrawal
means for the Jordan Cove
project.
Pembina — the Cana-
dian company behind the
project — wants to build a
229 mile-long pipeline to
a new liquefi ed natural gas
export terminal in Coos
Bay .
The company needs
the removal-fi ll permit for
dredging in Coos Bay, as
well as for the pipeline’s
hundreds of waterway and
wetland crossings.
But the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, or
FERC, is expected to make
a fi nal determination on the
project next month.
If FERC gives Jordan
Cove a green light, the com-
pany may argue that fed-
eral laws override Oregon’s
laws. In that case, the out-
come may ultimately lie
with the courts.
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grams and data within our
network.”
Columbia County has
reported no intrusions.
In 2019, 113 state and
municipal governments and
agencies, 764 health care
providers, and 89 universi-
ties, colleges and school dis-
tricts in the United States
were hit by ransomware
attacks, said Brett Callow,
threat analyst at Emsisoft, a
company that produces soft-
ware to protect computers
against attacks. The num-
bers came from a compi-
lation of press reports and
help requests the company
received, Callow said.
Among victims of recent
cyberattacks were city gov-
ernments in Las Vegas,
New Orleans and Pensacola,
Florida.
Tillamook County began
experiencing
diffi culties
with several computer sys-
tems on Wednesday. The
information
technology
department determined it
was a malware attack.
“Tillamook takes the
security of the informa-
tion entrusted to us very
seriously. We are taking
steps to prevent a similar
event from occurring in the
future, including strengthen-
ing security measures,” the
statement said.
County offi cials said
they would work with
law enforcement and hire
an independent computer
forensics provider and legal
experts to help in the inves-
tigation. The FBI offi ce in
Portland, which has a cyber-
crime task force, has offered
to help, spokeswoman Beth
Anne Steele said.
The attack has disrupted
county business, including
delaying mailing out notifi -
cations of the county com-
mission’s Jan. 9 decision to
grant Facebook permission
to build a landing spot for
an undersea fi ber-optic cable
connecting America with
Asia on a community’s res-
idential lot.
Residents of the tiny
beachside community of
Tierra del Mar vociferously
opposed the plan, which they
said will subject the village
to drilling that could damage
home foundations and septic
systems and open the door
for other similar projects.
Residents intend to appeal
the decision to the state Land
Use Board of Appeals. The
21-day clock for appeals
will not start until the notifi -
cations are mailed out, said
Lynnae Ruttledge, a Tierra
del Mar homeowner.
Jordan Cove withdraws application for key Oregon permit
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A banner across the inter-
section of Broadway and
Holladay displays the fi sh,
the starfi sh and the bubbles.
As for real starfi sh, they
are indeed at risk, Chandler
said. “There are not a lot,”
he said. “You can fi nd them
in the Cove at low tide.
Right now, there’s a starfi sh
wasting disease, so there’s
less starfi sh and sea stars
than there used to be.”
Cyberattacks hit local county, city governments
%
Established July 1, 1873
eral manager of the Seaside
Aquarium and the chair-
man of the downtown asso-
ciation, said the starfi sh
idea fi rst came to the city in
1998. The lights now need
replacing. “They just burn
out,” he said. “When one
loses more than one arm, I
restring the whole thing.”
Each string, which loops
through the entire starfi sh,
is 30-feet long.
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