A6
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2020
Museums: ‘85% to 90% of people come in with masks already’
Continued from Page A1
around admissions staff and
focused a position on clean-
ing touch points.
McAndrew Burns, the
historical society’s execu-
tive director , said money
from the federal Paycheck
Protection Program helped
keep employees on. They
removed touch screens at the
Heritage Museum and closed
off a research section where
a rchivist Liisa Penner is one
of the foremost experts on
the region’s history.
The challenge hasn’t been
cleaning surfaces, but rather
dealing with the tight quar-
ters at the former jail and
fi nding enough volunteers
to help run other properties,
such as the Flavel House
Museum, Burns said.
“Our volunteer base at the
Flavel House, of course, are
right in that sweet zone of
people that should be con-
cerned,” he said of older vol-
unteers. “About half of them
have not come back yet.
We’ve appreciated that they
would love to come back,
but they don’t feel like it’s
safe until there’s a cure.”
The Seaside Aquarium,
a galleria of exotic sea life
on the city’s P romenade,
reopened May 20 with a
mask requirement . Little
painted fi sh guide people
on a one-way route around
around the aquarium’s main
showroom of fi sh tanks. Vis-
itors still feed seals at the
end.
Keith Chandler, the gen-
eral manager of the aquar-
ium, said the museum has
focused on making sure
everyone has a mask.
‘WE PUT THE GUIDELINES
IN. WHETHER THEY FOLLOW
THEM OR NOT, WE CAN’T
REALLY ENFORCE THAT ALL
THE TIME. BUT THEY’RE THERE.’
Keith Chandler | general manager of the Seaside Aquarium
time slang and a new series
on local shipwrecks that will
lead up to a new exhibit.
New exhibits
Clatsop County Historical Society
The Clatsop County Historical Society has debuted two new exhibits at the Heritage Museum,
including ‘Model City’ on how Astoria was planned and promoted over history. The exhibit
features Ebba Wicks Brown’s topographic maps from her 1946 master’s thesis.
“People are actually
being pretty good,” he said.
“At fi rst, we were having to
give quite a few masks away,
but now, 85% to 90% of
people come in with masks
already.”
As one of the few private
museums with a tight bud-
get based on entry fees, the
aquarium largely relies on
the honor system for social
distancing and the one-way
route.
“We put the guidelines
in,” Chandler said. “Whether
they follow them or not, we
can’t really enforce that all
the time. But they’re there.
The signage is there for them
to follow if they choose to.”
A refresh
The extended closure did
provide museums down-
time for maintenance and a
refresh of exhibits.
The M aritime M useum
brought in contractors to
build walls for better sound
and lighting. Staff replaced
all the technology through-
out the great hall, said c ura-
tor Jeff Smith.
“We’ve had that on the
schedule for over a year
and had secured funding for
that over a year ago,” Smith
said. “And when we had this
unforeseen downtime, we
decided, ‘Well, now is an
excellent time to take that
work on.’”
Nate Sandel, the muse-
um’s director of education,
said the museum hadn’t done
much virtually before all
physical visits to schools and
summer camps were can-
celed because of the virus.
Then the museum started
offering up its fi eld educator
on Zoom calls with teachers
in their virtual classrooms.
“When she would be
on the Zoom call with the
teacher, the teacher would
get the highest amount of
student participation, of stu-
dents logging in,” Sandel
said. “And so that kind of
gave us a little fi re under our
wings to say, ‘What more
can we do to engage these
students that are sitting at
home?’”
The museum started a
series of virtual education
lectures, from short pieces
on student miniboat con-
struction programs and Ore-
gon’s top seafoods to mari-
Emergency: ‘I think we can anticipate that
this is going to continue for some time ...’
Continued from Page A1
“I think we can anticipate
that this is going to continue
for some time, and I didn’t
want to have to do this exten-
sion every month,” Asto-
ria Mayor Bruce Jones said
Monday night. “I fi gured let’s
wait at least two more months
before we do it again.”
The City Council also
held a public hearing so staff
could apply for a $150,000
community
development
block grant through the state
to give low- and moder-
ate-income businesses and
employees across the county
small grants.
At 23.5%, the county had
the second-highest unem-
ployment rate in May, behind
only Lincoln County. A smat-
tering of businesses across
the county have started to
close during what would usu-
ally be the busy tourist sea-
son. Some owners cited the
coronavirus and government
restrictions as factors in their
decisions .
Mary McArthur, the exec-
utive director of the Colum-
bia-Pacifi c Economic Devel-
opment District, wrote the
grant application. Clatsop
Economic
Development
Resources would distribute
the money to businesses of
25 or fewer employees. More
signifi cantly, the money can-
not be used for the same
relief purpose or time period
as federal funds.
McArthur said Tues-
day that Clatsop Economic
Development Resources has
already been distributing
other small business relief
funds through the state and
has not yet run out. She won-
ders whether there will even
be enough demand for relief
funds among businesses that
have not received other fed-
eral support.
“This all may be a moot
point,” she said of the block
grant . “It looks like these
businesses are either going
out of business and not going
to take any money, or they’re
actually getting by, and can
use just a little bit of this
other small business assis-
tance money.”
McArthur called the
restrictions related to prior
federal support signifi cant,
but still urged small busi-
nesses across the county to
apply and said partners are
seeking more unrestricted
money.
“I know our small busi-
nesses are having a diffi cult
time out there, and I hope
it helps bridge a gap,” City
Councilor Tom Brownson
said .
Astoria is the only local
government in the county
that meets the technical
requirements to apply on
behalf of the county for fed-
eral community development
block grants through Busi-
ness Oregon, the state’s eco-
nomic development agency.
The city is also applying
for $50,000 from the state
for protective equipment that
would be disbursed through
the county’s Public Health
Department. The money
would focus on emergency
responders, public health
workers and the costs of
community testing.
Cruise boats: Ships will carry minimal crew
Continued from Page A1
late July because of virus
concerns .
The Port of Astoria has
canceled all but three of the
more than 30 large, oceango-
ing cruise ships that planned
to stop locally this year on
their way up and down the
West Coast.
Local offi cials in May pre-
vented the Port from host-
ing two mostly empty ocean-
going cruise ships and their
crews after an outbreak of the
virus at Bornstein Seafoods
in Astoria.
Laying up the ships while
idle could have made the
Port around $15,000 a day,
according to Will Isom, the
agency’s executive director.
Isom reported to the Port
Commission on Tuesday that
the agency narrowly lost out
on another opportunity to
lay up the Regatta, an Ocea-
nia Cruises ship that had been
scheduled to arrive Tuesday
from Oakland, California.
The Port heard a couple
of weeks ago that the ship
had technical diffi culties and
instead went to Los Angeles,
Isom said.
“They don’t think the ves-
sel will be ready to move here
for the next few weeks,” he
said.
Closure: ‘We need to have this fresh fi sh available locally’
Continued from Page A1
Cotte said. “And that was it.
Then he left.”
The surprise was as big to
him as it was to customers .
“I couldn’t give them any
consolation of why, because
I didn’t know either,” Cotte
said.
Bud Charlton, a late com-
mercial fi sherman, set up
Warrenton Deep Sea Co.
in the 1960s and acquired
a former clam company for
his market, according to his
son, Mark Charlton .
Charlton said the market
moved around from Can-
non Beach to near the Rite
Aid in Warrenton before
locating along the Skipanon
in the 1970s, where it pro-
cessed, canned, wholesaled
and retailed seafood.
“We processed thousands
and thousands and thou-
sands of cans of salmon,
tuna, sturgeon,” Charlton
said. “We smoked all those
fi sh and sold them through
the market. In fact, at Christ-
mastime, we’d have a UPS
truck full of our fi sh, the
Stormy Brand.”
Mark Kujala, a Clatsop
County c ommissioner who
represents Warrenton, called
Bud Charlton a fi xture in the
community and Warrenton
Deep Sea one of the premier
fi sh markets in the region.
“I remember as a young
kid going to Warrenton
Deep Sea,” he said. “And we
certainly did a lot of busi-
ness with them for Skipanon
Brand Seafoods.”
Skipanon Brand closed in
2018 after working through
a voluntary recall of canned
products in 2015. Kujala said
he has no plans to reopen the
market, both because of the
diffi culty in recovering from
the recall and because of
increased challenges, such
as fl uctuating seafood costs,
higher labor costs and more
regulations.
“The industry changed,
and it was very hard to make
it pencil out for a lot of peo-
ple,” Kujala said. “That’s
why you don’t see many fi sh
markets around anymore.
You see a lot of them start
up and then they don’t last.”
Astoria, once home to
only Northwest Wild Prod-
ucts, has seen several more
hybrid seafood markets and
restaurants open up, includ-
ing Hanthorn Crab Co. on
Pier 39, Hurricane Ron’s on
Marine Drive, South Bay
Wild Fish House on 10th
Street and Astoria Marina
Seafoods at the West Moor-
ing Basin.
Bell Buoy of Seaside still
operates a restaurant and
market along U.S. Highway
101 . Ecola Seafoods in Can-
non Beach reopened in 2018
after being heavily damaged
by an electrical fi re.
Kujala said he’d gladly
patronize another shop in
Warrenton.
“We need to have this
fresh fi sh available locally,
since we’re located in such
a wonderful place on the
Columbia River and on the
Pacifi c Ocean,” he said. “We
should have access to this
great product.”
Cotte said he is in the
beginning stages of planning
his own operation.
“It’s not starting from
scratch, but kind of work-
ing backwards a little bit,”
he said. “The absence of a
retail market in the area …
is huge, and it’s a big oppor-
tunity, too.”
With much of staffi ng
paid for by federal relief
funds, the h istorical s ociety
assigned staff special proj-
ects, Burns said.
At the Heritage Museum,
they set up two new exhib-
its. “Signs of the Times ”
explores through historical
signs how local businesses
and Astoria have grown and
changed over time. “Model
City ” uses scale models to
look at earlier planning and
promotion of the region.
The h istorical s ociety lost
a robust calendar of events to
the coronavirus, Burns said,
but upped social media pres-
ence and continued radio
spots to keep its name out.
With coronavirus cases
rising globally and in Ore-
gon, museums are following
safety guidelines and stay-
ing on their toes for new reg-
ulations. The h istorical s oci-
ety will follow local and
state guidelines, along with
its own comfort level, Burns
said.
“If things aren’t seeming
to work the way that we’d
like, if too many people at
the fi lm m useum are getting
angry about waiting, maybe
we’d switch to timed entry,”
he said. “But we’re just kind
of reacting to our public and
to our volunteers and to our
staff. People make sugges-
tions. We listen, and we’ll
swerve as we need to.”
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