A6
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2020
County reports new virus cases
The Astorian
Clatsop County reported 18 new
coronavirus cases over the past few
days.
On Friday, the county reported
13 new cases.
The cases include a woman in
her 40s, a woman in her 70s and
a woman in her 80s living in the
southern part of the county.
The others live in the northern
part of the county and include two
males between 10 and 19, a woman
in her 20s, a woman in her 30s, two
men and a woman in their 40s, a
man and a woman in their 50s and a
man in his 60s.
One of the new reported cases
was hospitalized and the rest were
recovering at home.
On Thursday, the county
reported fi ve new cases.
The cases include a male under
10, two men in their 20s and a man
in his 40s living in the northern part
of the county. A woman in her 20s
living in the southern part of the
county also tested positive.
All fi ve were recovering at
home.
The county has recorded 458
cases since March. According to the
county, eight were hospitalized and
two have died.
The Oregon Health Authority
reported 91,420 cases and 1,138
deaths from the virus statewide as
of Friday morning.
Eviction: Ross has been a tenant since 2003
Continued from Page A1
part of Atlas’ lawsuit but
was due by April.
Ross, a tenant at the
shopping center since 2003,
argued that the company
was allowed a civil trial
instead of the expedited
eviction process the Atlas
attorneys were pursuing.
A judge ordered Ross
to pay more than $42,000
as security for unpaid rent
in October, November
and December in case the
retailer lost in court. The
security deposit has since
been returned.
Atlas attorneys claimed
Ross had refused to lease
property the retailer con-
trols to Providence, which
occupies space in a sepa-
rate building at the south
end of the shopping center,
and Chipotle, which plans to
build a new restaurant at the
shopping center.
RTG Property Manage-
ment, the Portland fi rm
managing leases at the
complex, issued a state-
ment announcing the name
change at the shopping cen-
ter and the end of the holdup
for new tenants .
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Ross Stores and Atlas Youngs Bay have settled a legal dispute
over rent.
“The settlement allows
Atlas to proceed with full
operation of the complex,
including bringing in ten-
ants that want to join and
expand at the complex and
Ross will continue their
long-term successful occu-
pancy at the center,” RTG
Property
Management
wrote.
Representatives
for
Providence have said the
health care provider wants
to expand services in War-
renton, but have declined to
share further details about
where until a lease is signed.
Chipotle had hoped
to open a new drive-thru
restaurant at the shopping
center by the end of the
year. Representatives from
the restaurant chain could
not immediately be reached
for comment.
The North Coast Shops
has struggled to fi ll several
peripheral storefronts since
Natural Grocers became a
third anchor tenant in 2018,
along with Ross and Rite
Aid.
Dooger’s Seafood and
Grill closed its restau-
rant at the shopping cen-
ter last year, shrinking the
local chain of restaurants .
Owner Doug Wiese said he
was unable to reach a satis-
factory lease extension with
Atlas.
Restaurant chains MOD
Pizza and Five Guys Burg-
ers and Fries had eyed split-
ting the former Dooger’s
building into two store-
fronts. MOD has since
abandoned its pursuit of a
Warrenton location. Repre-
sentatives with Five Guys
could not immediately be
reached for comment.
Scott Hess, the commu-
nity development direc-
tor in Warrenton, said the
city has not received any
land use applications for the
Dooger’s property.
Plant: ‘This could be a good milestone for us’
Continued from Page A1
The plant faced criticism
from the U.S. Coast Guard
and Life Flight Network
over the potential for birds
to endanger aircraft. But
the company convinced
planning commissioners
that the plant would avoid
attracting birds by covering
incoming seafood scraps
and processing the fi sh
meal in a sealed space with
fi ltered air. The company
also agreed to install a sys-
tem of wires on the plant’s
roof to prevent roosting.
Mark Barnes, a for-
mer interim city planning
director consulting for the
city on Scoular, said the
state Department of Avia-
tion is reviewing the plant
and will send a letter deter-
mining whether the opera-
tion is safe enough near the
airport. There are only two
concerns with approving
the fi sh meal plant before
receiving the state sign off,
he said.
“One is that the letter
is equivocating somehow
and just doesn’t settle” the
bird issue, Barnes said.
“And the other one is that
if the letter requires some
design changes that are so
substantial that this has to
come back. Minus those
two — I think, low-proba-
bility outcomes — I think
we’re in pretty good shape
on that.”
To assuage concerns
over wastewater, Scoular
recently signed a devel-
opment agreement that
will allow the city to limit
wastewater coming from
the plant. The city and Port
still need to fi nalize the
agreement, but Barnes said
the city’s Public Works
Department was confi dent
the agreement would solve
the issues .
The wastewater con-
cerns largely come from the
airport sending out expo-
nentially more wastewater
to the city than it receives
in treated water because of
tidal intrusion into under-
ground pipes. The Port has
agreed to install a pressur-
ized sewer system to cut
down on stormwater intru-
sion before the plant opens.
The Port, which has
been trying to develop the
industrial park for decades ,
hopes the Scoular plant
will lead to other projects
to help increase the agen-
cy’s lease revenue.
“This could be a good
milestone for us, and even
a gateway to future devel-
opment for the Port of
Astoria, the city of Warren-
ton and other businesses,
or any other industry that’s
attracted here that meets
your approval,” Robert
Stevens, a Port commis-
sioner, told the planning
commission. “I’d sure like
to see it.”
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Schools: One of the
big hurdles is staffi ng
Continued from Page A1
P lanning would have had
to begin soon, anyway, he
and other administrators said .
The logistics of fi guring
out how to bus students safely
and disinfect buses between
trips has required extensive
planning, for example, Hop-
pes said. One school board
member commented that it
seems to require a degree in
advanced mathematics.
Some details about what
students will do while at
school and how exactly
it will complement dis-
tance learning activities and
expectations are still being
determined.
One of the big hurdles
the school district faces with
reopening schools is staffi ng.
Hoppes noted that not all
families will be interested
in sending children back to
school buildings. Some may
choose to continue with dis-
tance learning for the rest of
the school year. If enough
parents decide to go this
route, it may require some
staffi ng changes to accom-
modate the in-person stu-
dents and online students
equally.
At the same time, Hoppes
has heard from other school
districts that saw a sudden
fl ood of interest in sending
kids back to school when
buildings reopened.
The school district has
sent out surveys to fami-
lies to further hone reopen-
ing plans. That information
is crucial as reopening details
are fi nalized, Hoppes and
administrators said.
Hoppes added that the
majority of parents he
spoke to while preparing the
reopening timeline appeared
to be in favor of a return to
school — even if it’s only for
a few hours four to fi ve days
a week. For some, the social
interactions their children
would gain from a return was
equal or even greater to the
academic opportunities.
Climate: ‘We
have to include
everybody in this’
Continued from Page A1
Sullivan and Nebeker
were endorsed by Clatsop
County Democrats and
Indivisible North Coast
Oregon, a progressive
group . The incumbents
were defeated by Courtney
Bangs and John Toyooka,
who were endorsed by
Clatsop County Republi-
cans and #TimberUnity,
a conservative group that
has fought climate change
legislation in Salem .
While
the
county
commission is nonpar-
tisan, Bangs, a Knappa
preschool teacher, and
Toyooka, a manager at
Lum’s Auto Center, will
shift the ideological bal-
ance of the board in a more
conservative direction.
Bangs and Toyooka
made cap and trade and the
county’s decision to opt
out of a $1 billion lawsuit
against the state over tim-
ber harvests issues in their
campaigns.
Sullivan and Nebeker
declined to take positions
on cap and trade before the
election. Both had voted in
2017 to opt out of the tim-
ber suit.
During the board meet-
ing Wednesday, Commis-
sioner Mark Kujala and
Commissioner
Lianne
Thompson abstained from
voting on the climate res-
olution and asked to
table the issue until after
a work session to dis-
cuss the idea with the new
commissioners .
“Is there anything that
is more important than
the content of this procla-
mation? ” Thompson said.
“Well, I’d say equal to that
is the process by which
it was developed and
brought forth, because that
plays a determining role in
how it will be carried out.
“I am a devoted,
staunch environmentalist.
I want this carried out, and
for that reason, I seconded
Commissioner Kujala’s
motion because we have
to include everybody in
this — everybody in our
community. We have to
give everybody fair warn-
ing and a chance to be
heard. We don’t have that.
Because we don’t have
that, I trust in the goodness
of our incoming commis-
sioners, I trust in the right-
ness of this cause, I trust
that going forward the
new board will seek a bal-
anced environment, econ-
omy help.
“We’re in the midst of a
pandemic, our economy is
in tatters and we’re deter-
mined to save the planet.
But we have to do all three
of it or we will accomplish
none of it.”
Thompson added, “This
is a bad process. When we
get a letter to the editor on
Nov. 21 that calls on this
to happen when there is
a three-vote majority of
quote ‘progressives,’ and
I don’t, as a commissioner,
even hear about this until
the board packets are
already in the mail, that is
a sadly defi cient process.
I have to abstain on the
basis of process.”
Kujala pointed to the
new strategic plan the
board has been working
on for the past year.
“I thought we agreed to
a more kind of balanced
and nuanced discussion of
environmental and climate
change policy,” he said.
Sullivan, the board’s
chairwoman, apologized
that the resolution did not
make it on a work session
agenda.
“I think for me, this
is my last meeting, and I
regret that we didn’t have
a proclamation like this
four years ago,” she said.
“I regret that we haven’t
had a proclamation like
this every single year, that
we don’t have ... a stan-
dard part of our agenda
to talk about upcoming
issues that concern the
entire community.”
Sullivan added that
there are many people in
the community who want
to see a public declaration
from the county’s highest
governing body acknowl-
edging climate change.
“I appreciate what
the two commissioners
have said and I under-
stand where they’re com-
ing from,” Nebeker said
of Kujala and Thompson.
“But I also think that there
is a time to take a stand
and to show leadership
and to not wait for every-
one to agree or to achieve
a consensus.
“While that would be
ideal, I feel for my part,
as a commissioner at this
time — even though I rec-
ognize that there will be a
new commissioner — it is
my duty to act on procla-
mations and issues that I
see as important now.”
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