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148TH YEAR, NO. 118
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2021
$1.50
CORONAVIRUS
Appeals court
overturns
‘peeping Tom’
convictions
Cazee was sentenced to
more than 35 years in prison
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Photos by Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Betty McWhorter leads the congregation at Grace Episcopal Church in Astoria, in-person and online, in prayer during the Palm
Sunday service.
‘Throughout this year,
we have never been alone’
At Easter, churches
wonder about the future
See Appeal, Page A6
Convention
center looks
beyond the
pandemic
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
t isn’t usually so diffi cult for Betty
McWhorter, a veteran Episcopalian
reverend, to write the annual Easter
letter to her congregation.
But after a year marked by disease,
isolation, loss and social upheaval —
a year where Easter celebrations hap-
pened on the calendar but not inside
most church buildings — the interim
rector for Grace Episcopal Church in
Astoria labored over what to say this
year.
Easter, the spring time commem-
oration of the death and resurrec-
tion of Jesus, is seen by Christians as
a time of renewal, newness. In the let-
ter McWhorter eventually wrote, she
concluded that, despite everything,
“throughout this year, we have never
been alone.”
On Sunday, some North Coast
churches will mark Easter in-person,
with people sitting at a distance from
each other, masked. Other churches will
continue to worship over a Zoom call
or Facebook Live. One church is in the
middle of polling members about how
they feel about returning to in-person
worship and will off er a drive-thru style
gathering instead.
“All the trappings that we put around
how to make it perfect: the music, the
fl owers, the new clothes, the hats …
whatever it is that we said, ‘Oh, this
The Oregon Court of Appeals has
overturned the convictions of a Surf
Pines man who was
found guilty of several
charges tied to “peep-
ing Tom” incidents in his
neighborhood.
Kirk Richard Cazee,
59, was sentenced to
more than 35 years in
prison in 2018 after a Cir- Kirk Richard
Cazee
cuit Court jury found him
guilty of peering through
bedroom windows and recording videos
of residents during private moments. He
was convicted on six counts of using a
child in a display of sexual conduct, eight
counts of invasion of personal privacy,
fi ve counts of stalking and four counts of
criminal trespass.
The appeals court found that there
was not probable cause to obtain a search
warrant for Cazee’s cellphone because no
one ever saw him holding a cellphone or
using one during his crimes.
I
Manager hopeful that
events will rebound
A table at the entrance to Grace Episcopal Church has palm crosses for the congregants
and sign-in sheets for contact tracing in the event of an exposure to COVID-19.
makes a perfect Easter,’” McWhorter
said. “Those have all been stripped
away. We’re back to the bare bones of
the story.”
And even as communities fi nally start
to see a light at the end of a long pan-
demic tunnel, every church is going to
come out of this changed, church leaders
believe. The question is what to do next.
‘We have only met on Zoom’
Pastor Michael Avila has never met
the congregations he leads in person. He
was appointed to the United Method-
ist churches in Seaside and Astoria last
July, in the middle of the coronavirus
pandemic.
“We have only met on Zoom,” he
said.
At the direction of their bishop, the
churches have continued to meet online
even as churches in other denominations
return to their buildings. So Avila stands
in front of a camera during Eucha-
rist, or Communion, in the offi ce that
reminds him of NBC Studios in New
York City — down to the blue curtain
and the chilly temperatures — and says
the familiar words: “This is the body of
Christ, the bread of h eaven …”
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
SEASIDE — With a newly renovated
building and contracts for events through
2030, Russ Vanden-
berg, the general
manager of the Sea-
MORE
side Civic and Con-
INSIDE
vention Center, pro-
jected optimism as he
County
presented the center’s
reports
annual report.
new virus
“COVID-19 taught
cases • A6
us to be stronger and
more resilient,” he
said. “We can now
toss aside our 2020 calendars with hope
and anticipation that 2021 will be a better
year.”
See Churches, Page A6
See Center, Page A6
A collaboration of craft and science
Netmaking survives
along the coast
By JILLIAN FARMER
The Other Oregon
NEWPORT — In an industrial
building near the port, men worked
on a fi shing net to the sounds of the
radio, the rain and the “click-click”
of needles working the twine.
“It’s not noisy,” said Sara Skam-
ser, the owner of Foulweather Trawl .
When it comes to making nets,
Skamser said it is best described as
knitting. Except she uses rope and
twine instead of yarn.
The basic material is commer-
cial-grade fi sh netting, mostly poly-
ethylene from Japan or Ireland. It
arrives in a bale that’s about the size
of a bale of hay.
When the bale of netting arrives,
it is opened “like a bolt of cloth” and
pieces are then cut out and assem-
bled into the shape of whichever net
is being made. Rather than shap-
ing the pieces into a pair of pants,
Skamser said you would shape it,
for example, into a funnel-shaped
trawl net.
“Then you use a needle full of
twine and sew the seams,” she said.
At Foulweather Trawl, that process
is referred to as “lacing” and that
needle is almost a foot long. “That’s
how the shape and structure start
coming together.”
To make the net rugged enough
to be pulled on and off a vessel, and
strong enough to hold fi sh, ropes are
then put on the laced seams to give
it strength.
Skamser started the business in
1984 with her husband, John, but
never thought she would end up in
such a niche market.
Over the years, her business has
stood out with its specialized nets
designed to keep out unwanted fi sh.
The style, spearheaded by scientists,
made net fi shing much more pre-
cise. That has earned Foulweather
Trawl a customer base from Mon-
terey Bay, California, to Neah Bay,
Washington , and from Kodiak to
Akutan, Alaska, as well as the Aleu-
tian chain.
Jillian Farmer
See Nets, Page A6
Shawn Lafontaine, a net builder, holds up a shrimp net made with a grill to
help keep out unwanted species.