A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2021
IN BRIEF
County certifi es May election results
Clatsop County has certifi ed the May election
results.
The most closely watched races were for the Clat-
sop Community College Board and the Sunset Empire
Park and Recreation District Board.
In the Zone 2, Position 2 campaign for college
board, incumbent Sara Meyer defeated challenger Pat-
rick Preston 65% to 35%.
In the Zone 2, Position 3 campaign, challenger
Trudy Van Dusen Citovic defeated incumbent Robert
Duehmig 55% to 32%.
In the Zone 3, Position 6 campaign, challenger
Suzanne Iverson defeated incumbent David Zunkel
51% to 49%.
In the Position 1 campaign for park district, incum-
bent Su Coddington defeated challenger Al Hernandez
57% to 43%.
In the Position 2 campaign, incumbent Celeste
Bodner defeated challenger John Huismann 60% to
40%.
In the Position 3 campaign, incumbent Michael
Hinton defeated challenger Patrick Duhachek 54% to
46%.
In the Position 4 campaign, incumbent Erika Mar-
shall-Hamer defeated challenger Jackie Evans 61% to
39%
In the Position 5 campaign, incumbent Katharine
Parker defeated challenger Stephen Morrison 56% to
44%.
Voter turnout across the county was 22.8%.
County plans virtual discussion
with health authority
The Clatsop County Public Health Department is
hosting Dr. Shimi Sharief from the Oregon Health
Authority for a Facebook Live discussion Tuesday on
coronavirus vaccines and young people.
Sharief will share information and answer ques-
tions beginning at 5:30 p.m.
People who are interested are asked to RSVP for
the presentation by going to the link on the county’s
Facebook post.
— The Astorian
MEMORIALS
Saturday, June 12
Memorial
NEWELL, Cynthia (Cindi) Jean Quashnick —
Memorial at 2 p.m., Sunset Beach in Warrenton. At
the approach, take a right to the fi rst pole. Family and
friends are welcome to attend. Please bring a chair.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
DUII
On
the Wolf, Record
• Steven
43,
• Tad Burnham, 40, of
was arrested Sunday on
Alternative U.S. High-
way 101 for assault in
the fourth degree, vio-
lation of a restraining
order and possession of
methamphetamine.
• Jason Andrew Ter-
rill, 31, of Gearhart,
was arraigned Friday
on charges of assault-
ing a public safety offi -
cer, escape in the second
degree, resisting arrest
and interfering with a
peace offi cer.
Astoria, was arrested Satur-
day at Fred Meyer in War-
renton for driving under the
infl uence of intoxicants.
Robbery suspect
• Calvin Proctor, 29, of
Astoria, was arrested Fri-
day on Coxcomb Road in
Astoria on a warrant. Police
were also searching for
Proctor in connection with
a robbery that occurred
on Thursday at Mini Mart
East. The case has been
referred to the district attor-
ney’s offi ce for review.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Union Health District of Clatsop County Board, 8 a.m., Sea-
side Civic and Convention Center, 415 First Ave.
Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., (electronic meet-
ing).
Clatsop Community College Board, 5:30 p.m., work session,
(electronic meeting).
Lewis & Clark Fire Department Board, 6 p.m., meeting and
budget hearing, main fi re station, 34571 U.S. Highway 101
Business.
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main Ave.
Clatsop Community College Board, 6:30 p.m., budget hearing,
(electronic meeting).
Gearhart City Council, 6:30 p.m., special meeting, (electronic
meeting).
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop Soil and Water Conservation District Board, 10 a.m.,
(electronic meeting).
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 6 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Warrenton School District Board, 6 p.m., budget hearing,
(electronic meeting).
Warrenton School District Board, 6:10 p.m., (electronic meet-
ing).
Astoria School District Board, 7 p.m., (electronic meeting).
THURSDAY
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., 989 Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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State Legislature OKs
$9.3 billion for schools
Votes came after
partisan debate
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A two-year,
$9.3 billion budget for state
aid to public schools is on
its way to Gov. Kate Brown
after a partisan fi ght in the
state House.
The House passed the
budget on a 36-20 vote that
broke along party lines.
Republicans failed to send
it back to the Legislature’s
joint budget committee to
add $300 million for the two
years starting in July .
The extra money, and
more, is likely to material-
ize anyway in a couple of
months. The state’s latest
economic and revenue fore-
cast projects $664 million
in excess corporate income
tax collections — which
under a 2012 ballot mea-
sure go into the state school
fund. The third-quarter fore-
cast, scheduled for late Sep-
tember , will yield the actual
number.
The Senate approved the
budget, 23 to 6, in late May .
The excess collections,
known as the “kicker,” were
not mentioned during the
House debate.
The $9.3 billion in state
funds will be combined
with a projected $4.6 bil-
lion in local property taxes
for 197 school districts. The
ratio is the reverse of what
it was before Oregon vot-
ers approved a series of
statewide property tax lim-
its in the 1990s and shifted
the burden of school oper-
ating costs from property
taxpayers to state income
taxes, which account for
more than 90% of the state
general fund. (The school
fund also gets Oregon Lot-
tery proceeds and marijuana
sales taxes. Some money
from Oregon’s new cor-
porate activity tax, which
lawmakers passed in 2019
and started in 2020, also is
included.)
Only the budgets of the
Oregon Health Author-
ity and the Department of
Human Services, both of
which get federal grants, are
larger.
Budget picture
improves
Brown originally pro-
posed $9.1 billion in her
2021-23 budget, which she
unveiled in December , a
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
An Astoria student wears a decorated cap to graduation.
slight increase from $9 bil-
lion in the two-year cycle
that ends in June . She pro-
posed to tap $200 million
from the state’s education
reserve, which lawmakers
had already withdrawn $400
million from last year to bal-
ance the budget during the
coronavirus pandemic.
But since then, the overall
budget picture has improved
because of increased projec-
tions of tax collections from
two subsequent economic
and revenue forecasts, some
savings from budget cuts,
and $2.6 billion in fed-
eral aid from President Joe
Biden’s pandemic recovery
plan. Half of that aid will be
paid next year.
House
Republicans ,
including Minority Leader
Christine Drazan, of Canby,
said the aid budget should
refl ect the $9.6 billion advo-
cated by the Oregon School
Boards Association.
“As we ask our schools to
bring kids back to have full
in-person learning fi ve days
a week, they are going to be
bombarded with unknowns,”
Drazan said. “The need for
them to have the resources
necessary to create an envi-
ronment where these kids
can be successful cannot be
overstated.”
Rep. Greg Smith, a
DIGITAL
EZpay (per month) .................................................................................................................$8.25
Democrats defend
amount
Rep. Susan McLain,
D-Forest Grove, said over-
all education spending in the
new budget cycle is projected
at 51% of the tax-supported
general fund and lottery pro-
ceeds, and the state school
fund accounts for 32.4%.
Biden aims to restore species protections
By MATTHEW DALY and
MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Biden administration says it
is canceling or reviewing a
host of actions by the Trump
administration to roll back
protections for endangered
or threatened species, with a
goal of strengthening a land-
mark law while addressing
climate change.
The reviews by the U.S
Fish and Wildlife Service
and National Marine Fish-
eries Service are aimed at
fi ve Endangered Species
Act regulations fi nalized by
the Trump administration,
including critical habitat des-
ignations and rules defi ning
the scope of federal actions
on endangered species.
The Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice also said Friday it will
reinstate the so-called “blan-
ket rule,” which mandates
additional protections for
species that are newly classi-
fi ed as threatened. Under for-
mer President Donald Trump,
those
protections
were
removed.
Habitat designations for
threatened or endangered
Don Ryan/AP Photo
A northern spotted owl fl ies
in the Deschutes National
Forest near Camp Sherman.
species can result in limita-
tions on energy development,
such as mining or oil drilling
that could disturb a vulnera-
ble species, while the scop-
ing rule helps determine how
far the government may go to
protect imperiled species.
Under Trump, offi cials
rolled back protections for
the northern spotted owl,
gray wolves and other spe-
cies, actions that President
Joe Biden has vowed to
review. His administration
already has moved to reverse
Trump’s decision to weaken
Subscription rates
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EZpay (per month) ...............................................................................................................$10.75
13 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$37.00
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Republican from Hep-
pner who sits on the bud-
get committee, said boost-
ing the amount would be a
true bipartisan gesture in an
often-fractured House.
The May vote of the full
budget committee was 21
to 1. Sen. Chuck Thomsen,
R-Hood River, was the lone
dissenter, and also opposed
it in late May when it came
up in the full Senate. One
Republican was excused
from the committee vote.
The motion to send the
budget back to commit-
tee failed with two Demo-
crats — Mark Meek, of Ore-
gon City, and Marty Wilde,
of Eugene — joining 20
Republicans.
Earlier in the day, Repub-
licans attempted but failed
on a procedural motion to
put to a vote a separate bill
committing Oregon’s school
districts to reopen fully for
the 2021-22 academic year
that starts in a few months.
“We are creating record
investments
in
public
schools this year,” McLain,
the co-leader of the educa-
tion budget subcommittee,
said.
Rep. Dan Rayfi eld, a
Democrat from Corvallis
and co-leader of the Legis-
lature’s joint budget panel,
said about $6 billion of a
projected $28 billion in gen-
eral fund and lottery spend-
ing for the next two years is
one-time money.
He said he and McLain
worked for four months to
come up with the right fi g-
ure for school aid.
“It is our job as a L egis-
lature to fi nd out what is the
Goldilocks porridge in our
budget that meets the needs
of our children, but also at
the same time, is a sustain-
able budget that we can con-
tinue to operate on,” Ray-
fi eld said.
Rep. Andrea Valderrama,
D-Portland, leads the David
Douglas School Board
and is the newest member
of the Legislature, having
taken her District 47 seat in
April after her predecessor
resigned under pressure.
“As a school board chair,
I will be doing everything
that I can to hold our district
accountable to equitable
spending and meaningful
engagement of communities
of color,” Valderrama said.
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Mon-
mouth, voted for the bill. But
he said lawmakers should be
working toward paying for
public schools at the level
recommended by the Qual-
ity Education Model, which
takes into account the staff -
ing and services that stu-
dents should get. The pro-
cess was initiated more than
two decades ago by then-
Gov. John Kitzhaber, who
also won voter approval of a
2000 constitutional amend-
ment that requires lawmak-
ers to specify why Oregon
does not meet that goal.
Lawmakers never have met
it.
Evans said if the state
budget were to pay fully
for that model, lawmak-
ers should be approving
$10 billion for the next two
years.
“We will continue to
fi ght over nickels and dimes
to get the state school fund
a little higher,” Evans said.
“But it is the wrong fi ght.”
The Oregon Capital
Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group
and Pamplin Media Group.
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enforcement of the centu-
ry-old Migratory Bird Treaty
Act, which made it harder to
prosecute bird deaths caused
by the energy industry.
The decision on the
bird law was among more
than 100 business-friendly
actions on the environment
that Trump took and Biden
wants reconsidered and pos-
sibly revised or scrapped.
The reviews announced Fri-
day follow through on that
executive order.
“The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service is committed to
working with diverse federal,
tribal, state and industry part-
ners to not only protect and
recover America’s imperiled
wildlife but to ensure corner-
stone laws like the Endan-
gered Species Act are helping
us meet 21st century chal-
lenges,” said Martha Wil-
liams, the principal deputy
director of the Fish and Wild-
life Service.
The agency looks forward
to “continuing these conser-
vation collaborations and to
ensuring our eff orts are fully
transparent and inclusive,’’
Williams added.
The reviews announced
Friday will take months or
years to complete. Many rules
targeted by Trump originated
with former President Barack
Obama and took him years to
undo, continuing a decades-
old, back-and-forth between
Democratic and Republican
administrations with starkly
diff ering approaches to envi-
ronmental regulation.
Industry groups and
Republicans in Congress have
long viewed the Endangered
Species Act as an imped-
iment to economic devel-
opment and under Trump
they successfully lobbied to
weaken the law’s regulations.
Environmental groups and
Democratic-controlled states
battled the moves in court,
but those cases remained
unresolved when Trump left
offi ce in January.
Noah Greenwald with the
Center for Biological Diver-
sity said the environmental
group was grateful to see the
Trump rules being canceled
or changed, particularly a rule
that would have denied blan-
ket protections for threatened
species.
“We hope they move
quickly so more species
aren’t harmed,” Greenwald
said.
Earthjustice attorney Kris-
ten Boyles, who was involved
in legal challenges to the
Trump rules, said Friday’s
announcement covered major
changes under the previous
administration that needed
to be addressed. But Boyles
said questions remain about
what will happen while the
new proposals go through a
lengthy rule-making process.
“These will take time, and
in the interim we don’t want
the harm to continue,” she
said.