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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, JuNE 12, 2021
Weber: Allocated funds
may or may not cover
all the project costs
Continued from Page A1
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
Barrels and flowers sit in the parklet at Blaylock’s Whiskey Bar.
Parklets: Three
approved in Astoria
Continued from Page A1
There are three approved par-
klets in Astoria, all operated by
businesses running out of small
spaces that felt cozy pre-pan-
demic but that struggled to serve
customers once indoor seating
was restricted or not allowed at
all.
One of the parklets, oper-
ated by Green Door Cafe on
10th Street, will move down the
street to be more directly in front
of the business. The new loca-
tion is above underground water
lines, something previously not
allowed.
To offer the exception, city
staff added new rules later
approved by the City Coun-
cil. The cafe’s owners, Wade
Padgett and Kendall Padgett-
McEuen — and anyone who
wants a parklet that goes over
city utility lines — must ensure
each component of the parklet
weighs less than 50 pounds and
can be moved by one person in
case of an emergency.
For the Green Door Cafe,
the additional outdoor seating is
crucial. The tiny cafe could not
accommodate customers indoors
under most of the ever-shifting
pandemic guidelines, Padgett-
McEuen said.
Parking
When the first parklet popped
up in 2015 — a parklet outside
of the Cargo store on 11th Street
‘I THINK IT’S
GOING TO BE
INTERESTING
AFTER THINGS
REALLy START
GETTING BACK
TO NORMAL.’
City Manager Brett Estes
that is now under code enforce-
ment proceedings with the city
— some people were upset that
it took away parking spaces.
As in nearly every other tour-
ist-reliant city on the North
Coast, parking — or the per-
ceived lack of it — is an endur-
ing complaint in downtown
Astoria.
In 2018, the city and the Asto-
ria Downtown Historic District
Association launched a parking
study. But months ahead of pan-
demic shutdowns, the study con-
cluded that though there may be
trouble finding parking at cer-
tain times of day — during peak
restaurant hours, for instance
— and in certain pockets of the
city, there are plenty of spots to
go around.
When the city opened the
door to more parklets during the
pandemic, at least one person
called to complain, City Man-
ager Brett Estes said.
But both the city and the
downtown association said they
recognized a need to weigh
everything in balance. Parklets
might take away parking spots,
but restaurants and bars needed
outdoor options if they were to
survive.
Blaylock’s Whiskey Bar sits
in a strange little intersection off
Exchange Street, at the tip of a
triangle that includes Bridge &
Tunnel Bottleshop and Taproom,
a collection of food trucks, and
Reach Break Brewing and Rev-
eille Ciderworks. Farther up
the road is Fort George Brew-
ery and the Blue Scorcher Bak-
ery & Cafe. It is an area that can
quickly fill up with cars and peo-
ple. The bare-bones parklet in
front of Blaylock’s takes over a
front-row parking spot.
But Angiletta said he has
heard zero complaints about
parking.
Parks hasn’t heard any com-
plaints, either. Brut Wine Bar is
in a quieter area, though Merry
Time Bar & Grill is right across
the street.
Parking questions aside,
Estes wonders if, on the other
side of the pandemic, people
will have become used to seeing
parklets, maybe even preferring
them for seating. Perhaps, the
parklets will have won over peo-
ple who had doubts.
“I think it’s going to be inter-
esting after things really start
getting back to normal,” he said.
Magic shop: Supplies for all ages and skill levels
Continued from Page A1
So, he opened The Magic
Shop & More to offer magic
supplies for all ages and
skill levels, from beginners
to advanced illusionists. He
said he hopes to get a group
of people interested in magic
to come hang out in the store
on a regular basis.
Along with dice, props,
stink bombs, disappearing
ink and more, Howard also
plans to expand the shop
to offer party supplies, bal-
loons and helium. Custom-
ers can also hire Howard as
a magician.
“People will be able to
book me for events and par-
ties,” Howard said.
A crowd of neighboring
business owners and others
from the community gath-
ered for the ribbon-cutting
ceremony outside of the
shop on May 28.
“I’m a friend of the magi-
cian and he’s a big supporter
of the local community,”
said Taz Davis, the owner of
Table 360 Bakery & Bistro.
Emily Lindblom/The Astorian
Seth Howard performs a card trick in his shop.
“It’s always exciting to have
another business open on
Commercial Street and the
more downtown thrives the
more successful we all are.”
Katrina Millange said
she’s seen Howard perform
magic tricks in the past and
was impressed.
“I’m very pleased to see
him open his own shop, he’s
pretty amazing,” Millange
said.
David Reid, the exec-
utive director of the Asto-
ria-Warrenton Area Cham-
ber of Commerce, became
the new shop’s first cus-
tomer. He bought a trick
golf ball and received a free
magic wand.
Astoria City Manager
Brett Estes said if the fed-
eral funding comes through,
he hopes it would enable
the city to accomplish more
of its goals for the library
remodel in the first phase of
the project.
“We’ve been working
with the project architect to
look at what sort of items
specifically we’d be able to
do with this funding,” Estes
said.
At the top of the priority
list is renovating the reading
room to comply with Amer-
icans with Disabilities Act
access guidelines. The pro-
posed library project also
includes updating the chil-
dren’s area, redesigning the
circulation desk and put-
ting in new windows on the
north wall.
Weber said resilience
after earthquakes and tsu-
namis will be especially
important because many
North Coast communities
are right by the ocean.
“Communities up and
down the coast have taken
the initiative to build that
resiliency into their plans,
but they need to have funds
to finance that to make it a
reality,” she said.
Cannon Beach has
proposed multiple small
projects that fit into the
earthquake and tsunami
resilience category. One is
providing reliable power
to survival cache sites —
places to keep emergency
stockpiles of supplies.
“We have made signifi-
cant upgrades to our cache
sites but will require mainte-
nance,” Cannon Beach City
Manager Bruce St. Den-
nis said. “This will be much
easier to accomplish with
electric power to the sites.”
Other projects in Cannon
Beach include replacing the
main pump station genera-
tor, as the existing one is an
old military surplus model
that has become unreli-
able; replacing the Hay-
stack pump station main
line and mechanical sys-
tems to upgrade the control
panel that triggers tsunami
warnings; and replacing the
generator at the Ecola pump
station.
“The money I hope is
allocated to that area is
going to be divided into
those smaller projects so
they can be accomplished,”
Weber said.
The allocated funds may
or may not cover all the
project costs.
Weber said she is still
waiting to hear the federal
guidelines for what can be
funded through the Amer-
ican Rescue Plan, and she
cannot guarantee that her
requests will be granted by
the Legislature.
Emily Lindblom/The Astorian
State Rep. Suzanne Weber asked for $420,000 from the
American Rescue Plan to be used to renovate the Astoria
Library.
Review: ‘We hope our
efforts will be successful
in restoring academic
rigor to our schools’
Continued from Page A1
The parents’ request for
a review of the use of the
state curriculum in Knappa
is the only such request in
recent memory, according
to Superintendent Bill Fritz.
A curriculum commit-
tee assembled to hear the
request opted Tuesday to
suspend six of the 10 les-
sons included in the curric-
ulum, pending a final deci-
sion. The committee plans
to meet again next week to
discuss the matter further in
a closed session.
Fritz emphasized that the
curriculum was created by
the state. Teachers have pro-
fessional discretion to sup-
plement any curriculum the
school district uses in order
to enhance students’ under-
standing of a subject or to
make it more relevant to the
particulars of their students’
own lives, he said.
But with the health cur-
riculum, he said at the Tues-
day meeting, “the district
recognizes that with this
type of content, parents
expect us to implement the
curriculum they have actu-
ally viewed so that there are
no surprises.”
He has since directed
teaching staff to implement
the health curriculum as
designed, without supple-
menting, in the future.
The school district has
also made changes to how
parents will be notified
about the health course.
Eight students in sixth and
seventh grade had parents
opt them out of the course
this school year.
Representatives of the
Knappa Parents Organi-
zation attended the Tues-
day meeting and presented
their concerns, as well as
an alternative curriculum,
to the school district’s com-
mittee. They had encour-
aged community attendance
at the meeting, billing it on
a Facebook event page as
a “Transgender Curriculum
Hearing.”
They said they felt cer-
tain subjects were out-
side the bounds of a public
school curriculum.
“Issues relating to gen-
der identity, sexual prefer-
ence and sexual orientation
that are better left to fam-
ilies to handle,” Christo-
pher Morey, the organiza-
tion’s president, told The
Astorian.
Knappa Parents Orga-
nization is a new group. Its
Facebook page was created
in May. The founding mem-
bers include a mix of long-
time, multigenerational and
newer Knappa residents,
according to Morey.
“The common cause was
the overwhelming feedback
from our fellow commu-
nity members who felt they
had no voice at our school,”
Morey told The Astorian.
Concerns about the
health curriculum united
the group initially, but there
are other issues they hope to
bring to school leadership.
“As we move forward,
our group will take up the
issues most relevant to our
membership,” Morey said.
“We hope our efforts will be
successful in restoring aca-
demic rigor to our schools.”
The organization’s web-
site states, “Our mission is
to ensure that all children
in the district are treated
as individuals, not by a
group identity, and receive
an equal, fair, traditional
education.”