A6
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2021
Refunds: ‘It was just unfair’
Continued from Page A1
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Clatsop County is seeking more resources for crisis response.
Wyden: ‘What do we do
when the world is not ideal?’
Continued from Page A1
Wyden, the chairman of
the Senate Finance Com-
mittee, said in a statement
at a committee hearing on
mental health care in June.
“Health care providers like
it, law enforcement likes
it. The American Rescue
Plan included a billion-dol-
lar down payment to help
states build their own pro-
grams like CAHOOTS.
“Now the Congress
needs to consider what
comes next to build these
programs successfully and
make sure people are get-
ting the help they need
even after the immediate
crises end.”
During a meeting with
law enforcement, social
services agencies and
political leaders from the
county and cities on Fri-
day, Wyden said that while
CAHOOTS is a model,
it cannot be made into a
cookie-cutter
approach
throughout the country.
The senator said he
envisions fl exibility and
investment in multidisci-
plinary teams. The discus-
sion on Friday, he said,
was designed to hear from
local leaders about what
would be helpful.
Amy Baker, the exec-
utive director of Clatsop
Behavioral
Healthcare,
estimates that 12 clini-
cians are needed to cover
the entire county 24/7. The
mobile crisis team has four
staff ers trained in mental
health counseling.
“I think the challenge
is that our funding is often
based on population and
not on acknowledging the
necessary infrastructure
that we need just to get the
job done,” Baker said .
Diff ering opinions
There was consensus
that more funding is nec-
essary to address the grow-
ing number of crisis calls
on the North Coast. How-
ever, there were diff ering
opinions on where to start.
Astoria Mayor Bruce
Jones said the community
needs a full-time shelter
for people with behavioral
health problems.
“Obviously, it would
require some signifi cant
resources, which certainly
the city of Astoria doesn’t
have,” Jones said. “Nation-
ally, locally, regionally,
behavioral health treat-
ment has been grossly
underfunded for decades
and that needs to change.
“And I would just add
to that — that needs to
not come at the expense
of local law enforcement.
Local law enforcement
needs the resources it has
to keep our community
safe. So I would like to see
the mental health defi cits
addressed with resources,
not funding at the expense
of law enforcement.”
Astoria Police Chief
Geoff Spalding said many
of the city’s crisis calls
involve people who are
homeless.
“And we talk about all
the things we want to do for
our homeless population
and if we don’t address the
mental health component
of that, my personal feel-
ing is that most of the other
solutions aren’t going to be
eff ective,” the police chief
said. “And so for me, I
think we really need addi-
tional resources to address
a signifi cant and growing
problem in our city.”
Sheriff Matt Phillips
said that because there are
people who are unwilling
to engage in services, some
end up in the criminal jus-
tice system.
“And that’s a chance, I
think, when we can maybe
have an intervention,”
the sheriff said. “We need
to have resources to pro-
vide treatment to someone
while they’re in custody.
And certainly we’re hav-
ing challenges with that
process.”
Several people pointed
to drug and alcohol abuse
and the housing crunch as
problems exacerbating the
issue.
‘Unrealistic’
Josh Marquis, a for-
mer district attorney, said
another problem is that
almost all of the money
for mental health services
comes from the federal
government.
“ ... the county puts in
exactly zero money of its
own into mental health,”
he said. “That money
comes from primarily fed-
eral and secondarily state
funds. Now, on the other
hand, asking the county to
shoulder a big, big part of
it would be unrealistic.”
Gearhart
Police
Chief Jeff Bowman said
that while a model like
CAHOOTS may be nice ,
it does not address the ele-
phant in the room.
“The root problem is
why are we dealing with
them to begin with out
on the street?” he said.
“Whether they’re home-
less or they’re not med-
icated or whatever rea-
son — that’s the issue
really that should be taken
care of fi rst. You can keep
throwing money at us to
take care of the immediate
issue, but it doesn’t stop
the bleeding. The bleeding
stops way before that.”
In January, in an
announcement meant to
draw attention to the lack
of mental health treatment
options, Bowman said his
offi cers would no longer
respond to mental health
calls unless there is an
imminent threat of physi-
cal harm.
“There is no question
that in an ideal world the
very fi rst dollar should
always be for prevention
— no question about it,”
Wyden said. “The reality
is what do we do when the
world is not ideal?”
At the time, there was
still too much uncer-
tainty about what would be
allowed under various pan-
demic-related restrictions,
families told The Astorian.
Besides, some of the stu-
dents, now freshmen in high
school who had spent much
of the past school year iso-
lated from their classmates,
were no longer interested.
With travel dates still up
in the air, many decided to
cancel their plans with Edu-
cational Travel Services.
Now, families say they
are struggling to get refunds
from the travel company.
Educational Travel Services
contends it is simply fol-
lowing its cancellation pol-
icy. In light of the confusion,
the Astoria S chool D istrict
plans to reconsider its own
already limited involvement
with such trips in the future.
In a statement to The
Astorian, Katie Dunn, the
president of Educational
Travel Services, wrote, “We
understand that families may
be frustrated at how long the
refund process is taking.
However, through our own
eff orts we have obtained
substantial refunds for our
families. It was especially
diffi cult to get some refunds
back from certain vendors
due to the disruption the
pandemic has caused in the
hospitality industry.”
Refunds
Families who had pur-
chased “cancel for any rea-
son” insurance — something
Dunn said the company
always recommends — are
entitled to a partial refund
of the trip cost if they had
already paid in full. Parents
who had not purchased the
insurance but had paid for
the entire trip will receive
smaller refunded amounts ,
according to Dunn.
For years, the company
has organized the annual
eighth grade trip to the East
Coast and the s chool d istrict
has sponsored the travel .
The school district’s role
in the trips is minimal. Spon-
Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo
Astoria parents have had trouble getting travel refunds for
student trips to Washington, D.C., that were delayed by the
coronavirus pandemic.
sorship allows involvement
of district staff on district
time and students are able
to use school facilities for
fundraising eff orts. Beyond
that, the district left the
details to the parents, middle
school history teacher Mat-
thew Hensley and, primarily,
Educational Travel Services.
The school district did
not completely restrict stu-
dent travel during the pan-
demic, but travel requests
were considered on a case-
by-case basis, Superinten-
dent Craig Hoppes said.
A fter the tangle between
families and the travel com-
pany, Hoppes told The Asto-
rian he plans to talk with the
school board next school
year about “getting out of
the student travel business.”
Hoppes understands how
disruptive the pandemic was
to businesses and schools.
But, “whatever we do has to
be for the benefi t of the stu-
dents,” he said. “The second
thing is: I think things need
to be spelled out a lot more
clearly to parents than they
were.”
It cost families several
thousand dollars to buy a
travel package for a student
through Educational Travel
Services — more if a parent
also planned to travel with
the group.
As families began to can-
cel with the company earlier
this year, they believed they
were still within the allowed
cancellation window and
able to receive large refunds
given the changing depar-
ture date. But even families
who purchased travel insur-
ance say they are seeing lit-
tle if anything back.
When Megan Kindred let
Educational Travel Services
know she was canceling, she
said she was told she would
get back less than half of
what’d she’d paid. Certain
costs could not be refunded,
she said the company told
her.
Kindred was confused.
She fi gured the airline could
refund plane tickets in her
daughter’s name or issue
credit for a future fl ight. She
doubted the company had
paid out money for much
else yet. She asked for a list
of the nonrefundable items
so she could understand the
travel company’s justifi ca-
tion. She said a representa-
tive told her this was against
company policy.
Other parents said they
made similar requests and
received the same response
from the company.
Kindred hired an attorney
to try to get more informa-
tion from the company. As
far as Kindred knows, she’s
the only Astoria parent to
hire legal counsel, a cost that
could consume any refund .
“It was beyond the point
of money for me,” Kindred
said. “It was just unfair.”
Katie Lindstrom got
some money back through
her credit card company for
trip-related expenses she
had put on her card. She said
she has had no luck with the
travel company itself.
She would rather not be
out more than $3,000 with
nothing to show for it. Still,
her family can weather the
loss.
But, she added, “I know
there are some families that
really scrounged their pen-
nies to make this happen and
that’s really unfortunate.”
Rutherford canceled her
and her son’s East Coast
travel plans in March. She
had canceled other travel
and vacation plans because
of the pandemic and was
able to get refunds from
hotels and airlines easily,
she said. She is still wait-
ing on Educational Travel
Services.
Pandemic diffi culties
The families The Asto-
rian spoke with all said they
understood the diffi culties
created by the pandemic,
which hit many industries
hard, especially the hospital-
ity and travel sectors.
In a response to a cus-
tomer complaint posted by
the Better Business Bureau
earlier this year , Dunn said
Educational Travel Services
had never seen anything like
the havoc caused by the pan-
demic. She estimated the
company lost two years of
business as a result.
But any compassion the
families in Astoria feel only
stretches so far.
“I would hope that the
Astoria School District
would never do business
with this company again,”
Lindstrom said. “In my
opinion, they took money
from eighth graders.”
Kindred has no plans to
use the company for a trip in
the future.
“I wouldn’t even con-
sider it,” she said. “For that
much money, we could have
taken the whole family.”
Poet: ‘I loved poetry from a very early age’
Continued from Page A1
“We fl ed. I was aged 3 ,”
he said , unable to recall what
his parents took with them.
“They had very little. We
went overland in a horse and
carriage to Germany ... the
Germans took the horse!”
His mother chided him for
drinking water from the
same trough.
The devastated German
landscape was divided into
Soviet, French, American
and British sectors. “There
were burned-out tanks and
ammo dumps,” said Puzaus-
kas, whose family lived
in refugee camps for three
years.
Eventually, they resettled
in England, where Puzaus-
kas was schooled in a mar-
ket town 70 miles north of
London. “I loved poetry
from a very early age,” he
said. “My English headmas-
ter loved poetry and would
read it for us.”
Thirteen years of his boy-
hood passed waiting for per-
mission to emigrate to the
United States. He preserved
the poetry he began scrib-
bling as a 16-year-old when
they arrived to join spon-
soring relatives in Chicago.
“I still feel I have a lot of
poems to put out there,” he
said, fl ipping through hand-
written wads of unpublished
words as thick as his fi st.
He anglicized his fi rst
name and graduated from
Roosevelt University with
a degree in English litera-
ture. He was drafted into
the U.S. Army in 1969 for
Patrick Webb/Chinook Observer
Poetry has been a key part of the life of Andrew Puzauskas
since his teenage years in England. While he has produced
two books of poetry, he has many more unpublished pieces,
all handwritten on scraps of paper.
two years. Stationed in Ger-
many, he visited England on
leave but never Lithuania,
which was still under Soviet
domination.
Later, Puzauskas moved
to Vancouver, where his
wife, Ruta, and two grown
daughters still live. The G I
Bill bankrolled his educa-
tion. “I would model in clay
and make sculpture and ves-
sels, and learned to draw
and design,” he said . “I took
every art class I could possi-
bly do, even though I didn’t
think I had the skills to draw
accurately.”
He worked for United
Parcel Service for 19 years,
marshaling trailers at Por-
tand’s Swan Island depot.
Later, he moved to Ocean
Park to care for his ailing
father and mother in their
fi nal years.
His modest home con-
tains his ceramic creations
and jewelry on lanyards that
he sells at a booth outside
a local grocery store. His
bookshelves groan from the
weight of nonfi ction works
on the search for meaning
by the Dalai Lama, Khalil
Gibran and Deepak Chopra.
“If I wanted to re read
everything I have read, it
would take 50 years and I
am not going to live that
long for sure,” he said.
At 78, his birthplace calls.
“I would love to travel over
there,” said Puzauskas, who
laments he cannot translate
his journalist father’s jour-
nals. “My Lithuanian is at
the level of an 8 year old.”
His poetry books are
published under the name
Andrius Puzas. “I thought
any Lithuanian seeing this
would say, ‘This guy is Lith-
uanian!’” he said.
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