A6
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2021
Professor: May run from Brookings to Astoria Regatta: City’s longest
Continued from Page A1
back, it was the best deci-
sion I could have made,” he
said . “I had access to pro-
fessors with at least m as-
ter’s degrees who were well-
trained and had gifts in their
subject areas.”
Along
the
way,
Rojas-Galván intends to
stop at each of Oregon’s 17
community colleges. He
hopes to meet with profes-
sors and college representa-
tives to discuss how he and
others may be able to help
with various expenses and
concerns . He describes the
ride as the perfect intersec-
tion between his passions
for community college and
adventure.
Despite the selfl ess nature
of Rojas-Galván’s feat, how-
ever, he remains soft-spoken
and humble, as if his ride is
more of a personal responsi-
bility than a gift.
“I think I’m just an aver-
age person. I’m certainly not
a gifted athlete,” he said.
“Running is my true pas-
sion, I wouldn’t even call
myself a cyclist.”
Russ Dickerson
Fernando Rojas-Galván is biking to raise money for Clatsop
Community College.
Angee Hunt, the director
of the college f oundation,
admires
Rojas-Galván’s
determination. The fundrais-
ing, she said , is perhaps far
more crucial to students than
one might expect.
“I think people really
underestimate just how
expensive textbooks can
be,” Hunt said. For many
students , expenses add up
fast.
A 2019 #RealCollege
Survey from Temple Univer-
sity that sampled responses
from 110 Clatsop students
revealed about 63% of the
student body had experi-
enced food insecurity, hous-
ing insecurity, homelessness
or a combination of the three
in the past year.
Though the school still
managed to raise over
$60,000 in an online spe-
cial appeals campaign this
past year — a campaign that
helped create the school’s
newly-opened food pan-
try — Hunt still worries
the numbers revealed in the
2019 survey could worsen
amid the pandemic.
They hope that the money
raised from Rojas-Galván’s
ride will not only provide
supplementary funding for
students, but raise awareness
of the power and importance
of community colleges
everywhere.
“We heavily take these
institutions for granted. I t’s
a place where people with so
many diff erent passions can
come together,” Rojas-Gal-
ván said. “I simply ask stu-
dents and community mem-
bers to take into account the
wealth of knowledge that is
available at each and every
community college.”
Hunt notes that, whether
or not he’d ever acknowl-
edge
it,
Rojas-Galván
remains a role model for
the community. “It’s a great
opportunity to showcase our
school, and a great oppor-
tunity for Fernando to be
an ambassador for not only
Clatsop CC, but for commu-
nity colleges everywhere,”
she said .
As Rojas-Galván begins
his journey, his next mis-
sion is already front of
mind. Humbly, he suggests
he may run from Brookings
to Astoria.
Supply chain: ‘It’s been a challenging year’
Continued from Page A1
and container shortages and
delivery problems on the
West Coast,” Newenhof
said. “It’s been a challeng-
ing year.”
He and his employees
have tried to be proactive,
buying larger quantities of
items when those products
are available, pre ordering
items they’d never had to
worry about before.
“Just when one product
line gets back to normal,
another one has a problem,”
Newenhof said.
Then there was the sky-
rocketing price of lumber.
The cost of construc-
tion-grade softwood lumber
spiked during the pandemic
due in part to related labor
force shortages and shipping
disruptions. High demand
for the product in both the
private and commercial sec-
tors also had a role in driv-
ing up prices.
A deck that would have
cost $1,500 to build last
year is now more than
$4,000, Newenhof said . A
house package City Lumber
quoted in March for around
$82,000 suddenly became
$127,000 in June. Contrac-
tor Corey Harn’s estimate
for a lumber package for a
house he was hired to build
in Manzanita was $40,000
initially. By this spring, the
cost was closer to $85,000
or $90,000
His client, architect Dar-
ren Doss, could weather
the increase and Harn had
included contingencies, but
Harn started encouraging
customers to wait until lum-
ber prices dropped.
People are still calling
him anyway, hiring him
for jobs. The prices haven’t
fazed some clients.
“It’s just so shocking
how much it costs to build
a house now,” Harn said.
“I feel a little embarrassed
even though there’s nothing
I can do about it.”
At City Lumber, the
climbing lumber prices
didn’t seem to deter custom-
ers at fi rst. But major jumps
in price in 2021 did.
“With low interest rates,
if you are fi nancing a proj-
ect, you might be able to
aff ord the project,” Newen-
hof said. “But if you are pay-
ing cash, it starts to get real
diffi cult, and people are put-
ting things off .”
Though lumber prices
are beginning to drop now,
contractors and others in the
industry do not expect prices
to return to pre-pandemic
levels. Newenhof predicts
prices will drop much more
slowly than they rose.
“We have truckloads of
lumber, plywood and sid-
ing booked out until Octo-
ber,” Newenhof said. “We
are worried that we will be
buying those truckloads at
prices higher than we can
sell them for.”
‘Wood is a precious
commodity’
To address product short-
ages, City Lumber has been
looking at alternate prod-
ucts. But so has everyone
else. Gradually, many of
these alternatives are getting
harder and harder to fi nd,
contractors say.
In the Pacifi c Northwest,
lumber has long been abun-
dant, Doss said. For his own
projects, the cost of lumber
always seemed relatively
inexpensive in the grand
scheme of things.
“And as Americans in
the Pacifi c Northwest, we’re
spoiled in the sense that
wood has been readily avail-
able,” he said.
But the pandemic and the
stress on industries and sup-
ply chains has made Doss
rethink how he values that
particular resource.
Doss is moving away
from traditional designs
that require a lot of lum-
ber to frame out a house.
Instead, he is turning to
a style of building called
advanced framing. It is not
an approach that will work
for every house, but it uses
less lumber.
“Wood is a precious com-
modity,” he said. “Let’s treat
it as one.”
Camps: ‘A concerted community response is required’
Continued from Page A1
Clatsop County, have seen
an increase in this type of
vandalism and negative
behavior.”
Williams said the depart-
ment has worked with the
Clatsop County Sheriff ’s
Offi ce forest patrol deputy to
identify problem areas and
contact people living in the
woods, but he said one dep-
uty is not enough.
Sheriff Matt Phillips said
it is also diffi cult for depu-
ties to enforce rules and keep
track of people because of the
guidelines for camping on
forestland. People can camp
at a location for 14 days in a
row in a 35-day period.
“These are symptoms of
a bigger problem,” Astoria
District Forester Dan Goody
said. “But I can tell you per-
sonally — in fact — the
majority of the people we’re
talking about know the rules
as good as anybody, and they
know when day 14 is up,
they’re moving their camper
to another spot up a diff erent
spur to start the clock all over
again.
Oregon Department of Forestry
Abandoned vehicles and trash are being left on state
forestlands.
“They get lost on the radar
and they get found some-
where else miles away, and
the clock starts again. So
they’re playing it. And this is
a subset of a bigger problem
with some homeless commu-
nities in the forest, whether
it’s in the city of Warrenton
... or by Mill Creek in the east
end of town.”
Williams and Goody sug-
gested the county work with
the state in creating a multi a-
gency impound yard to dump
vehicles and RVs. There is
some waste Recology West-
ern Oregon in Astoria does
not accept. They also asked
the county to consider add-
ing more forest patrol depu-
ties to the s heriff ’s o ffi ce.
“I think it’s a growing
problem,”
Commissioner
Lianne Thompson said. “I
think it’s a problem related
to people being responsible.
So are people irresponsible
because they don’t know any
better or because they can get
away with it?
“But then there is enforce-
ment of consequences. So
we have problems all the
way along. Maybe we need
to look at state law. Maybe
we look at county ordinance.
A concerted community
response is required.”
Commissioner
Mark
Kujala, the board’s chair-
man, said, “My experience
just in Warrenton alone —
seeing a lot of these encamp-
ments on private forest lands
and the stolen property that
goes with it and the needles
and the real hazards — it’s
something that we’ve got to
fi nd some solutions for, and
be creative in doing so.”
standing annual event
Continued from Page A1
The boat parade, titled
the Highwater Boat Parade,
will begin at 5 p.m. and
will be viewable along the
Astoria Riverwalk. Boats
of all sizes can be used
during the race. Boat cap-
tains can pre register for the
parade at astoriaregatta.
com/parades
Parade
participants
can compete to win
awards, including “Best
of Sail,” “Best of Power,”
“Best of Commercial,”
“Best of Service,” “Best
of Classic” and “Queen’s
Choice.”
“The Regatta b oard
came together this year
with the goal of reviving
some outdoor events that
could be held safely during
the pandemic,” Grothe
said. “We are excited to
host the Seamen’s Memo-
rial and the Highwater
Boat Parade this year. I
anticipate that we’ll be cel-
ebrating a return of the full
festival in 2022.”
Consult a
PROFESSIONAL
LEO FINZI
At a city work session in
June, Mayor Bruce Jones and
City Councilor Tom Brown-
son were in favor of dis-
cussing the logistics of a
pilot program with Bird, but
Councilor Joan Herman and
Councilor Roger Rocka were
opposed. City Councilor Tom
Hilton said he was person-
ally not in favor of develop-
ing a program with Bird, but
wanted to hear more feed-
back from the community .
Over the past few weeks,
city councilors received a
fl ood of comments, emails
and texts about the scooters
— on par with what city lead-
ers saw during discussions
about a controversial hotel
proposal, Jones said .
The response from resi-
dents to the electric scooter
proposal was a resounding,
“No,” city councilors said.
Both Jones and Brown-
son said they had rethought
their previously held posi-
tions as a result. They shared
their constituents’ concerns
about safety and irrespon-
sible scooter operators and
would vote against develop-
ing a pilot scooter program
with Bird, they said.
The company recom-
mends but does not require
riders to wear helmets — a
signifi cant concern, Jones
said.
“It’s not going to work for
Astoria, as far as I’m con-
cerned,” Brownson said.
But, he noted, the only
reason the C ity C ouncil had
any say in this electric scooter
proposal was because the
company needed access to
city property. Another com-
pany with a physical store-
front could choose to rent out
scooters without fi rst consult-
ing the city.
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CHIROPRACTIC
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Scooters: Concerns over company’s policy on helmets
Continued from Page A1
Astoria High School
graduate Annalyse Steele
will act as the festival’s
Regatta queen. She was
crowned in 2020 and will
continue to serve through
2022.
The festival’s court also
includes princesses Zoey
Alexander, of Seaside; Mia
McFadden, of Warrenton;
and Gabrielle Morrill, of
Knappa.
Throughout
summer
and during the week of the
festival, the r egatta a sso-
ciation will share photos
on social media platforms
as part of its celebration.
Local businesses are also
encouraged to decorate
their front windows with
Regatta regalia the week of
Aug. 11 to Aug. 14.
The festival is the city’s
longest standing annual
event. It began in 1894 and
has celebrated regional
maritime history and cul-
ture every year , with the
exception of 2020, World
War I, the Astoria fi re in
1922 and World War II.
A:
Delores Sullivan
MSW, LCSW
503-741-5923
564 Pacific Way
Creating a daily routine of self care
helps you locate good mental health:
Here are some suggestions:
1. Maintain a consistent sleep and
wake schedule
2. Eat regular healthy meals to fortify
brain chemistry
3. Take a walk, listen to music, watch
something funny
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4. Stay connected to those you love
and who encourage you
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5. Avoid abusing substances such as
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6. Practice self compassion, and daily
affirmations