A2
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2021
IN BRIEF
Spence chosen new
Port Commission president
The Port of Astoria Commission voted 3-2 on Tues-
day to elect Frank Spence as the new commission
president.
Spence replaces Commissioner Dirk Rohne, who is
taking over Spence’s former role as secretary.
Seaside banks ‘North 40’ for
future park, recreation space
SEASIDE — The city received almost 8 acres at
the north end of the former Seaside High School cam-
pus, referred to as the “North 40.”
The transfer was approved in late April at a Clatsop
County Board of Commissioners meeting.
The property was transferred to Seaside via a quit-
claim deed recorded on May 7, county property man-
agement specialist Sirpa Duoos said. The land was
transferred as is and no money exchanged.
One year ago, the Seaside School District’s board
authorized the superintendent to negotiate and execute
a $3.2 million contract for the sale with Harry Henke,
a registered agent of HTA Properties LLC.
The 102,000-square-foot former high school sits on
12.63 acres on N. Holladay Drive.
That property is still in the due diligence process,
Superintendent Susan Penrod said. The land, zoned
medium residential, was not included as part of the
sale of the former high school.
The property will continue to be used for recreation
and parkland.
As long as the park is used for youth recreation by
the city, it remains city property. If it stops being used
for those purposes, the deed reverts back to the county.
Gearhart playground close to fruition
GEARHART — A girl’s dream looks closer to real-
ity as the city prepares to bring a playground to Pacifi c
Way.
When the former Gearhart Elementary School was
shut down, the playground equipment was transferred
to the new Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School. Ten-
year-old Berkley Sturgell launched a Quarter Mile
Challenge to raise funds for the city’s Play Equip-
ment Fund. The goal was to collect enough quarters
to stretch the length of one-quarter mile. According to
Sturgell’s estimate, that was about 17,160 quarters, or
roughly $4,290.
Sturgell’s eff orts brought three times that, more
than $12,000. With outside donations large and small,
$31,000 has been raised so far, Mayor Paulina Cock-
rum said at last week’s City Council meeting.
— The Astorian
Wildfi re burning in
Tillamook State Forest
A wildfi re burning in the Tillamook State Forest
jumped containment lines Tuesday evening.
The Game Hog Creek fi re is estimated to cover 70
acres and is burning near state Highway 6, about 22
miles northwest of Forest Grove, according to Oregon
Department of Forestry offi cials.
— Statesman Journal
Appeals court takes on
peninsula immigration case
By ASHLEY NERBOVIG
Chinook Observer
SAN FRANCISCO —
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals will hear argu-
ments this September over
whether the federal govern-
ment should grant a Pacifi c
County resident asylum in
the United States.
Mario Alberto Rodríguez
Casillas entered the U.S.
legally in 2005 and moved
to the Long Beach Peninsula,
where he became a bilin-
gual teaching aide for Ocean
Beach School District. In
2017, seven years after his
visa expired, he was detained
by U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement in the
midst of a Trump adminis-
tration crackdown on Pacifi c
County migrants.
Rodríguez applied for asy-
lum because he is a gay man
and he argued he could face
physical harm if he returns to
Mexico.
Since then, an immigration
judge and the Board of Immi-
gration Appeals have denied
Rodríguez’s request for asy-
lum. Rodríguez appealed to
the 9th Circuit and his attor-
ney, Luis Romero, said the
court’s decision to hear oral
arguments for Rodríguez’s
case is notable.
“It usually means the case
is of signifi cant legal impor-
tance or not as clean cut as
the government is making it
seem,” Romero said.
Romero, an immigration
rights attorney with Novo
Legal in Seattle, can’t prom-
ise Rodríguez the judges
will grant him asylum. But
Romero said he will make
sure Rodríguez’s story gets
told. With Romero’s help,
Rodríguez is more hopeful
he might succeed.
The Executive Offi ce for
Immigration Review did not
immediately respond to a
request for comment about
Rodríguez’s case.
Prepared for anything
DEATHS
July 13, 2021
In SABOL,
Brief
Richard J.,
83, of Gearhart, died
in Gearhart. Caldwell’s
Deaths
Funeral & Cremation
Arrangement Center of
Seaside is in charge of the
arrangements.
July 11, 2021
BOWSER,
San-
dra Yvonne, 79, of Sea-
side, died in Seaside.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
MEMORIAL
Tuesday, July 20
Memorial
VOLLMER, Frank J. — Memorial at 2 p.m. at
Maritime Memorial Park; the Arrow No. 2 tug will go
by and give a whistle in his honor at or around that
time. All are welcome.
ON THE RECORD
35, of La Grande, was
arrested on Tuesday in
Warrenton for possession
of a stolen vehicle, fail-
ing to carry and present a
license, fraudulent use of
a credit card and identity
theft.
•
Miles
Joseph
Hunsinger, 55, of Asto-
ria, was arrested on Tues-
day at 10th and Duane
streets for disorderly con-
duct in the second degree
and criminal mischief in
the third degree.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Rodríguez’s
apartment
is stacked with boxes, bub-
ble wrap and packing tape.
He is always prepared to
move back to Mexico. Last
summer, when the Board of
Immigration Appeals denied
his request for asylum, Rodrí-
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Ever-changing
enforcement
Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
In 2017, seven years after his visa expired, Mario Alberto
Rodriguez Casillas was detained by U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement.
guez was told he had 30 days
to either appeal to the federal
appeals court or relocate to
Mexico.
Rodríguez couldn’t even
get through the entire letter
denying him asylum. He read
far enough to see the board
said “no,” before the stress
overwhelmed him.
After that, Rodríguez said
he stopped asking God for
help in his case .
“I said ‘God, from today
on, I won’t ask you again to
help me with my immigra-
tion case, because I have to
learn that if you decide I have
to go back to Mexico, it is
something that I graciously
will accept because it is what
you want for me,’” Rodrí-
guez said. “‘I won’t ask you
anymore, I won’t beg you for
my case. My prayers will be
for others.’”
Rodríguez presented evi-
dence to the appeals board
that he was a protected class
who had already suff ered
harm in Mexico because
of his sexual orientation,
Romero said. Rodríguez is
worried about going to a doc-
tor for HIV treatment because
his last doctor told people
Rodríguez was HIV positive
without his permission.
However, the appeals
board judge classifi ed what
happened to Rodríguez as
bullying and did not believe
it would result in harm to
him. The judge dismissed
the realities of what it is like
to be LGBTQ in Mexico,
Romero said.
The judge told Rodríguez
if he relocated to a bigger city
in Mexico, he would not face
discrimination, Rodríguez
said. But, while in a smaller
town in Mexico people
might bother a person who
Falling concrete
poses danger
ILWACO, Wash. — Crit-
ical work on Ilwaco High
School’s 43-year-old foot-
ball stadium got underway
in recent weeks, with Ocean
Beach School District offi -
cials hoping the repairs can
buy them enough time to
identify a long-term solution
and come up with necessary
funds for the aging structure
that has been a thorn in the
side of the district since con-
struction initially began in
the 1970s.
The school district is
spending about $150,000 on
the repairs, which Superin-
tendent Amy Huntley said
should extend the stadium’s
life for another three to fi ve
years. The repair work is
being done by Helligso Con-
struction, an Astoria-based
contractor.
Stadium
construction
began in the spring of 1977,
thanks to a $1.96 million
grant from a federal program
in 1976 to rehabilitate the
district’s facilities. A myr-
iad of problems ensued not
long after that work began,
and construction continued
throughout 1978.
“When they got the grant,
it was supposed to do quite
a few diff erent things — the
stadium, bus barn, I think
they were supposed to have
a pool and tennis courts,”
Huntley said.
As is obvious decades
later, many of the projects
the school district planned
to use the grant dollars on
never came to fruition. And
stadium construction posed
immediate problems .
“The stadium ( the con-
tractors) built was rather
larger than it should have
been, probably. They ran
out of funding part of the
way through the project and
weren’t able to fi nish every-
thing,” Huntley said. “What
they built was something the
district has really never had
the resources to maintain.”
Huntley, who has been
with the school district for
28 years in a number of dif-
ferent capacities, said the
stadium’s condition has been
a topic at board meetings the
entire time . Some minor
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is LGBTQ or ignore them, in
a bigger city Rodríguez wor-
ries he might be killed for his
identity.
“People in the justice sys-
tem make the decisions, I
think, based on what they
read, but I think they need to
travel a little bit or just to read
more,” Rodríguez said.
The U.S. State Depart-
ment compiles an annual
report on human rights prac-
tices in diff erent countries. In
the fi rst six months of 2020,
Mexico had at least 25 hate
crime homicides against les-
bian, gay, bisexual, transgen-
der and intersex people , the
report said. While some legal
protections exist for these
groups, what appears to be
happening is a societal back-
lash against these changes,
Romero said.
Rodríguez is a visible and
trusted member of the Latino
and undocumented commu-
nity of Pacifi c County.
“People, when they have
trouble, they just call me,”
Rodríguez said. “When they
want advice they call me,
when they want to do some-
thing or they don’t know
what department or offi ce or
place to go, they ask me and I
tell them the best option.”
He acts as a liaison for
Pacifi c County Immigration
Support. He volunteers with
the organization because,
without it, he doesn’t think
he would have kept fi ghting
for so long.
The peninsula was like
many agricultural areas that
were “plagued” by immigra-
tion enforcement, Romero
said. M any Hispanic people
are employed in the shellfi sh
industry, in addition to work-
ing in hospitality and other
economic sectors.
Romero began working as
an immigration rights attor-
ney in 2013 and witnessed
the evolution of immigration
rights under three diff erent
presidencies.
President
Barack
Obama’s
administration
ran a “well-oiled machine”
when it came to deportation,
Romero said. The admin-
istration’s deportation pri-
orities targeted people with
criminal histories and more
recent arrivals to the country,
he said. These groups often
had fewer resources and less
legal standing in court and
it was easier for the Depart-
ment of Justice to deport
them, Romero said.
When President Don-
ald Trump took offi ce, his
administration changed pri-
orities. However, even under
these priorities, Rodríguez
might have escaped notice
from ICE during the Trump
administration, because his
long ties to the Long Beach
Peninsula community gave
him more standing in court.
An article by The New York
Times on Rodríguez’s case
detailed the chance encoun-
ter that led to his arrest.
Under the Trump administra-
tion, the undocumented com-
munity of Pacifi c County was
paralyzed because everyone
was a potential ICE target,
Romero said.
While President Joe
Biden’s
administration
promised
decriminaliza-
tion of unauthorized bor-
der crossings and protec-
tions for Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals recipi-
ents, Romero said he doesn’t
know whether those prom-
ises will be kept.
“Some of his policies have
a lot of the Obama adminis-
tration fl avor,” Romero said.
The Biden administration
could still choose to close
the case against Rodríguez,
Romero said. Now that it is
scheduled to go before the
a ppeals court, Romero hopes
the administration will take
another look at the facts and
ask itself if this is a case it
wants to defend in court.
Ilwaco stadium
repairs underway
By BRANDON CLINE
Chinook Observer
Stolen vehicle
On
the
Record Disorderly
• Russell
Dean Brooks,
conduct
“Success in this case
would be a big win, not just
for Mario, but for everyone
on the peninsula who knows
Mario, or is in the same posi-
tion as Mario,” Romero said.
Rodriguez detained
by ICE in 2017
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The school district hopes stadium repairs will be completed by fall.
work has been done in the
past 15 or so years, includ-
ing repairing and painting
some of the steel.
“But those were minor
repairs, and really it’s some-
thing that needs concrete
sealing and just all kinds of
things in our marine envi-
ronment. Concrete and steel
don’t do well here,” Huntley
said, adding that the school
district has hit a “critical
mass” and the stadium has
started to pose safety issues.
Just prior to the pan-
demic, when students were
still regularly using the sta-
dium’s bottom-fl oor weight
room, large chunks of con-
crete began falling from
the ceiling onto the weight
room area. The school dis-
trict declared the area unsafe
and halted using the space,
and brought in a structural
engineer to examine the sta-
dium, which led the district
to move ahead with its repair
plan.
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