149TH YEAR, NO. 36
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
$1.50
Vietnam
memorial
dedicated
in Seaside
Small town made
large sacrifice
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
Photos by Katie Frankowicz/The Astorian
Plans for a 90-room, Hilton-brand hotel on the South Slope are still going forward.
Hotel projects in the works
Developers eye downtown, South Slope
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
See Memorial, Page A2
Heat shrinks
hop yields
A
controversial
riverfront
hotel project in Astoria is
waiting on a verdict from
the state after developers failed
to land a permit extension from
the city, but two other hotel proj-
ects are moving forward.
Both are located in zones
where hotels are allowed as
an outright use: a large Hil-
ton-brand hotel at the base of the
South Slope and a smaller hotel
behind Fort George Brewery
downtown.
A local property development
group, Rose Tree LLC, which
also owns the former Home Bak-
ery building in Uppertown, plans
to turn the former Angel Medical
building on 15th Street behind
Fort George into a 13-room
hotel.
Neighbors of the yet unnamed
hotel include the brewery, a den-
tal office, Coast Community
Radio, a bed-and-breakfast, res-
idential homes and a massive
rhododendron that rears up at the
edge of the property.
Larry Bensel, of Rose Tree
LLC, hopes to start remodel
work in November and have the
hotel open in time for the peak
tourism season next year.
Bensel briefly considered
SEASIDE — Veterans, their families
and residents gathered Saturday under a
downpour at the Cove for the dedication
of the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial in
Seltzer Park.
The granite monument stands at the
south edge of the park and pays homage to
the 113 people from Seaside who served in
the war.
“These are all veterans that went to Viet-
nam, and the families of veterans and fam-
ilies of the KIA (killed in action),” Mark
Hansen, who helped organize the project,
said.
Ky Jennings, the co-organizer, said he
was among 17 students in the Class of
1963 to serve in the war.
“We lived in a time of peace, being post-
World War II kids, and we like to say, ‘it
was magic,’” Jennings said. “We knew
each other so well, most of us having gone
through 12 years of school together when
Seaside was a small town community.
Predictions of a
below-average harvest
By BRAD CARLSON
and SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
A former medical building on 15th Street will be the site of a new,
smaller-sized hotel.
turning the building into a rehab
center — an easier switch than
a hotel because it would have
been considered a similar use
to what had existed before. But,
he said, “I didn’t want to be the
guy that put a drug rehab center
downtown.”
A hotel seemed like a bet-
ter fit for the neighborhood. He
does not expect it to draw the
same criticism as the four-story,
66-room Fairfield Inn and Suites
proposed by Hollander Hospital-
ity at the site of the former Ship
Inn restaurant on the waterfront.
“It’s a cute enough, small
enough property and project,”
Bensel said of his hotel proposal.
“All it’s going to do is improve
the area.”
Rose Tree LLC does not
plan to knock down the medical
building, only remodel it, Bensel
noted. The building is located in
zoning that allows for lodging.
See Hotels, Page A2
Growers are in the thick of hop har-
vest across the Pacific Northwest, where
lower-than-average yields are predicted
because of heat waves that scalded the
region in June and July.
Across Washington state, Oregon
and Idaho, the nation’s main hop-grow-
ing region, high temperatures brought
losses, smaller hop cones and increased
spider mite pressure. However, growers
say the challenges were mild compared
to 2020’s wildfires, windstorms and mar-
ket disruptions.
“Heat waves, the delta variant —
what’s next?” said Steve Carpenter, the
chief supply officer for Yakima Chief
Hops, a grower-owned dealer handling
nearly 40% of the U.S. crop. “At least
within our company, though, we’re seeing
a good crop coming in and very encour-
aging numbers in terms of shipments. It
encourages me that we’ve maybe come
around the corner.”
See Hops, Page A5
Social services worker helps reduce language barriers
Hernandez serves as a
bilingual case manager
By ERICK BENGEL
The Astorian
M
arcelo Hernandez stepped
into his job as a bilingual
case manager at Clatsop Com-
munity Action in summer 2020.
At that time, the nonprofit
had taken on a new function
doing wraparound services
when people tested positive for
the coronavirus.
Hernandez and other staff
were helping exposed and
infected individuals and fami-
lies around Clatsop County ride
out two weeks in quarantine.
They moved homeless people
from Seaside’s Helping Hands
facility into hotels, did the same
for tourists who caught COVID-
19 while visiting, brought meals
to them and to families in iso-
lation, even transported people
via emergency vehicles because
public transit was off limits to
virus cases.
It was a busy time.
“We coordinated, all the
team here — not just me, all the
team,” Hernandez said.
When COVID-19 vaccines
became available earlier this
year, the need for wraparound
services began to wane. “We
were happy — it was decreas-
ing a lot,” he said. Then the
state lifted many virus restric-
tions, vaccinated and unvacci-
nated alike began to reenter the
world and the more contagious
delta variant arrived, followed
by a surge of new virus cases.
“And we start again,” he
said.
As a social services worker,
Hernandez helps people find
assistance with rent, utilities,
food, medical issues, transpor-
tation — the immediate needs
that, once met, allow for other
forms of fulfillment. “Small
things make big changes,” he
said.
To a role already designed
to touch people’s lives in diffi-
cult and desperate moments, the
virus added a new and urgent
dimension. Hernandez has cli-
ents many months behind in
rent, for example, because their
jobs disappeared during the
pandemic.
Hernandez serves as a trans-
lator for the local Latino com-
munity at the COVID-19 test-
ing site at Camp Rilea Armed
Forces Training Center in War-
renton. He’s also been on the
frontlines of the mass vaccina-
tion effort, translating between
health care workers and vaccine
recipients at county-run clinics.
See Hernandez, Page A5
Erick Bengel/The Astorian
Marcelo Hernandez, a bilingual case manager
at Clatsop Community Action, outside the
Astoria office.