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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, SEpTEmbER 25, 2021
Transit district postpones decision on vaccine mandate
Director worries
about expanding
driver shortage
By ETHAN MYERS
The Astorian
The Sunset Empire Trans-
portation District, trying to
manage through a bus driver
shortage, has postponed
a decision on whether to
require vaccinations against
the coronavirus.
The transit district’s board
has discussed a vaccine man-
date since July. In August,
the board decided to push
back the decision until this
month. At Thursday morn-
ing’s meeting, they tabled it
again.
Jeff Hazen, the transit
district’s executive direc-
tor, said nine of the district’s
26 bus drivers are unvacci-
nated. After surveying them,
Hazen said he expects to lose
all nine if vaccinations are
required.
The transit district has
made cuts and reductions to
several routes due to the lack
of drivers and an inability
to recruit new ones. If they
lose the unvaccinated driv-
ers, Hazen said, the district
would have to make more
cuts.
“We haven’t put a pen-
cil to it yet, but it would be
as much or more than what
we already did,” he said. “It
would be very significant.”
Hazen, who said he would
prefer to wait and see if the
state mandates vaccinations
for transit workers, under-
stands the board has a tough
Colin Murphey/The Astorian
The Sunset Empire Transportation District is weighing a
coronavirus vaccine mandate.
decision to make.
“I am concerned about the
drivers that are not getting
vaccinated, for their health,”
said Debbie Boothe-Schmidt,
the board chairwoman. “At
this point, it is their decision.
I would hate to cut services,
too, and I am afraid that’s
what would happen if we did
make it mandatory.”
While Hazen is unsure
of the feasibility, the board
brought up the possibility of
frequent COVID-19 testing
for the unvaccinated. Several
commissioners also added
they should, at the very
least, be taking drivers’ tem-
peratures before they get on
buses.
As the board weighs a
vaccine mandate, they placed
confidence in the protocols
on buses.
“So far, we have been
doing a very good job at con-
tinuously cleaning the buses,
having that barrier that sep-
arates the drivers from our
riders also, they are 6 feet
apart,” Commissioner Diana
Niño said. “There are all of
these things that we have
already put in place.”
Hazen, along with a num-
ber of commissioners, noted
that while they are vac-
cinated, they understand
that people have their own
choices to make.
“Yes, I am vaccinated. I
am all for vaccinations but,
like the sentiment that has
been shared, I don’t want to
put anyone in the position
of having to quit because of
this and us losing service,
losing drivers and also dis-
rupting this family that Jeff
has talked about,” Niño said.
“We have had such a rough
almost two years and this
would just continue to bring
down morale.
“They have been working
six days a week. Our driv-
ers have been troupers and
people have choice. We also
have to respect that.”
Infant: Kashton is ‘always happy, always smiling’
Continued from page A1
Colin Murphey/The Astorian
A number of firefighters on the North Coast are
unvaccinated against the coronavirus.
Mandate:
Driving much of
the crew to refrain
Continued from page A1
But at Lewis and Clark,
the 31-person fire crew
could lose, on the higher
end, about half of its people.
“I’ve been in the busi-
ness for 30 years, and, I
mean, this is just incredi-
ble, what they’re doing,”
Lewis and Clark Fire Chief
Jeff Golightly said in an
interview.
Unvaccinated staff can
remain at Lewis and Clark
and respond only to fire
calls, Golightly said, but
the fire department’s ability
to respond to medical calls
during daytime hours will
be limited. He is the only
paid staff member in the
department.
“I think a lot of the folks
would actually, probably,
get (the vaccine),” he said.
But he thinks the state man-
date itself is driving much
of the crew to refrain.
For a moment, the gov-
ernor’s rules required health
care workers to submit to
weekly COVID-19 testing
if they couldn’t show proof
of vaccination. Golightly’s
crew was on board with
that, he said, and the depart-
ment had planned to do test-
ing in house.
“To me, it’s a simple
solution: Allow the weekly
testing, wear the proper
(personal protective equip-
ment) like we already do,”
he said.
According
to
the
report Phillips compiled,
Olney-Walluski Fire and
Rescue also indicated its
department will have trou-
ble during business hours
responding to motor vehicle
crashes and medical inci-
dents. Elsie’s department,
located in a rural area where
the wait time for emergency
response is relatively long,
has discussed the possibil-
ity of “only responding to
fire calls.” Hamlet Volun-
teer Fire Department, which
shows up to crashes on U.S
Highway 26, said it may
lose roughly half of its small
department. Warrenton and
Gearhart, two better-staffed
departments, face an abrupt
depletion of firefighters.
“We were heroes that
worked through all of this
and did everything, and
now it feels like we’re the
enemy,” said Golightly, who
got vaccinated early on and
said that just over half of his
department is vaccinated.
At the Board of Com-
missioners meeting on
Wednesday night, Phillips
said, “Personally, if I was
suddenly critically ill or
seriously injured, I wouldn’t
care what someone’s vacci-
nation status was if they
were coming to save my life
or help me.”
Emergency
declarations
County Manager Don
Bohn noted that the concern
about potential EMS short-
falls is felt in rural counties
statewide. Some counties,
such as Malheur and Baker,
have declared emergencies
over the vaccine mandate.
“What is particularly
problematic for many of us
is the fact that we rely upon
volunteer-centric services,”
he said, “and so those vol-
unteers — they’re not mak-
ing the same choice that
folks are if this is a liveli-
hood decision.
“And it’s not some-
thing that they’re making
lightly, either,” he contin-
ued, “because they know
their services are critical for
their communities. And so I
think that there’s a number
of options that the county
can be looking at, and cer-
tainly declaring an emer-
gency is an option.”
Mark Kujala, the chair-
man of the Board of Com-
missioners, who serves as
director of the Columbia
Memorial Hospital Founda-
tion, acknowledged the dif-
ficulties the vaccine man-
date has created throughout
Oregon.
But he also said it’s
wrong to say the debate
about vaccines is balanced.
He pointed to a letter the
board received from a con-
stituent “basically telling
us that COVID isn’t kill-
ing anybody, and vaccines
are responsible for deaths
… that we’re feeding every-
body lies, it’s a big conspir-
acy about health care and
government,” he summa-
rized at the meeting.
“I just think that the facts
on one side are wrong,” he
said, “and I don’t mind say-
ing that. I think that we need
to be able to say that.”
Kujala said in a text mes-
sage after the meeting that
it’s unfortunate that it takes
mandates to get people
vaccinated.
“But the pervasive mis-
information out there is no
longer an excuse,” he wrote.
“Unvaccinated people are
getting sick and are dying
in this community. We need
to give public health and
health care systems a break
and that means doing your
part and protecting yourself
and those around you by
getting vaccinated.”
Terrified of a recurrence,
they realized they were going
to have to advocate and fight
for answers.
They invested heavily to
keep Kashton monitored at
all times and alert them if he
stopped breathing or his heart
rate was abnormal, Childress
said.
“Doc and I have spent
every day together since the
first day he stopped breath-
ing fearing that it may happen
again — and it did, an overall
of five times in three months,”
she said.
They searched for answers,
doing research, joining groups,
reading forums and seeking
second and third opinions.
An ultrasound showed
abnormalities to Kashton’s
spinal cord.
“This meant we had to put
our not even 8-week-old under
anesthesia for an MRI,” Chil-
dress said. “Handing our baby
over to that doctor was one
of the hardest things we’ve
done and the MRI was the
longest 45 minutes we have
experienced.”
At Randall Children’s Hos-
pital at Legacy Emanuel Med-
ical Center in Portland, they
found Dr. Monica Wehby,
someone “who not only saw
what they saw, but knew how
to fix it,” Childress said.
This month, Wehby rec-
ommended surgery — but she
was moving to Indianapolis to
be closer to family.
Shaw and Childress fol-
lowed their doctor’s trail.
Kashton’s worsening symp-
toms, including severe con-
stipation, hyperreflexia, hip
spasticity and bladder reten-
tion issues, made the surgery
even more urgent.
During surgery, doctors
make a small incision in the
back and another small inci-
sion to the muscle, Shaw said.
They make another incision
through the spinal canal to clip
the tethered cord and relieve
the pressure on the back, and
hopefully stop any long-term
effects.
The recuperation time is up
to Kashton and how he toler-
ates pain, anesthesia and med-
ications, Childress said.
“It has been a struggle to
travel, even being in a motor
home,” she said.
Kashton was in the car
seat about eight to 10 hours
a day. “We have had to
stop because of meltdowns
because we don’t want him to
be suffering.”
Despite his symptoms,
Kashton is “always happy,
always smiling,” Shaw said.
“Out of nowhere people stop
and say our baby looks like
an angel from heaven. When
he comes to the shop he is just
the happiest little guy.”
‘Day-and-night effort’
During all this, Childress
and Shaw struggled to main-
tain operations at Doc’s Auto
Repair, their business in
Seaside.
“It was just super hard on
us because we want to be there
for our community, but we
haven’t been,” Shaw said.
When one of their top auto
techs was out sick, “it was a
snowball effect for our cus-
tomers,” Shaw said. “We love
our business and we’ve tried
really hard to make it great
for the community. And since
we’ve been gone it’s been dif-
ficult. When they come to
Doc’s Auto Repair every-
body’s looking for Doc.
“We’ve just been kind of
out of the loop for things for
several months because it was
a day-and-night effort by both
of us.”
A GoFundMe page, “Cure
for Kashton,” invites people
to help the family with medi-
cal costs.
Their first estimate for the
surgery was $80,000, Shaw
said. That was later revised
upward to $134,000. Added to
that are travel costs from driv-
ing across the country.
“It’s been devastating on
us,” Shaw said. “It’s been dev-
astating financially. We don’t
know how we’re going to get
through this, but we will man-
age. We’ll do whatever we’ve
got to do. We’ll sell everything
we have.
“I didn’t expect anybody
would even come to our side,
to be honest with you. The
community has really been
stepping up. It’s taken me to
my knees more than once on
this trip how many people
have just reached out. I just
have to say ‘thanks.’ It’s been
amazing.”
Schools: ‘I feel like things are going really well’
Continued from page A1
“In schools, they are
doing a great job of social
distancing and putting pro-
tocols in place. All the prob-
lems with kids getting too
close are on buses and I
can’t control that.”
Four virus cases were
reported in the Knappa
School District. Three were
students from Hilda Lahti
Elementary School and the
fourth was a student from
Knappa High School.
Knappa Superintendent
Bill Fritz said all four came
from an event outside of
school property.
The weekly outbreak
report also showed five
virus cases from the Seaside
School District. Four were
students from Pacific Ridge
Elementary School and one
was a student from Seaside
Katherine Lacaze/For The Astorian
Schools are taking precautions against the coronavirus.
High School.
Seaside
Superinten-
dent Susan Penrod said all
recorded virus cases up to
this point were tied to events
outside of school.
Penrod said she is confident
in the job schools are doing.
“I feel like things are
going really well, especially
since none of the cases orig-
inated in our buildings and
that we don’t have any
spread in our schools,” Pen-
rod said. “With our conver-
sations with the local health
authority, they have con-
firmed to us that our safety
protocols are working well.”
One virus case was
reported at Anchor Chris-
tian Academy, a private
school in Hammond. School
administrators could not
immediately be reached for
comment.
The Oregon Health
Authority reported 10 new
virus cases for the county
on Friday and 18 new virus
cases on Thursday. Since the
pandemic began, the county
had recorded 2,175 virus
cases and 26 deaths as of
Friday.
Ridge: Land will continue to be used for forestry
Continued from page A1
The
Clatsop-Nehalem,
like the Chinook Indian
Nation tribes based around
the mouth of the Colum-
bia River, are not federally
recognized. Access to tradi-
tional gathering and hunt-
ing areas is not guaranteed.
The allowance to harvest
and gather plants and native
foods at Clatsop Ridge may
be a small portion of the con-
servation easement, but for
Dick Basch, the Clatsop-Ne-
halem vice chairman, it was
an important inclusion.
“To have this is recogni-
tion that we’re still here,” he
said.
The Clatsop Ridge prop-
erty has been logged routinely
over the years and many older
tree stands were knocked
down during the 2007 wind-
storms that raked through the
region. But the smells and
the sounds Basch’s ancestors
would have experienced and
that he experienced as a child
remain: the sweet, earthy
smell of moss and ferns, the
salty tang of the ocean below.
You can hear the sounds
of the forest and the ocean
waves crashing, Basch said.
“It provides us the oppor-
tunity to go where our fami-
lies, our ancestors, would go
to harvest items,” Basch said.
“To breathe the same air.”
‘Seed effort’
Columbia Land Trust’s
purchase of the conservation
easement was funded through
more than $2 million obtained
by the North Coast Land
Conservancy. The land con-
servancy, already involved in
a major funding campaign for
its Rainforest Reserve project
farther south, invited Colum-
bia Land Trust to the Clatsop
Ridge project.
GreenWood has collab-
orated frequently with the
North Coast Land Conser-
vancy on other types of land
conservation projects in the
past and sees this new conser-
vation easement as an invi-
tation to other landowners to
consider similar partnerships.
“I see this almost as a seed
effort,” said Mark Morgans,
director of North American
forest operations for Green-
Wood. “Where else can we
do this, not only us at Green-
Wood, on our footprint of the
forest?”
The easement also nods
to goals finalized earlier this
month by the Clatsop Plains
Elk Collaborative.
That group, with the sup-
port of Gov. Kate Brown
and state Sen. Betsy John-
son, signed off on a unified
approach to dealing with
growing urban elk herds on
the North Coast.
Increased development
was identified as one of the
drivers for an uptick in unde-
sirable elk and human inter-
actions in the Clatsop Plains
area. One of the action items
identified by the group was
to look at establishing wild-
life habitat buffers and transi-
tion areas and, through part-
nerships, keep some land
undeveloped.
While it isn’t the same as
conserving land for habitat
or old growth trees, the ease-
ment at Clatsop Ridge does
ensure the land will only con-
tinue to be used for forestry,
not development, said Katie
Voelke, the executive direc-
tor of the North Coast Land
Conservancy.
“No highway is going to
be built through the middle
of it,” Voelke said. “No gated
community is going to be
built on top of it.”
The additional protections
that come with the easement
— like increased stream buf-
fers — are important con-
siderations as land stewards
consider climate change and
a landscape’s resiliency in the
face of major climate shifts,
Voelke and Roix said.