A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 2022
PROUD PERCH
IN BRIEF
State discloses virus cases
at local schools
An eagle sits atop a pole at Fort
Stevens State Park at sunset.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
The Oregon Health Authority has disclosed fi ve
new coronavirus cases at schools in Clatsop County.
All fi ve cases were from the Astoria School Dis-
trict, according to the health authority’s weekly out-
break report. Two cases were students from Lewis and
Clark Elementary School and three cases were stu-
dents from Astoria Middle School.
Public meeting set for
tsunami evacuation plan
The public can weigh in on the Clatsop County Tsu-
nami Evacuation Facilities Improvement Plan during
the last public information meeting, held virtually at
5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The plan considers how existing routes, such as
walking and biking trails, can be improved for tsu-
nami evacuation, including what can be done with
facilities, trail connections and assembly areas, the
county said.
Visit www.ClatsopTEFIP.org for more details. The
county said a link to join the virtual meeting will be
posted the day of the meeting.
Oser appointed to
housing authority board
David Oser, of Astoria, was appointed to the board
of the Northwest Oregon Housing Authority at the
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners meeting on
Wednesday.
Oser, a retired chief fi nancial offi cer at the non-
profi t lender Craft3, was appointed to a four-year term
through 2025.
The housing authority manages properties for peo-
ple with low- and- moderate-incomes in Clatsop,
Columbia and Tillamook counties. The agency also
oversees federal programs that aid people in need of
housing assistance.
Portland attorney switches
to state House race
Jennifer Kinzey, a Portland attorney who originally
fi led to run in the Democratic primary for state Senate
District 16, which encompasses the North Coast, is no
longer running for the seat.
She discovered that her residence falls just outside
the Senate district.
Kinzey, who works at Ridehalgh & Associates,
has instead fi led to run in the Democratic primary for
state House District 34 held by state Rep. Ken Helm,
D-Beaverton.
“I felt that was the place where I could make the
biggest diff erence,” she said in an interview.
— The Astorian
Inslee pauses long-term
care program for 18 months
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The state of Washington has
offi cially hit the pause button on a controversial long-
term care insurance program known as WA Cares.
Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a bill
that delays the start of the program until July 2023,
giving lawmakers 18 months to make revisions to the
program and reassess its long-term solvency.
— Northwest News Network
ON THE RECORD
Menacing
DUII
On
the Record
• Cameron
Darnell
• Juan Jorge Ramon
Petteway, 33, of Steuben-
ville, Ohio, was indicted
this week for unlawful
use of a weapon, menac-
ing and disorderly con-
duct in the second degree.
The crimes are alleged to
have occurred in Clatsop
County earlier this month.
Strangulation
• Quinlan Eric Kualii
Hundley, 26, of Astoria,
was indicted this week for
strangulation, assault in
the fourth degree consti-
tuting domestic violence
and menacing constitut-
ing domestic violence. The
crimes are alleged to have
occurred earlier this month.
Rosales-Emanuel, 32, of
Warrenton, was arrested
on Thursday at S. Main
Avenue and S.W. Fourth
Street in Warrenton for
driving under the infl u-
ence of intoxicants, driv-
ing while suspended, driv-
ing uninsured, failing to
carry and present his driv-
er’s license and failing to
install an ignition interlock
device.
• Kyle Kevin Schmidt,
34, of Olympia, Wash-
ington, was arrested on
Wednesday evening at
Youngs River and Capps
roads for DUII and reck-
less driving.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob
Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A.
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., Flag Room, 450 10th St.
Clatsop County Fair Board, 5:30 p.m., 92937 Walluski
Loop, Astoria.
Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Job training a focus
at state Legislature
Governor has a
$200 million plan
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
What may be Gov. Kate
Brown’s last policy initiative
as governor — a $200 mil-
lion plan to boost training for
future jobs in construction,
health care and manufactur-
ing — will be one of the top
items for the new session of
the Oregon Legislature.
Lawmakers will open
the 35-day session on Tues-
day as Oregon’s top political
leadership undergoes major
changes. It will be the fi nal
scheduled session for Brown,
a Democrat who is barred
by term limits from running
again, and for state Senate
President Peter Courtney,
the veteran Democrat from
Salem who has led the Sen-
ate for a record two decades.
He is retiring after a record 38
years as a legislator.
This session will be new
for Rep. Dan Rayfi eld, a
Democrat from Corvallis
who has been nominated to
succeed Tina Kotek, of Port-
land, after her record nine
years as House speaker. Sen.
Tim Knopp, of Bend, and
Rep. Vikki Breese Iverson,
of Prineville, led minority
Republicans for the fi rst time
during the December special
session. For Democratic Rep.
Julie Fahey, of Eugene, it will
be her fi rst session as major-
ity leader.
Given how contentious
recent sessions have been
from walkouts and slow-
downs of minority Repub-
licans in the past three years
— and fi ve special sessions,
four of them prompted by the
coronavirus pandemic — the
job training plan may repre-
sent something that can win
bipartisan approval.
The Future Ready Oregon
plan emerged from the Gov-
ernor’s Racial Justice Coun-
cil, which Brown appointed
in 2020 after the onset of
the coronavirus pandemic
and the racial justice protests
that arose from the murder of
George Floyd by Minneapo-
lis police . While some work
focused on the state budget,
the council also was asked
to propose ways to deal with
long-standing racial, social
and economic inequities in
Oregon.
“Let’s be clear: COVID
did not create these work-
force challenges. They
were created pre-pandemic.
COVID exposed them,” said
Patsy Richards, who led the
‘LET’S BE CLEAR: COVID DID
NOT CREATE THESE WORKFORCE
CHALLENGES. THEY WERE
CREATED PRE-PANDEMIC.
COVID EXPOSED THEM.’
Patsy Richards | leader of the council task force that shaped the plan
council task force that shaped
the plan.
The plan is aimed not only
at past injustices, but future
shortages of trained workers
— estimated at 300,000 —
in three growing economic
sectors.
Richards, who is Black,
said the plan takes into
account the need for full par-
ticipation in Oregon’s work-
force by racial and eth-
nic minorities, and also by
women, young workers, mil-
itary veterans and former
inmates in jails and prisons.
“If we do not respond to
these workforce indicators,
we will miss the opportunity
to lead the next generation
of Oregonians to economic
prosperity for all,” said Rich-
ards, who is the director of
long-term Care Works for the
RISE Partnership in Portland.
Brown previewed the plan
at the annual Oregon Busi-
ness Plan conference in early
December . One of the con-
ference sponsors is the Ore-
gon Business Council, which
a decade ago set a goal of a
10% statewide poverty rate
by 2020. Oregon’s actual rate
in 2021 was 12.44%, slightly
less than the national average
of 13.4%.
Duncan Wyse is the long-
time president of the Oregon
Business Council.
“We have immediate
needs,” he said. “Employ-
ers need talent right now,
and there are a lot of Ore-
gonians who are looking for
new careers as they’ve gone
through the pandemic. (This
program) really is trying to
reimagine how we provide
education and training ser-
vices to adults.”
The plan would draw
$200 million from the state’s
tax-supported general fund
and federal money from the
American Rescue Plan Act,
President Joe Biden’s pan-
demic recovery plan that
Congress passed almost a
year ago.
Major spending catego-
ries are:
• $92.5 million to expand
existing programs. Among
them: $35 million for local
workforce programs; $20
million for apprenticeship
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and pre-apprenticeship pro-
grams; $17 million for Ore-
gon’s 17 community col-
leges, and $10.5 million for
youth training.
• $95 million for compet-
itive grants to organizations.
• $10 million for navi-
gation centers, which link
workers with support ser-
vices (emergency food, hous-
ing, child care, health care,
transportation) to keep them
employed.
• $1 million for coordina-
tion of the three specifi c eco-
nomic sectors targeted in the
plan: Construction, health
care and manufacturing.
Though Oregon has
regained many of the jobs
lost during the onset of the
pandemic in spring 2020,
“these are aimed at ensur-
ing that Oregon’s recovery is
equitable,” said Jennifer Pur-
cell, Brown’s workforce pol-
icy adviser.
“The disruption created
by the pandemic has exac-
erbated the workforce crisis,
as well as highlighted signif-
icant disparities in how our
workforce system serves Ore-
gon’s communities of color,”
which Purcell said have been
aff ected to a greater extent
than Oregon as a whole.
“Barriers to job readiness and
career advancement persist,
which is made more diffi cult
by a workforce system that is
often siloed, ineffi cient, and
diffi cult to navigate.”
The plan has its doubters.
“I am concerned about
selecting winners and losers”
among job sectors, said Rep.
Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, a
longtime labor offi cial who is
leaving the Legislature after
18 years.
Rep. Jami Cate, a Repub-
lican from Lebanon and a
farmer, questioned how much
the plan would help in rural
areas.
“Given that we have a
shortage of workers already,
in some cases we are going to
be enticing them to quit,” said
Rep. John Lively, a Democrat
from Springfi eld and chair-
man of the House committee
that heard the plan. “There
are complex issues that are
going to be part of this con-
versation we need to have in
this session.”
Gail Krumenauer, econo-
mist for the Oregon Employ-
ment Department, spoke
briefl y to the House commit-
tee earlier this month. In a
Jan. 19 conference call with
reporters, she touched on
why there are shortages now.
The agency reported
103,000 job vacancies in
the private sector in the fi nal
quarter of 2021 — down
from a record 107,000 in the
previous quarter — and that
employers said 76% were
considered hard to fi ll. The
previous record was 67,000
jobs in summer 2017.
“We are seeing this
extraordinary level of hir-
ing across the United States,”
Krumenauer said. “There are
simply not enough available
workers for this near-record
level of job openings that
employers are trying to fi ll.”
For every 10 jobs open,
she said, seven workers are
potentially available. Average
starting pay in the last quar-
ter of 2021 was $21 per hour,
a 14% increase over the pre-
vious year, even taking infl a-
tion into account.
“There is not one thing
that can magically be done to
help all the workers fi nd jobs
with employers to supply
all the workers they need,”
David Gerstenfeld, the act-
ing director of the Oregon
Employment Department,
told reporters.
“Some people do not rec-
ognize they have transfer-
able skills,” he said. “We can
help them fi ll a gap so they
can move into some of those
high-demand occupations.”
The Oregon Capital
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between EO Media Group
and Pamplin Media Group.
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