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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, FEbRuARy 12, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
SHANNON ARLINT
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Challenges for the next Astoria police chief
B
ack in 2019, before the mur-
der of George Floyd by
Minneapolis police trig-
gered Black Lives Matter demon-
strations and calls to defund
the police, the Police Executive
Research Forum warned that police
were facing a workforce crisis.
Fewer people wanted to become
police officers, a report by the
research forum found, and more
officers were leaving the profession.
“Today’s police officers increas-
ingly are being asked to deal with
social problems, such as untreated
mental illness, substance abuse and
homelessness,” the report said. “As
a result, the skills, temperament and
life experiences needed to succeed
as an officer are becoming more
complex.”
Floyd’s murder in 2020 revived
important questions about the use
of force and the institutional rac-
ism within our criminal justice sys-
tem. We believe the protests that
followed Floyd’s death were neces-
sary to raise public awareness about
long-standing injustice, but the
political climate has made the work-
force crisis in policing worse.
In smaller, predominantly white
cities like Astoria, the issues are
often less about police miscon-
duct and institutional racism and
more about finding people inter-
ested in embracing the evolving role
of law enforcement. The challenge
is recruiting officers who have what
former Astoria Police Chief Ron
Louie describes as the “emotional
intelligence” for the job.
As Astoria searches for a new
police chief to replace Geoff Spald-
ing, who is retiring, we hope the city
uses Louie’s standard as a guide.
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
Clatsop County should have a single countywide 911 dispatch center.
Astoria benefited from Spalding’s
maturity. He already retired twice
before coming to Astoria in 2017,
so he had more freedom to focus on
being a good steward for the police
department rather than polishing
a resume for the next step on the
career ladder.
Spalding steered the city’s home-
lessness solutions task force and
took a thoughtful approach to crisis
response. In our view, Astoria police
are among the most effective on the
North Coast at diffusing potentially
volatile interactions with people liv-
ing on the streets or having men-
tal health or drug and alcohol-fueled
breakdowns.
Much of the crime in Astoria,
from assault to domestic violence to
burglary to theft, is tied to drug and
alcohol abuse and untreated mental
illness.
Our next police chief should be
a leading voice in policy discus-
sions around treatment, social ser-
vices, housing and community out-
reach. With a stronger social safety
net, police could concentrate more
on crime than crisis response.
We have two policy recommen-
dations for the new police chief and
the city to consider.
Crisis response: A portion of cri-
sis response calls should be diverted
from Astoria police.
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare,
Clatsop County’s mental health and
substance abuse treatment provider,
has a mobile crisis team available to
help police.
Astoria police and Clatsop
Behavioral Healthcare are also in
talks on a co-response model, where
police officers and clinicians could
respond to crisis calls together.
Over time, we believe a share of
crisis response calls could be han-
dled by clinicians.
Studies have shown that people
struggling with untreated mental ill-
ness are at significantly higher risk
of being killed during interactions
with police.
As The Astorian has documented,
a small number of people account
for hundreds of calls to Astoria
police each year. Many are expe-
riencing mental health or drug and
alcohol-related problems that do not
lead to arrest and criminal charges.
We recognize that careful pro-
tocols would need to be in place
before calls can be diverted, but cli-
nicians are more suited for some
of these crisis response calls than
armed officers.
Consolidate emergency dis-
patch: Emergency dispatch cen-
ters in Astoria and Seaside should
be consolidated into a single county-
wide 911 dispatch center.
Studies and reports over the past
few decades have urged consolida-
tion. Our county is too small — and
equipment is too expensive — to
have separate dispatch centers.
We have heard the frustration
from dispatchers who have to work
long hours because of staffing short-
ages or devise workarounds for
communications glitches. “We lose
sleep on this at night. This is such
an important system — that it works
appropriately and accurately,” Spal-
ding told The Astorian last month.
Having dispatchers under
one roof could also make it eas-
ier to eventually divert more crisis
response calls from police across the
county.
We trust our city and county lead-
ers can come up with a strategy —
such as through the sheriff’s office
or a new governing authority with
representatives from police and fire
agencies — to bring 911 under one
umbrella.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Time and money
J
ust to set the record straight: The primary
reason that Astoria Forest Products left
the Port of Astoria was the Port’s refusal to
renegotiate AFP’s onerous lease, inherited
from their takeover from Westerlund Log
Handlers.
The loss of an export facility has a hugely
detrimental effect on every facet of the log-
ging industry, and greatly devalues the asset
for all timber owners, both large and small.
Also, all peripheral suppliers lose a major
customer.
Once again, the county gifts signif-
icant resources to the ports of Olympia
and Longview, Washington. The time and
money spent hauling wood out of county for
processing and shipping comes at a signifi-
cant cost.
The Port should demolish the Pier 1
building, which has been a white ele-
phant since its inception, and turn Pier 1
into a drive-in/drive-out log processing and
exporting depot. Clatsop County needs to
stop being a Third World, colonial, plan-
tation county for our neighbors’ benefits.
The income to the county, across the board,
would be enormous.
As is said, sadly, I don’t think the current
Port administration or commission can “see
the forest for the trees.”
CHRIS CONNAWAY
Astoria
LETTERS WELCOME
ESP
t was Super bowl Sunday and the boys
were quite heady. When the game started
they were all ready.
Orders were given us not to disturb, it
was 1976 and both teams were rated superb.
One turned 16 and said “no” to birthday
cake, his 12-year-old sister lamented “for
goodness sake.”
She said, “Mom let’s surprise the socks
off of him.” So we baked a cake and frosted
it with a whim.
The name of the winners and “Happy
birthday John.” When the cake was all
done, the TV was still on.
With 16 candles lit, we knocked on the
door of the den. They sounded quite pleas-
ant, and invited us inside, when ...
Only they knew the winners and couldn’t
believe our words. They wondered if we
were a couple of “nerds.”
He said how did you know that without a
TV? His sister just smiled and said, “don’t
Letters should be exclusive to The
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I
worry we have ESP.”
MARIAN OLSON
Yuma, Arizona
Art can help
I
believe art can help make a differ-
ence. I’m a cartoonist, and when the
to other letter writers should address
the issue at hand and should refer to
the headline and date the letter was
published. Discourse should be civil.
Send via email to editor@dailyasto-
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in Astoria or mail to Letters to the
Editor, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR.,
97103.
COVID-19 pandemic started, I founded a
group on Facebook called Artists Unite,
rallying artists of all kinds, all over the
world, so they can use their artistic gifts
to spread hope to all who are suffering
from COVID-19, show the world artists
are heroes like doctors, truck drivers, gro-
cery store clerks and a host of others, and
with luck, bring the pandemic to a suc-
cessful end.
It is almost two years now, and we are
still living in fear, but I know art can help,
for it brings hope and reason, because
even though several had disregarded it to
be sufficient, art actually had helped us
for thousands of years now, like during
World War II. I know artists are heroes,
for now artists had become martyrs for
the sake of the world because of them
using art against the evil pandemic.
This pandemic has taken too many
lives, even artists, not just by the virus,
but by force! And not just our lives, but
our livelihood. Art will help, for art is a
gift of life, for art is life, and that’s what
we’re trying to save and bring back: Life!
Art is just as powerful as all the vac-
cines, and art can save lives, too, and
this nightmare needs to end now. If any
other artists wish to join the cause for life
against COVID-19, they can join at this
link: facebook.com/groups/artistsunite23
DYLAN DUVALL-MILLIREN
Seaside