A2
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2022
IN BRIEF
County reports 39th virus death
TRACKS
People work on the Astoria Riverfront Trolley tracks to
prepare for a spring opening.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Clatsop County has reported a 39th death related to
the coronavirus.
The county said an 80-year-old man died at home on
Saturday.
The man, who had underlying conditions, had
received a COVID-19 vaccine, the county said.
Food carts burglarized in Astoria
Several food carts downtown were reported burglar-
ized last week, the Astoria Police Department said.
At the food cart pod at Duane and 11th streets, Good
Bowl, Roll & Bowl, Surf 2 Soul, Sasquatch Sandwich
Shop and Coff ee OR Waffl e were hit. One cart had a
cash box stolen.
Money was also taken from Wahoo Charlie’s at the
13th Street pod.
Some carts were accessed through windows, others
through doors whose locks had been drilled out.
No suspects have been identifi ed.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Offi cer
Cory Gerig at cgerig@astoria.or.us or 503-325-4411.
State reports new virus cases for county
The Oregon Health Authority has reported new coro-
navirus cases for Clatsop County over the past several
days.
The health authority reported 15 new cases on Tues-
day and 30 new cases over the weekend.
Since the pandemic began, the county had recorded
4,424 virus cases as of Tuesday.
Playground moves forward in Gearhart
GEARHART — The Planning Commission has
moved forward with plans for a new playground at Cen-
tennial Park.
When the former Gearhart Elementary School was
shut down, the playground was closed and equipment at
the west end of the school transferred to the new Pacifi c
Ridge Elementary School.
Berkley Sturgell, a local girl, dedicated herself to
bringing a playground back to Gearhart, proposing a
new location at Centennial Park, also known as Trail’s
End Park.
Sturgell launched a Quarter Mile Challenge to raise
funds for the city’s play equipment fund.
Port accepting applications
for budget committee
The Port of Astoria is taking applications for pub-
lic member positions on the budget committee for the
upcoming budget season.
The committee is made up of the fi ve Port commission-
ers and fi ve public members. Terms are set for three years.
Individuals can submit their resume and a letter to the
Port Commission expressing interest in joining the com-
mittee to admin@portofastoria.com by April 11. Knowl-
edge of local budget law and familiarity with the Port is
considered helpful, but not required.
The commission will be fi lling the positions at a
meeting on April 19.
— The Astorian
DEATH
Feb. 13, 2022
In INMAN,
Brief
Jean Isabella, 99, of Seaside, died in Sea-
side. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary of Astoria is
in charge of the arrangements.
Death
CORRECTION
Incorrect owner — Property off Wahanna Road
Correction
under consideration for Seaside High School soft-
ball fi elds is owned in part by the Seaside School Dis-
trict and the Union Health District. Providence Sea-
side Hospital leases the land from the health district. A
story on A1 Tuesday incorrectly said Providence Sea-
side owned a portion of the land.
ON THE RECORD
Criminal mischief
arrested on Sunday for
On
the
Record
• Robert
Staszek,
74, driving under the infl u-
of Astoria, was indicted in
December for fi rst-degree
criminal mischief. The
crime is alleged to have
occurred in August 2019.
DUII
• Patrick Cody Sewell,
29, of Grants Pass, was
ence of intoxicants. He
was in a car crash at E.
Harbor Drive and King
Avenue in Warrenton
and taken to Colum-
bia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria, where he was
cited.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Seaside Transportation Advisory Commission, 6 p.m.,
City Hall, 989 Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Established July 1, 1873
(USPS 035-000)
Published Tuesday, Thursday
and Saturday by EO Media Group,
949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
97103 Telephone 503-325-3211,
800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
97103-0210
DailyAstorian.com
Circulation phone number:
800-781-3214
Periodicals postage paid at Astoria, OR
ADVERTISING OWNERSHIP
All advertising copy and illustrations
prepared by The Astorian become the
property of The Astorian and may not
be reproduced for any use without
explicit prior approval.
COPYRIGHT ©
Entire contents © Copyright,
2022 by The Astorian.
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF
CIRCULATIONS, INC.
Printed on
recycled paper
Subscription rates
Eff ective January 12, 2021
MAIL
EZpay (per month) ...............................................................................................................$10.75
13 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$37.00
26 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$71.00
52 weeks in advance ........................................................................................................ $135.00
DIGITAL
EZpay (per month) .................................................................................................................$8.25
State lawmakers agree to $12 million
Band-Aid for ailing public defense system
By CONRAD WILSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon lawmakers have
reached an agreement to
temporarily patch the state’s
public defense system,
which for months has failed
to meet its constitutional
obligations and instead left
some criminal defendants
without an attorney.
Gov. Kate Brown and leg-
islative leaders plan to spend
an additional $12.8 million
through the end of 2023, Ore-
gon Public Broadcasting has
learned. The money would
go to the Offi ce of Public
Defense Services, an inde-
pendent state agency that’s
part of the Oregon Judicial
Department. A recent report
by the American Bar Asso-
ciation found Oregon has
around 1,300 fewer public
defenders than it needs to
adequately provide criminal
defense for people who can-
not aff ord an attorney.
The extra funding would
pay for the equivalent of
36 full-time public defense
attorneys, as well as sup-
port staff and money for
criminal defense investiga-
tions. Those resources are
expected to target the coun-
ties where more than 100
indigent criminal defendants
don’t have a public defender.
“This is a civil rights cri-
sis,” state Rep. Tawna San-
chez, D-Portland, who
co-chairs the Joint Commit-
tee on Ways and Means, said
in a statement. “There are
Oregonians who don’t have
access to any legal represen-
tation and our public defend-
ers are completely over-
whelmed. The $12.8 million
we are sending to OPDS
will help address this urgent
problem.”
The funds are a fraction
of what’s needed to address
the larger systemic failures
surrounding the state’s pub-
lic defense system, which
has essentially run out of
public defenders in several
of the most populous com-
munities. At times that list
has included Lane, Marion,
Washington and Multnomah
counties.
“We still have a huge
amount of work to do to
address the chronic under-
funding and structural issues
that are plaguing our public
defense system,” Sanchez
said.
A growing crisis
Last fall, courts across
the state noticed an uptick
in the number of defendants
who didn’t have the legal
representation they are con-
stitutionally guaranteed. In
December, offi cials with the
Offi ce of Public Defense
Services said there were
more than 60 people charged
with crimes who didn’t have
a defense attorney.
Since then, the crisis has
ballooned. In Multnomah
County alone, more than
80 people were without a
defense attorney as of Tues-
Conrad Wilson/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Kacy Jones speaks with a client during a hearing at Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland
in 2019. Jones was an attorney with the nonprofi t Metropolitan Public Defender until 2021.
day, according to court staff .
As of Monday, at least 20
people were in custody. In
Marion County, court staff
said Tuesday 21 people
were unrepresented, includ-
ing three people in custody.
In Washington County, eight
of the nine people with-
out attorneys were in cus-
tody, including one per-
son charged in 2019 with
attempted murder. That per-
son has not had an attorney
since November.
“Our system is not set
up to work well for defen-
dants or lawyers,” said Sen.
Elizabeth Steiner-Hayward,
D-Portland, who co-chairs
the Joint Committee on
Ways and Means. “We are
working on a variety of
strategies including address-
ing some very acute needs
related to high caseload in
four counties.”
A combination of factors
has led to the state’s public
defense crisis.
For two years, the pan-
demic has slowed hearings
and trials in parts of the state.
At the same time, police and
district attorneys continue
to make arrests and investi-
gate crimes — which have
increased in some commu-
nities — leaving some pub-
lic defenders with hundreds
of open cases. Several public
defense fi rms have stopped
taking new clients charged
with certain crimes, saying
the loads are so high that
attorneys risk violating their
ethical obligation to ade-
quately represent clients.
Still, many in the pub-
lic defense community have
said today’s problems long
predate the pandemic and
are the result of chronic
underinvestment, misman-
agement and a lack of polit-
ical will.
Oregon’s rules of profes-
sional conduct, as well as the
American Bar Association’s
Criminal Justice Standards,
require defense attorneys to
perform tasks such as estab-
lishing trust with their cli-
ents, keeping them informed
and independently investi-
gating the case.
“You’re not to be recom-
mending a plea to your cli-
ent, which after all aff ects
his or her liberty, without
completing your investiga-
tion and study of the case,”
Stephen Hanlon, the bar
association’s project direc-
tor for its report on Oregon,
said last month during a pub-
lic meeting on the fi ndings.
Put another way: pub-
lic defense is more involved
than an attorney simply
showing up to court to rep-
resent a person.
‘More work
to be done’
Public defense leaders
welcomed news of the addi-
tional $12.8 million in fund-
ing, even if it is far short of a
permanent fi x. They said the
situation in some counties is
so dire that they’ll take any
help the Legislature is will-
ing to provide.
“Your brain, your body
cannot sustain that level
of trauma for an unlimited
amount of time,” said Shan-
non Wilson, executive direc-
tor at Public Defender of
Marion County. “By bring-
ing more attorneys in, we’re
going to help improve reten-
tion for the attorneys who
stayed … It’s a glimmer of
hope.”
Wilson said their offi ce
has had considerable turn-
over and no applications.
They said they recently
re wrote a job description and
noted the offi ce is dedicated
to reducing the caseload so
the public defenders can pro-
vide eff ective counsel. After
changing that, Wilson said,
they got six applications.
“We have a lot of appre-
ciation for all the folks that
are making this happen
because it’s so vital for pub-
lic defense,” said Autumn
Shreve, government rela-
tions manager for OPDS.
“We are in a crisis state and I
think these dollars are going
to be extremely important
for addressing that. There’s
more work to be done. For
now, it’s a step in the right
direction.”
Gov. Brown, who as the
head of the executive branch
has no oversight of public
defense, “convened a meet-
ing” Feb. 7 via video about
the ongoing failure to pro-
vide a constitutional right to
Oregonians.
Brown, Senate Presi-
dent Peter Courtney, House
Speaker Dan Rayfi eld,
Steiner-Hayward and San-
chez were all in attendance,
according to the governor’s
staff . Oregon Supreme Court
Chief Justice Martha Wal-
ters, who oversees the judi-
cial branch, also attended.
The meeting was to dis-
cuss short-term funding
solutions for OPDS “in light
of the challenges that public
defenders continue to face,”
Brown’s offi ce said in a
statement. “The g overnor is
supportive of devoting addi-
tional funds this biennium to
the agency to hire more pub-
lic defenders.”
Oregon’s chief justice,
too, has expressed concerns
about public defense in the
state. After the American
Bar Association study, Wal-
ters released a statement,
saying public defense “is in
desperate need of improve-
ment and support.”
Despite Walters’ stated
support for public defense,
privately, some attorneys
have questioned whether
leaders in the judiciary
appreciate the harm play-
ing out in many of Oregon’s
courtrooms.
On the same day Walters
met with the governor and
legislative leaders, she tes-
tifi ed before lawmakers on
behalf of Senate Bill 1581,
which would raise the sal-
aries for judges, including
her. When adjusted for the
costs of living, Oregon’s
judges are paid the lowest
of any state, according to
the National Center on State
Courts.
Like judges, public
defenders argue they are
underpaid and overworked,
and the public defense crisis
is playing out at a time when
the state is awash in cash
due to higher-than-expected
revenue.