A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2022
IN BRIEF
Astoria City Council approves
employment agreement with Benoit
The City Council approved an employment agree-
ment Friday to appoint Paul Benoit, a former city
manager, as Astoria’s interim city manager.
City Manager Brett Estes, who replaced Benoit in
2014, announced earlier this month that he would step
down on July 4 after accepting a job with the state.
Benoit is expected to start before Estes’ last day.
The City Council also discussed the recruitment
process for a new city manager, and is expected to
select an executive recruiter in the coming weeks.
Warrenton man dies
in crash in Tillamook County
A Warrenton man died in a crash on Tuesday morn-
ing while riding a motorcycle on Miami Foley Road in
Tillamook County.
Adam Taylor, 26, was headed south on a black
Honda 500 at about 11 a.m. and veered into the north-
bound lane and struck an oncoming Ford truck near
the intersection of New Miami River Road, police
said.
Emergency responders closed Miami Foley Road
for hours, police said.
Body of former
Cornelius mayor identifi ed
The human remains found in a car submerged in
the Willamette River on May 13 have been identifi ed
as those of Ralph Brown, the former Cornelius mayor
with ties to Astoria.
His vehicle, a 2014 dark blue Nissan Sentra, was
found 40 feet underwater near a Newberg boat ramp,
according to the Washington County Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
Brown, 77, disappeared on May 16, 2021.
Fishery managers add more fi shing
days on the river
Fishery managers have adopted an additional 11
days of recreational Columbia River spring Chinook
fi shing downstream of Bonneville Dam.
The additional days are from May 24 to June 3.
The decision follows an updated forecast of 19,000
additional upriver-origin adult spring Chinook, bring-
ing the total projected return to 180,000.
The open area below Bonneville Dam includes the
Tongue Point/ Rocky Point line upstream to Beacon
Rock, plus bank angling only from Beacon Rock to
Bonneville Dam.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
May 17, 2022
In CANESSA,
Brief
Leland
Robert, 82, of Sea-
side, died in Seaside.
Deaths
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
LEISEY, Marlin, 80,
of Seaside, died in Sea-
side.
Hughes-Ransom
Mortuary is in charge of
the arrangements.
May 16, 2022
HENSLEY, Colleen,
94, of Vancouver, Wash-
ington, formerly of Asto-
ria, died in Vancouver.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
May 15, 2022
PEDERSEN,
John
A., 82, of Astoria, died
in Seattle. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
May 14, 2022
MacARTHUR, James
C., 63, of Astoria, died
in Astoria. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
WOLDEN,
Frank
L, 87, of Seaside, died
in Seaside. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
MEMORIALS
Friday, May 27
Memorials
JOHNSON,
Elmer
Leroy — Memorial at
10:30 a.m., Hughes-Ran-
som Mortuary, 576 12th
St., with a brunch to fol-
low at noon in the base-
ment at Clatsop Post 12
American Legion, 1132
Exchange St. Private
interment is at 2:30 p.m. at
Knappa Prairie Cemetery.
Saturday, June 4
BERRY, Diane A.
— Celebration of life at
1 p.m., Warrenton Com-
munity Center. 170 S.W.
Third St. in Warrenton.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway.
TUESDAY
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board,
5:15 p.m., 1225 Avenue A, Seaside.
Astoria Planning Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main
Ave.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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County, city leaders discuss
housing at work session
First joint meeting since before pandemic
By NICOLE BALES
and ERICK BENGEL
The Astorian
Clatsop County and city
leaders met Wednesday
to discuss aff ordable and
workforce housing, micro
housing and services for the
homeless.
The joint work session
at the Clatsop County Fair-
grounds was the fi rst time
the governing boards gath-
ered together since before
the coronavirus pandemic.
The boards agreed to sched-
ule quarterly regional hous-
ing meetings to continue the
discussion.
“I want to point out,
while the county is made up
of distinct cities, unincor-
porated communities, rural
areas, employment oppor-
tunities and housing needs
do not stop at these juris-
dictional boundaries,” said
Jeff Adams, Cannon Beach’s
community
development
director, who proposed the
quarterly meetings.
“Our workforce, our
lives, are regional. They’ve
been regional for as long as
we know, but more so now,”
he continued. “So we’ve got
to use our regional collabo-
ration to build that capacity
for the future.”
regional organization that
can take this project on and
move it forward,” Adams
said.
He said he reached out to
the Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce, an organi-
zation specializing in envi-
ronmental planning and hab-
itat restoration for fi sh and
wildlife.
CLATSOP COMMUNITY ACTION
ESTIMATES MICRO SHELTERS COULD
COST BETWEEN $12,000 AND $15,000
A UNIT . THE NONPROFIT SAID IT
WOULD MANAGE THE VILLAGES AND
SECURE FUNDING IF JURISDICTIONS
CAN PROVIDE THE LAND.
Adams noted that lit-
tle action has been taken
since Clatsop County’s
2019 housing study, which
also called for a regional
approach.
“If we’re going to move
this forward as a group,
we’ve got to fi nd that
Adams said the organiza-
tion could take the lead, not-
ing that housing authorities
typically fi ll that role.
Susan Prettyman, the
social services program
manager at Clatsop Commu-
nity Action, also presented
to the group.
Prettyman said the non-
profi t’s long-term goal is to
see micro shelter villages
in Astoria, Warrenton and
Seaside. These units would
serve as transitional housing
for people having trouble
securing permanent homes .
Ideally, Clatsop Com-
munity Action would hire
full-time on-site managers,
Prettyman said. Social ser-
vices providers could work
with people where they live,
off ering mental health care,
domestic violence counsel-
ing and other support.
Clatsop
Community
Action estimates micro
shelters could cost between
$12,000 and $15,000 a unit .
The nonprofi t said it would
manage the villages and
secure funding if jurisdic-
tions can provide the land.
In April, the county put
up 15 surplus properties
for child care, low-income
housing and social services.
By the May 13 deadline,
the county had received pro-
posals from Clatsop Com-
munity Action, Clatsop
Care Health District and
Seaside.
Oregon private forestland deal
wins acclaim, but doubts remain
Brown signs bills in
Portland ceremony
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
PORTLAND — Regula-
tions that reduce Oregon’s
harvestable timber acreage
by roughly 10% aren’t a
development that would nor-
mally be embraced by tim-
ber industry representatives.
Yet new rules that
increase no-logging buff ers
around streams and impose
other restrictions were cele-
brated Wednesday by execu-
tives of forest product com-
panies alongside Gov. Kate
Brown and environmen-
tal advocates at an event in
Portland.
The signing ceremony
memorialized the Private
Forest Accord, a compro-
mise deal over forestry reg-
ulations struck by timber
and environmental repre-
sentatives. The agreement
was enshrined in legislation
passed earlier this year and
signed by Brown.
“You all set aside your
diff erences to do what is best
for everyone,” the governor
said. “Both sides recognized
the old way of doing things
wasn’t working.”
Any decrease in the
state’s log supply is a hard
pill for lumber and plywood
manufacturers to swal-
low, but the segment of the
industry that supports Sen-
ate Bill 1501 believes it’s
a calculated risk: The new
restrictions are meant to
forestall ballot initiatives or
other unpredictable disrup-
tions to logging rules.
“There are no certain-
ties in life, but we have a
negotiated agreement that’s
supported by all sides,”
said Eric Geyer, the strate-
gic business development
director for Roseburg For-
est Products. “I’m confi dent
we will have regulatory cer-
tainty for the elements that
were negotiated.”
This regulatory certainty
is generally cited as a key
benefi t to foresters, loggers,
landowners and manufactur-
ers, but detractors in the tim-
ber industry view the term
as unrealistically optimistic.
Critics say the regula-
tions don’t actually prevent
environmental
advocates
from fi ling lawsuits or seek-
ing ballot initiatives, either
immediately or years from
now.
“One must suspend dis-
belief that the greens will
not sue in the future. His-
tory says otherwise,” said
Rob Freres, the president of
Gov. Kate Brown spoke at a signing ceremony in Portland on
Wednesday for bills that impose new regulations on private
forestland.
Freres Lumber. “Surrogates
and newly formed organiza-
tions will be used to circum-
vent the agreement.”
Meanwhile, the timber
investment
management
organizations and real estate
investment trusts that agreed
to the restrictions will even-
tually divest their Oregon
forestlands, “avoiding the
harm they have caused,” he
said.
The larger buff er zones
around waterways, which
depend on stream type, are a
major component of the deal
and have come under fi re for
rendering valuable standing
timber on private land eff ec-
tively worthless.
upland, lowland and ripar-
ian areas, according to
detractors.
Supporters of the deal
in the timber industry say
it ensures future regula-
tions under the state’s Forest
Practices Act will be guided
by an “adaptive manage-
ment process” that relies on
research rather than political
maneuvering.
“Any changes to the For-
est Practices Act will be
based on sound science,”
said Chris Edwards, the
executive director of the
Oregon Forest & Industries
Council, a timber group.
“The science will lead us to
agreements.”
‘BY SEEING EACH OTHER AS
PEOPLE AND SHARING OUR
VIEWS WITH INTEGRITY, WE
CAN ACHIEVE THE HALLOWED
MIDDLE GROUND.’
Ken Nygren | president of the Oregon Small Woodlands Association
Aside from no-harvest
buff ers expanding, the leg-
islation imposes restrictions
on beaver trapping, road
building and steep slope
logging.
Industry estimates peg
the statewide impact as a
10% cut in harvestable tim-
ber acreage, which will
roughly correlate with a
decrease in lumber and ply-
wood production and the
mill closures or curtail-
ments that entails, critics
say.
The eff ect will be partic-
ularly burdensome for land-
owners with many streams
on their properties, includ-
ing small woodland own-
ers who don’t own vast
acreages spread out over
Environmental groups
that signed onto the deal
say their public show of
support will defl ate any
future eff orts to change
the law through ballot ini-
tiatives, given the broad-
based consensus behind
the new rules.
“It becomes harder for
someone to mount external
eff orts at the ballot to do
something diff erent,” said
Sean Stevens, the exec-
utive director of Oregon
Wild . “There will be a lit-
tle bit of stasis that comes
from this.”
If the federal govern-
ment approves the deal’s
regulations under a habi-
tat conservation plan for
threatened and endan-
gered aquatic species, it
would protect against law-
suits alleging landowners
unlawfully harmed them
and their habitat.
“That gives them a
shield from liability,”
said Ralph Bloemers,
co-founder of the Crag
Law Center.
Even so, the habitat
conservation plan must
fi rst be approved by federal
authorities through a pub-
lic process, and its protec-
tions don’t extend to ter-
restrial species such as the
spotted owl. The plan also
doesn’t apply to liability
under the Clean Water Act.
Though a representative
of the Oregon Small Wood-
lands Association helped
craft the deal, critics have
accused the agreement’s
signatories of deliberating
behind closed doors with-
out input from the public.
Small woodland owners
won’t be held to the same
standards under the legis-
lation as industrial forest
owners, but the regulations
will still be more stringent
than they are now. The
state’s Board of Forestry
must implement the new
rules before December.
Under companion leg-
islation, Senate Bill 1502,
small woodland own-
ers with fewer than 5,000
acres who abide by the
stricter industrial standards
can obtain tax credits to
compensate for the loss in
revenue .
Small woodland owners
are more likely to live in
the wildland-urban inter-
face and thus the signifi cant
reduction in their proper-
ty’s timber value will cre-
ate pressure to convert
these forests to residential
or other uses, according to
detractors.
For the Oregon Small
Woodlands
Associa-
tion , it’s gratifying that
the unique circumstances
of small woodland own-
ers were recognized in the
accord and they were given
special consideration in the
regulatory and tax provi-
sions, said Ken Nygren,
the group’s president.
By engaging in negotia-
tions, representatives of the
timber and environmental
communities learned their
goals were not mutually
exclusive, he said. They
all share the aim of keep-
ing Oregon’s forested land-
scape healthy.
“By seeing each other
as people and sharing our
views with integrity, we
can achieve the hallowed
middle ground,” Nygren
said.