A6
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2022
Dog: Classiﬁ cation as a level ﬁ ve dangerous animal upheld
Continued from Page A1
Eric Halverson, the interim police
chief at the time, designated Layla
a level ﬁ ve dangerous animal, the
highest level, which applies to ani-
mals at large that kill other animals.
At a hearing in Circuit Court on
Wednesday, City Attorney Blair
Henningsgaard called Jack’s owner
and others who described the after-
math of the attack. John Taylor, who
lives with Theresa Brown, Jack’s
owner, said he saw the dog pounc-
ing on the cat. He then went to help
corral the dog.
When Taylor went to go check on
Jack, the cat was making some noise
but clearly dying . “There was no try-
ing to save him,” he said.
Brown said Jack often slept out-
side in the sunshine. When she heard
yelling outside, she came out to see
Layla chasing the neighbor’s cat and
her cat covered in blood. She said
she sat there for a while afterward,
holding Jack’s body.
Geordie Duckler, an attorney
in Tigard who specializes in ani-
mal-related legal issues, represented
Mayer. He said that s ince none of the
witnesses actually saw Layla kill the
cat, the dog should not be classiﬁ ed
as a level ﬁ ve dangerous animal .
“They didn’t see dog kill the
cat,” he said. “They inferred that,
of course, dog killed cat, but they
didn’t see that behavior, and if we’re
at that level in which we’re applying
city code conscientiously and prop-
erly, then we don’t have a level ﬁ ve
classiﬁ cation, or we shouldn’t, if
we’re applying it correctly.”
Instead, Duckler said the descrip-
tions of Layla’s behavior ﬁ t a level
one or level four designation . Level
one behavior is deﬁ ned in the city
code as an animal at large that
threatens or endangers the safety of
another animal. Level four behavior
is established if an animal at large
aggressively bites or causes physical
injury to an animal or person.
Judge Peterson said he under-
stood Duckler’s argument to a point,
but he did not believe the city code
prohibits the court from drawing
reasonable, well-founded inferences
about the situation.
Since Jack had no prior health
problems and died after being
attacked by Layla, Peterson said he
did not need witnesses to say they
saw Layla kill Jack to uphold the
dog’s classiﬁ cation as a level ﬁ ve
dangerous animal.
In his statement to The Astorian,
Mayer said the dangerous animals
section of the city code is inhumane,
especially in its call to euthanize ani-
mals for manageable behavior.
Mayer said he and his girlfriend
feel terrible about the loss of Jack ,
but they do not think Layla should
die.
Apothecary: ‘It’s exciting because I grew up here’ Fired: Concerns of
actions extend far
beyond Oregon
Continued from Page A1
“I pull it out, and it’s lit-
erally a black cauldron,” she
said, a centuries-old item
from Hicks’ collection. “I was
like, all right. There’s enough
signs from the universe.”
She made quick work
of preparing the space and
reopened in early July.
In the front room, the ﬂ oor
has been cleared to make
room for local artisan wares.
Witches Brew sells coﬀ ees
and chocolates from behind
one of the counters. T he
antique cauldron has been
ﬁ lled with scented bath salts.
Norgaard now has a
downstairs neighbor, Rain
Town Vintage, which has
been in the building since last
year. Shoppers looking for
vintage clothes walk through
Kit’s Apothecary to get there.
“It’s exciting, we love the
space. We love the energy of
people who come in,” she
said. “Having Rain Town in
the basement — the fashion
that comes into this build-
ing that we get to look at
— phenomenal.”
Continued from Page A2
Abbey McDonald/The Astorian
An antique cauldron Kristen Norgaard found in the back of a cabinet is now on display in the
storefront, used to hold bath salts.
Rain Town’s owner, Nathan
Crowchild, was upstairs visit-
ing with Norgaard, drinking a
cup of Witches Brew.
“It’s been really great.
And it’s great having the new
neighbors upstairs. It really
meshes well with both our
businesses,” he said. “Now I
get coﬀ ee upstairs, and they
buy clothes downstairs.”
“We never have to leave
the building,” Norgaard
added, laughing.
Renovations are still
ongoing. She plans to convert
one of the back rooms into a
cafe with a seating area, envi-
sioning glow y backlighting
to comple ment stained glass
and reclaimed wood.
Norgaard enjoys the reac-
Gray: Climate change a major moral issue
Continued from Page A1
and on various groups’ claims
to victimhood. “It basically
means you’re a party of tribes,
rather than having one unify-
ing vision,” he said.
Running as a Republican
was not an option, as the party
has largely turned away from
democracy and conservatism,
Gray said, pointing to eﬀ orts
to subvert the 2020 presiden-
tial election and baselessly
cast doubt on the results.
“Today, we are at a place
where the two parties are only
competing to be the lesser of
two evils … ‘You think I’m
bad? Look at the other guy,’”
he said. “That’s basically
what the two parties oﬀ er us
now. There’s no vision.”
Gray has likened the his-
torical moment to the years
preceding the Civil War
as recounted in a Pulitzer
Prize-winning book by David
M. Potter called “The Impend-
ing Crisis, 1848-1861.”
The U.S. in the mid-19th
century was divided over an
overwhelming moral issue —
slavery — and faced a related
economic one: the need to
transform the country from a
resource-based economy that
sold raw materials abroad to
an industrial economy, a shift
brought about by the Home-
stead Act and transcontinental
railroads .
When Congress passed
the Kansas-Nebraska Act,
opening the American West
to slavery, anti-slavery con-
gressmen — both Demo-
crats and Whigs — defected
from their respective par-
ties. Politicians made com-
mon cause with former rivals
and founded a new party they
eventually called the Repub-
lican Party. Within a decade,
Republicans controlled both
houses of Congress and had
elected the party’s ﬁ rst presi-
dent, Abraham Lincoln.
Gray sees a compelling
moral issue — keeping the
planet inhabitable — and the
need for another transforma-
tion, this time to a low-carbon
economy.
Third parties often ﬁ zzle
‘TODAY, WE ARE AT A PLACE
WHERE THE TWO PARTIES ARE
ONLY COMPETING TO BE THE
LESSER OF TWO EVILS … ‘YOU
THINK I’M BAD? LOOK AT THE
OTHER GUY.’ THAT’S BASICALLY
WHAT THE TWO PARTIES OFFER
US NOW. THERE’S NO VISION.’
Frederick “‘Rick” T. Gray Jr. | A Cannon Beach resident
running for state House District 32 as a nonaﬃ liated candidate
out or get subsumed by big-
ger parties. The Republican
Party’s precedent shows that
experienced political leaders
— more so than well-inten-
tioned activists — can create
something durable , he said.
Somebody in Gray’s posi-
tion, running for oﬃ ce with-
out establishment back-
ing, may have to run at least
twice — the ﬁ rst time just
to get known, he said. He
has picked up a prominent
endorsement from Deborah
Boone, a Democrat who rep-
resented the House district for
14 years before choosing not
to run for reelection in 2018.
“You might win, but if you
do win, you’re a freshman
who sneaked in somehow and
they’re going to come after
you,” he said. “If you don’t
win, don’t waste all that work.
Build on it and run again.”
When Gray began his
campaign earlier this year, his
plan was: Run in 2022, get
elected in 2024.
“It’s not the job of this
campaign to actually build the
party. It’s to ﬁ nd the people to
build the party after this cam-
paign,” he said. “Whether I’m
in oﬃ ce or whether I’m not,
that party-building process
will go on.”
Gray’s father served as
Virginia’s attorney general, a
state representative and a state
senator. At times, he brought
his son into the bill-drafting
process. The younger Gray
saw himself as an unoﬃ cial
legislative aide.
The role as secretary of the
commonwealth — essentially
Virginia’s secretary of state —
is largely ceremonial, respon-
sible for keeping and counter-
signing the governor’s oﬃ cial
documents, from appoint-
ments and executive orders to
pardons. In 1981, Gray pub-
licly opposed President Ron-
ald Reagan’s handling of the
air traﬃ c controllers strike.
Facing a furor from Repub-
licans, Gray resigned, saying
Gov. John Dalton, who sup-
ported the president, deserved
someone who did not cause
him embarrassment.
Raised in a Democratic
household, Gray became a
Republican in the late 1970s.
When he saw certain com-
ponents of Reagan’s support
— segregationist Democrats
switching parties — he went
independent .
“It’s really hard to play
the lesser-of-two-evils game
when there are three sides. So
I think we need to have a third
option,” he said. “And when
we have a third option I think
that will force the other two
parties to either do something
positive or die.”
tions customers have had to
her new location.
“It’s exciting because I
grew up here,” she said. “And
so to be able to take a building
and watch the transformation,
and then watch people get so
excited about it when they
come in. Because they’re like,
‘T his was Abeco? Where,
what?’”
Director:
‘Raised on
the coast
of North
Carolina’
Continued from Page A1
Gibbs hails from
North Carolina. At Hyde
County, he served as
emergency services direc-
tor after working as a 9 1 1
database administrator,
the county said.
“His tenure included
response to multiple hur-
ricanes, storms and wild-
ﬁ res, as well as an assign-
ment to Puerto Rico as
a planning section chief
for the Hurricane Maria
response in 2017,” the
county wrote.
Tiﬀ any Brown, who
manages and directs the
Emergency Operations
Center, reports to Gibbs.
The idea of turning
emergency management
into a director-led depart-
ment has been contem-
plated for about a dozen
years. Emergency man-
agement, a statutorily
required agency, left the
purview of the sheriﬀ ’s
oﬃ ce to the county man-
ager’s oﬃ ce in 2010.
“Having been born
and raised on the coast
of North Carolina, I very
much feel at home,”
Gibbs said in a statement.
“I look forward to learn-
ing, growing and becom-
ing a member of the com-
munity and serving its
members with integrity.”
10K RUN/WALK
SUNDAY, OCT. 9
Many across Oregon’s
indigent defense commu-
nity say the chief justice’s
decision to dismiss the com-
mission en masse — pre-
sumably to get the votes
necessary to ﬁ re Singer —
sends a chilling message.
“We write today to
express concern about the
political independence of
the public defense system
and the peril of keeping it
in the judicial branch,” the
Public Defenders of Oregon,
an organization made up of
several nonproﬁ ts that con-
tract to provide roughly 30%
of the state’s public defense,
wrote to legislative leaders.
The concerns over the
chief justice’s actions to
remove and replace the
commission extend far
beyond Oregon.
“I can’t think of another
instance where an entire
public defense board was
removed in one fell swoop,”
said Geoﬀ Burkhart, presi-
dent of the National Asso-
ciation for Public Defense,
which wrote a letter
Wednesday to Walters not-
ing its concerns.
Burkhart said the pri-
mary national standard for
public defense is indepen-
dence and that it be allowed
to operate without political
or judicial interference. The
underlying concern, Bur-
khart notes, is whether peo-
ple charged with crimes who
need a public defender get a
fair trial and not one inﬂ u-
enced by a public defense
system that’s enmeshed
with the judiciary.
“We’re out to make sure
people get a fair shake,”
Burkhart said. “If you don’t
have independence for
the defense function that
throws that all into question.
Are they able to get a fair
shake?”
A 2019 report commis-
sioned by the Oregon Leg-
islature found the state’s
public defense system was
eﬀ ectively unconstitutional.
Among other concerns, the
report questioned the advis-
ability of a Public Defense
Services Commission solely
appointed by the chief
justice.
“A non independent sys-
tem cannot solve its own
lack of independence,” said
Jon Mosher, deputy direc-
tor of the nonproﬁ t Sixth
Amendment Center, which
authored the report. “The
L egislature and the execu-
tive branch have to join the
judicial branch in oversight
of OPDS and the way that
happens.”
Despite those ﬁ ndings,
Oregon lawmakers have
not acted on them. Though,
the Sixth Amendment Cen-
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ter has been involved as part
of a legislative work group
on public defense that was
formed in April.
During Thursday’s meet-
ing, at least one commis-
sioner, Max Williams,
expressed an openness to
examining the structure in
the future, but also pointed
out the realities of the cur-
rent situation.
“We currently have
been dealt the hand that
we’ve been dealt,” said Wil-
liams , who also voted to ﬁ re
Singer. “This is in the judi-
cial branch. And the chief
justice is the appointing
authority and under the stat-
ute people serve at the plea-
sure of the chief justice.”
Still, many in the larger
public defense community,
regardless of their support or
frustrations with Singer, are
troubled by the events the
chief justice set into motion
when she ﬁ red the commis-
sion and reappointed several
new members who heeded
her call to remove Singer.
“People are being dis-
tracted by this sideshow and
forgetting that we still have
hundreds, at least, if not
thousands of people, who
are without counsel and
have been without counsel
for months on end, includ-
ing people in custody,” said
Jason Williamson, execu-
tive director of the Center
on Race, Inequality, and the
Law at New York Univer-
sity School of Law.
Williamson is one of
several attorneys who ﬁ led
a class-action lawsuit in
May over Oregon’s failure
to provide public defend-
ers to those charged with
crimes. He’s concerned that
the actions of the chief jus-
tice will make it harder to
reform Oregon’s public
defense system.
“This isn’t news to any-
one, including the chief
justice, that there is a cri-
sis going on,” Williamson
said. “Various state oﬃ cials
have been giving this lip
service for a long time and
if we had any conﬁ dence
that it was going to happen,
we wouldn’t have ﬁ led a
lawsuit.”
During a meeting Wednes-
day, the very ﬁ rst of the
new commission, Walters
acknowledged the extraordi-
nary events of the past week.
“It’s been challenging,
it’s been emotional, I know
for me and I know for others
as well,” she said. “I really
never anticipated exercis-
ing my statutory author-
ity to remove and reset
the commission, but the
issues that we face in pub-
lic defense are so urgent. I
couldn’t allow the dysfunc-
tion and the distractions to
continue.”
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