The Columbia Press
1
Clatsop County’s Independent Weekly
www.thecolumbiapress.com
50 ¢
Vol. 5, Issue 3
January 15, 2021
Calls drop amid other good
news for fire department
2020 brought positive changes for WFD
By Cindy Yingst
The Columbia Press
Cindy Yingst/The Columbia Press
Newly elected Commissioner Gerald Poe takes the oath of office from City Re-
corder Dawne Shaw at Tuesday night’s city commission meeting. Below, Mark
Baldwin, left, and Tom Dyer take their oaths.
Commissioners take oath of office
City commissioners elected by vot-
ers in November were sworn in Tues-
day night.
Gerald Poe, elected for the first
time in November, was the only new
member; Mark Baldwin and Tom
Dyer were re-elected to their posts.
Also
Tuesday,
commissioners
unanimously selected Dyer as their
mayor pro tem.
Later in the meeting, several people
were appointed to various city com-
mittees.
Eileen Purcell and Karen Grass were
appointed to the Warrenton Commu-
nity Library board; Brooke Terry and
AmyLeigh Sutton were appointed and
Bob Bridgens was reappointed to the
Warrenton Urban Renewal Advisory
Committee.
Warrenton firefighters had 18 per-
cent fewer calls last year, something
Fire Chief Brian Alsbury sees as a
good thing.
“The way I look at it, that’s 18 per-
cent fewer people who had the worst
day of their lives,” he told city com-
missioners Tuesday night during a
report on changes made during the
past year.
The department answered 1,027
calls in 2020. Most of them – 700 –
were rescue and emergency medical
calls; 41 were fires, 74 were traffic
accidents, and 212 were other types
of service calls, such as removing
downed trees from roads or finding
out why a carbon dioxide alarm was
activated.
For the first time in many years,
the department answered call that
saved the life of a person trapped in-
side a burning building.
Warrenton Fire Department has
21 volunteers, six more than when
Alsbury was hired. Alsbury, former-
ly a volunteer, re-
placed former Fire
Chief Tim Demers,
who resigned in
October 2019 after
a variety of safety
allegations
were
filed anonymously
with Oregon Occu-
pational Safety and
Health.
Alsbury
“The OSHA hic-
cup and the resolution of that went
well,” Alsbury said. “Ted Aames,
who was interim chief before me did
a great job of getting that started and
getting us on the right track.”
All members of the department,
City Manager Linda Engbretson,
Aames and Alsbury worked quickly
to resolve safety issues. Ultimate-
ly, OSHA fines were reduced from
$10,800 to $4,100.
The department is using new
computer technology designed to
streamline daily operations and re-
porting. And it’s sticking closely to
state and national standards using
See ‘WFD’ on Page 4
Port has new plan for major projects
The Columbia Press
The Port of Astoria has developed a
plan for tackling its largest projects.
The 45 items in the Capital Facil-
ities Plan were prioritized by public
safety, environmental compliance,
maintenance of revenue sources, cre-
ation of new revenue, routine main-
tenance and new projects that are
neither essential nor routine.
“They’re things that need to be
completed across four properties,”
said Matt McGrath, the port’s deputy
director.
The goal was to provide a narrative
of the agency’s holdings and set up
a document that provides long-term
institutional knowledge of projects
and their maintenance needs, he said.
“This would have been tremendous-
ly helpful to me when I first came on,”
McGrath said. “This is not a hard-
and-fast we-have-to-do-every-one of
these projects. It’s a living document
… that will be adjusted as opportuni-
ties present themselves and as port
priorities themselves change.”
The plan was introduced at Tues-
day’s Port Commission meeting.
“I felt it was very helpful and in-
structive to be able to have a more
See ‘Port’ on Page 5