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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (July 2, 2021)
The Columbia Press 1 Clatsop County’s Independent Weekly www.thecolumbiapress.com Home sweet motorhome Finding fun ways to celebrate Fourth of July A member of Fur and Feathers 4-H Club shows off his rabbit. The group won the Mayor’s Trophy in Warren- ton’s 2019 parade. Bottom left: Miss Clatsop Coun- ty 2019 Ranisha Speed. Bottom right: Those riding in Big River Excavating’s big rig spot some friends. By Cindy Yingst The Columbia Press See ‘RVs’ on Page 4 Vol. 5, Issue 27 July 2, 2021 City struggles with RVs as residences Homelessness isn’t a problem easily solved. Yet Warrenton leaders are deter- mined not to allow their city to be- come a haven for illegal camping as Portland has. You won’t find rows of ramshackle tents surrounded by mounds of trash, human waste and hypodermic needles. Unless you look really hard … Police and private citizens have spent the past few years clearing the woods and vacant spaces of “illegal campers” and removing tons of garbage. But what to do about people living in campers and trailers on public and private property? “We’re not the only community that’s facing this,” Warrenton Police Chief Matt Workman said. His agency takes many calls about homeless people who are causing problems or making a home where they shouldn’t. “We’ve never been proactive on this; we’ve always been reactive,” he told city commis- sioners during a work- shop on recreational vehicle issues. During a quick sur- Workman vey before the meeting, Workman shot photos of RVs that were illegally parked or had people liv- ing in them outside of approved camp- ing areas. Of the 256 RVs he counted, a fifth appeared to have people living in them and another nearly one-fifth possibly had people living in them. 50 ¢ Photos by Cindy Yingst The Columbia Press After 16 months of life-altering COVID restrictions, Clatsop County residents are ready to party. Local cities and community groups are getting together to ensure a grand celebration of the nation’s 245th birthday. Warrenton residents will see a return of the city’s traditional old-fashioned Fourth of July parade after last year’s pandemic-predicat- ed hiatus. However, the car show, firefighters’ barbecue and other events won’t make a comeback until 2022. “Parade planning is going great,” Parade Director Mike Moha said. “We have well over 50 entries al- ready and … the final few days we usually get another surge. I have heard nothing but excitement from everybody about the parade. The people are ready.” See ‘Fourth’ on Page 6 When to go Warrenton parade: 3 p.m. Sunday Astoria fireworks: 10 p.m. Sunday One of state’s oldest unidentified person’s cases is solved On July 11, 1963 – nearly 60 years ago -- the body of a fully dressed de- composed toddler was discovered by a fisherman in the Keen County Res- ervoir southeast of Ashland. The little boy was wearing mid- dle-class clothing -- a red long-sleeve shirt, gray corduroy pants, a cloth diaper with blue diaper pins, and “jumping jack” white shoes. He was wrapped in a blanket and handmade quilt. Two heavy pieces of iron were wrapped in the quilt to weigh the tod- dler down in the water. It was a case that drew a lot of atten- tion at the time and investiga- tors, many of them with their own young children, worked tirelessly to solve the case. But the child was never iden- tified. The little body was bur- ied at Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Medford. The Jackson County Sher- iff’s Office took over the case and, for the next 58 years, 23 detec- tives and deputies worked the case with assistance from Oregon State Police and the Federal Bureau of In- vestigation. The case was reopened in 2007, the tiny body was exhumed and a DNA sample was collected. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Chil- dren created a composite image in hopes of producing some investigative leads. The University of North Tex- as Center for Human Identifi- cation extracted a DNA pro- file, which was uploaded into CODIS (the Combined DNA Indexing Sys- tem). Still, there were no matching family members in the system. See ‘DNA’ on Page 3
