10 years ago this week — 2006

A Lake Oswego man could throw a monkey wrench into two big developments in the works along U.S. Highway 101 at Dolphin Road.

Peter Ettro, a 28-year-old CPA who grew up in Knappa and Astoria, is fighting zoning and other land-use changes needed by Home Depot and Lum’s Auto Center.

If and when Home Depot opens for business in Warrenton, it’s likely to provide stiff competition for Randy Stemper’s locally owned Builders Supply stores in Astoria and Gearhart.

“They’re going to impact us. At what level, is the question,” Stemper said, adding that he’s more worried about the effect the chain store will have on the community. “When’s the last time you saw their (Home Depot’s) name on the back of a kid’s jersey?” Stemper asked.

Northern Star Natural Gas has moved ahead with its paperwork to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Columbia River at Bradwood.

At the same time, a group of almost 100 people, including North Coast residents and visitors from as far away as Santa Barbara, Calif., marched in protest through Astoria Saturday and unveiled the beginning of a legal campaign to stop it.

The proposed Warrenton Home Depot store will have a $4.5 million payroll and employ 155 people – 70 percent of them full-time and 85 percent of them local – and pay wages that exceed the Clatsop County average, company executive Brian Cannard told the Warrenton City Commission Tuesday night. Cannard, Home Depot’s real estate manager for Oregon, was one of four company representatives who made the case for rezoning land on U.S. Highway 101 from residential to general commercial to accommodate the store.

50 years ago — 1966

Russia and the United States may begin talks soon on problems arising out of the presence of a Soviet trawl fishing fleet off the Pacific coast.

Possibility of the talks was disclosed at a public rally attended by more than 400 persons at Ocosta school in Westport, Wash., Sunday evening.

Columbia River Fishermen’s union has protested to the Oregon Sanitary Authority against Crown-Zellerbach Corporation’s proposal to pipe mill effluent and bleach waste into the Columbia River at Wauna, unless the material is completely purified.

Russell Bristowd, union secretary, said piping the unpurified wastes into the river would be an “unnecessary hazard to all marine life in the lower Columbia and to the health and well-being of the citizens of Oregon and Washington.”

It took $325,000 and months of hard work and sweat, but Clatsop County now has one of the most advanced summer sports camps for boys in the country.

Dubbed Sports Acres, the camp is 380 acres nestled in a valley between the Nehalem river and Highway 25 off Elderberry inn.

“Here boys 10 and older can build their proficiency in a chosen sport under auspices of some of the finest college and high school coaches in the northwest,” revealed Joseph Peterson, director of the camps activities.

There were 57 vessels in the Russian fishing fleet and they seemed to be avoiding infractions of international law during the 10-day patrol of the cutter Yocona that ended last weekend.

75 years ago – 1941

An estimated 500 new citizens will be honored by recognition services Saturday evening at Gyro field at the joint celebration of “I Am An American Day” and Flag Day.

These 500 citizens have reached the age of 21 within the past year and are residents from all parts of Clatsop County. In addition to them are the naturalized citizens who have received their papers within the last year.

A possibility exists that operation of the Clatsop airport will be suspended, and that the Civil Aeronautics authority’s grant of a student fliers’ course of training for Astoria will be withdrawn because of dredging work in the renovation and expansion of the Clatsop airport.

News has been received from the regional office of the CAA at Seattle that the school had been withdrawn because of the flying ban to be applied on the airport during the dredge work. The Astoria port commission was told last night that without use of the airport’s main runway, flying operations among 90 students in the Clatsop County Aviation association would have to be abandoned along with any plans for a CAA school.

Additional protection for the port of Astoria facilities was authorized by the port commission Tuesday night.

R.R. Bartlett, port manager, was instructed to proceed at once with the erection of high fences across the frontage of the three piers in order to keep out prowlers and all persons, particularly after hours, who have no business on the port premises.