10 years ago this week — 2014

SEASIDE — “I just got four first places here, so I’m stoked about that.”

That was Seaside’s Andrew Owens, following his fourth and final victory this weekend, in the annual Daily Astorian Invitational track meet. And if track meets could talk, The Daily Astorian Invite would be pretty stoked, too.

For the first time in its 26-year existence, the “Daily A” was held on a Saturday — which is considered high for a track meet. Nowadays, high school track and field is all about the big meets. The big Saturday meets.

“We want to make this (meet) a bigger deal,” said Seaside athletic director Jason Boyd, “to showcase our athletes on the North Coast in a big meet. Like a ‘Meet of Champions’ or the Dick Baker Invite, which are in the valley. And The Daily Astorian meet just seems like the perfect opportunity to be able to do that.”

Mike Campbell, a boat operator for Anchorage Launch Services, faces a unique job challenge: 600- to 1,000-pound California sea lions.

”One time I came down here, I couldn’t even get to the boat,” said Campbell, who in his vessel, Triumph II, services ships mooring in the river. “I had to hop up on the bow of the boat, fire it, get it started just to create some noise to chase them off the dock.”

While Campbell and other tenants see the sea lions as a sometimes aggressive nuisance, the mammals draw admirers from around the world.

In the middle is the Port of Astoria, a 114-year-old Stretch Armstrong doll pulled from either side by groups imploring it to accommodate — or conversely to evict the pinnipeds at Pier 36.

The barking bulls migrate to Astoria each year to fatten up on salmon before migrating back to California’s Channel Islands to find mates.

Some stay year-round. Last week, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife counted more than 1,400 sea lions in one day at the basin.

A generous gift from a member of the community will help ease traffic concerns near the future site of the Astoria School District’s sports complex.

Duffy Duncan was present at Monday’s Astoria City Council meeting when Mayor Willis Van Dusen introduced a resolution to consider accepting a grant of the land Duncan has offered the city free of charge.

“One of the things that I enjoy most about being on the City Council is some of the fun things that go on and some of the relationships we have,” Van Dusen said.

Duncan offered an easement on his Williamsport Road property to improve access for traffic at the sports complex, a partner project between the city, school district, Columbia Memorial Hospital and Recology.

The unincorporated areas in Clatsop County will be off-limits to medical marijuana facilities for at least six months.

Clatsop County commissioners voted Wednesday to enact a moratorium on marijuana dispensaries, but allowed the decision to go to voters in November as to whether the ban should stay in place until May 2015.

50 years ago — 1974

William Heinze, of Bond Street, placed a 2-inch stack of petitions on the table in front of the Astoria City Council Monday and said they contained 1,284 signatures protesting police harassment of patrons of Astoria bars.

But after a speech in which he harshly criticized law enforcement tactics, Heinze picked up the stack of petitions and took them with him, refusing to turn them over to Mayor Harry Steinbock.

Even so, Heinze elicited an assurance from City Manager Dale Curry that he and Police Chief Charles Paetow already had ordered a halt to the police practice of waiting outside taverns and bars for patrons to emerge.

Heinze charged that police officers use unfair methods in their attempts to make arrests for drunk driving.

“I was stopped three times in two weeks,” Heinze said. “I was practically browbeaten into admitting I was drinking, which I wasn’t.”

He claimed he and other persons repeatedly were stopped for minor violations such as burned-out license plate lights and routine license checks after coming out of bars, whether they had been drinking or not.

Dorene Perkins sat on a stool outside of the camera range in the Clatsop Community College television studio, not quite sure when she was supposed to join some of her fellow Astoria High School drama students on the set.

Meanwhile, Mark Tilden sat in the master control room overlooking the studio not quite sure what to tell which cameraman to do, or when.

The scene was the first taping of an Astoria High School drama class project by a college television class.

Tilden, who invited the drama class to do a series of programs to be aired Monday nights on Channel 7, soon found out how hard it is to direct a show with only two cameras and very little room to move them around in, and with a very sketchy script.

The script was sketchy because the group was doing an improvisational theater program.

TILLAMOOK — The Oregon Coastal Conservation and Development Commission recommended Friday that the federal government establish a 200-mile outer limit for fishing by foreign vessels.

The action was proposed by Port of Astoria Commissioner Martin West, an Oregon Coastal Conservation and Development Commission member.

It came after several outbreaks of discussion about problems coast fishermen believe are caused by foreign fishing vessels during the review of proposed policies for the preservation and development of the continental shelf.

The resolution passed without a nay vote.

75 years ago — 1949

The U.S. Army’s convoy of 22 LCMs and three escort vessels were reported passing Tongue Point at about 6 a.m. this morning en route up the Columbia River to Pasco, Washington, for a mock invasion of the atomic area near Pasco.

The fleet left Grays Harbor Friday after taking refuge from heavy seas that sank one LCM Wednesday.

Two LCMs that were disabled by engine trouble and towed to Fort Stevens by the army tug 130 Wednesday joined the convoy for the trip upriver, according to the U.S. Coast Guard report.

A personal quarrel that reportedly began in a Japanese port and continued 5,000 miles across the Pacific ended at the port docks late Monday afternoon with the hospitalization of one seaman with serious injuries and the jailing of another.

Julio Sanchez Torres, a Peruvian seaman from the freighter Julia Luckenbach, is being treated for a brain concussion received in the fight, which climaxed the quarrel.

Bert D. Reinhardt, of Long Beach, California, another seaman from the Julia Luckenbach, was transferred this morning from the city jail to the county jail. He is being held on an open charge. Charges will not be filed until Torres either rallies or dies.

The quarreling of Torres and Reinhardt ended, police were informed, with Torres being knocked down a ladder on the ship. Torres’ condition was critical last night, but his condition late this morning was reported as “fair.”

Tentative plans for an approximate $15,000 improvement job on runways and aprons at Clatsop Airport were discussed this week when CAA engineers visited here, V.L. Nunenkamp, airport manager, reported today.

During their visit here, Donald Harper, district engineer, and Richard Barber, paving engineer for the CAA, went over the airport and made suggestions for maintenance and improvements.

Facilities of the airport were checked and some details concerning projects the federal government is participating in were gone over, Nunenkamp said. One of these projects is the installation of a sewer line.

The retail merchants’ committee of the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce voted today to recommend to the City Council that daylight saving time be authorized.

According to Curt Uhl, chairman of the committee, 10 of the 13 groups in the committee were represented at the meeting.

The vote of the representatives was eight were in favor of daylight time and two were neutral. Representatives for the other factions in the committee were not available for comment.

The rent control advisory board for the Clatsop-Tillamook area has received an acknowledgment of its letters of protest regarding the lifting of controls from Tillamook and parts of Clatsop County.

R.C. Anderson, chairman of the advisory board, said today the acknowledgment pointed out that rent director Tigh E. Woods, of Washington, D.C., has a right to receive and follow recommendations from local boards, but is not required by law to follow the recommendations.