Thank you for your interest in reading The Astorian. Here are a few stories that you might have missed this week:

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It was early in the evening on April 7 when Warrenton police received a call from Walmart on S.E. Ensign Lane, reporting the suspected theft of more than $1,000 worth of merchandise.

The call wasn’t so different from others that come from the region’s busiest commercial hub. But quickly, things escalated.

With a police officer close behind, Sean Mobley fled from the store to the parking lot, clambering into a silver Toyota Corolla and starting the engine. He quickly reversed, ramming into a patrol car that had pulled up behind him, then changed direction, speeding past two officers into an SUV and a light post.

Mobley opened the Corolla’s door and took off running — but not before officers had attempted to break the car’s windows with the butts of their guns and fired shots at the vehicle. Eventually, the officers brought him down and put him in handcuffs near the Walmart garden section. By the end of the night, the Clatsop County Major Crimes Team had been activated for a police shooting.

The Astorian sought use-of-force reports and other documents from the Warrenton Police Department through the state’s public records law to provide context to a police pursuit and shooting that could have have placed bystanders at grave risk. For the most part, the incident was an anomaly — but it illustrates the challenges a small police department like Warrenton faces in responding to frequent theft from big-box stores.

Often, suspects are arrested or cited without incident or have a warrant issued for their arrest if they manage to take off before police arrive. But when a situation escalates, officers are faced with a dilemma: How aggressively should they pursue suspects in property crimes?

Read the story by Olivia Palmer and Jasmine Lewin by clicking here.

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Clatsop County and other local taxing districts could be looking at a loss of more than $1 million as one of the county’s largest employers seeks an adjustment to its property taxes.

In December, the Georgia-Pacific Wauna Mill filed a complaint with the Magistrate Division of the Oregon Tax Court, arguing that the facility’s assessed property value exceeded fair market value. The appeal, which came after a 15-year strategic investment program agreement had expired, requests a roughly 33% reduction in the market value assessed on the 2023-2024 tax roll.

The strategic investment program is a state-run program that provides companies with an alternate taxing structure for large capital investments. After the agreement with the Wauna Mill ended in 2022, the facility’s taxes increased by around $3 million for the 2023-2024 tax year.

Kristi Ward, Georgia-Pacific’s public affairs manager, clarified that the company is not seeking to reduce pre-2023 taxes — just to reduce the increase, which the company feels does not reflect current market value. Any taxpayer may appeal if they believe their property assessment value doesn’t accurately reflect market value.

Property taxes from the Wauna Mill are collected by the county each year and distributed to dozens of local taxing districts, including school districts, rural fire protection districts and other jurisdictions. Georgia-Pacific is requesting a reduction of roughly $1.8 million from those taxes.

See the story by Olivia Palmer by clicking here.

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The Port of Astoria will tear down the East Mooring Basin causeway, a rapidly deteriorating piece of infrastructure that has long been a headache for the Port.

On Tuesday, the Port Commission voted to authorize a contract with Bergerson Construction for the removal of the entire causeway, about 300 feet of which has already collapsed into the Columbia River.

In 2018, the Port closed the causeway to vehicle and foot traffic, requiring boat owners to access moored vessels by dinghy. In 2021, the causeway partially collapsed, knocking out power for boats and navigation lights. Since then, the causeway has continued to sustain further damage.

The Port had initially budgeted funding for dredging near the East Mooring Basin, but opted to redirect those funds to removal of the causeway.

“It just kind of happened to be this way, that the cost of that causeway removal was really similar to what the cost of dredging was going to be,” Will Isom, the Port’s executive director, said. “I know from a public standpoint, too, seeing some change down there and some things happening is good. There’s a lot of folks that want to see some major improvements, but having this infrastructure sitting there that was decayed, that has been condemned and shut down, that’s slowly collapsing — at some point it was going to need to be removed before we could really do anything out there.”

Take a look at the story by Rebecca Norden-Bright by clicking here.

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— Derrick DePledge