10 years ago this week — 2014

It was a business meeting, a reunion and a retirement party. It was Willis Van Dusen’s last occasion to preside over the Astoria City Council Monday night.

The Daily Astorian does not have a precise number of how many meetings he ran as mayor. But a rough calculation is that he wielded the gavel some 575 times from 1991 through 2014. When combined with his six prior years on the council, he has participated in some 720 night meetings.

SEASIDE — Lisamarie Costanzo took the theme to heart when she entered the Ugly Sweater 5K in Seaside Saturday. Her shirt was adorned with a handmade Christmas tree on the front and a menorah on the back. Costanzo was clearly in the spirit.

“I’m an Italian Jew, so I gotta represent. We’re participating, we’re showing our love,” she said — the “we” referred her little dog, Samantha, also dressed in holiday garb. “She thinks she’s a lion when she’s not dressed up like a reindeer.”

The Clatsop County Fairgrounds bustled Tuesday with volunteers and local students cataloging pounds of food and piles of toys in preparation for the Astoria Wishing Tree and Food Basket Program “Pickup Day.”

On Friday, families will visit the fairgrounds to pick up donated items for the holiday season.

The Wishing Tree Program will supply nearly 800 children with gifts they have requested, while the Food Basket Program will provide two to three meals for more than 400 families.

On a muddy lot at the foot of Pier 3, behind the Best Western Lincoln Inn, rests the Crazy Dane, the Port of Astoria’s own piece of Hollywood history.

Once a double-masted, 55-foot schooner, the Crazy Dane was called the Bali, and used in the 1952 film “Road to Bali” with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. It was acquired at one point by actor John Carradine and ultimately abandoned more than three years ago at the Port as a tuna boat project.

Owned by the Port, it stands tall in an annex of the boatyard, an example of abandoned and derelict vessels the agency has taken on from the boating public. The Port is trying to figure out what to do with them and how to avoid dealing with them in the future.

“A lot of people figured out it’s cheaper to dump their vessel at the Port,” Port operations manager Matt McGrath said Tuesday to the Port of Astoria Commission, presenting the agency’s plans to tighten the rules regarding haul-outs at the Port.

The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in favor of Clatsop County, upholding its decision to deny a key permit for the Oregon Liquefied Natural Gas pipeline.

Oregon LNG challenged the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners’ decision Oct. 18, 2013, to deny the permit on the grounds of bias.

The state Land Use Board of Appeals sided with the LNG company on a preliminary issue, finding that one of the county commissioners, Peter Huhtala, was biased.

50 years ago — 1974

CANNON BEACH — Take some sugar, corn syrup and water — boil to 315 degrees. Add some peppermint oil and brilliant brown striping.

Use a little muscle to shape the hardening lump into a long strip and run it through a hard candy cutter and you have an old-fashioned Christmas treat — humbug candy.

Cannon Beach candyman Bruce Haskell and his three helpers — David Haskell, 12, David Larson, 12, and Jimmy Webb, 13 — spent Saturday morning turning out the favorable candy in Haskell’s candy shop.

By noon, the four had produced three batches of the Christmas fare. They planned to make about 200 pounds of the candy which will be donated to the town’s Dickens Festival organizers for sale during the two-week festival.

Up to now, finding a site has been the major concern of Columbia Memorial officials as they seek to replace Astoria’s only existing hospital, an aging, expensive-to-operate, two-unit facility.

But another issue has surfaced that poses just as serious a roadblock to eventual construction.

The issue stems from the state Office of Comprehensive Health Planning’s contention that the 74-bed hospital proposed by Columbia Memorial is too big and too expensive given the Astoria area’s population and medical needs.

State health officials claim a 55- or 60-bed hospital here would meet existing needs and obviously be cheaper to build, especially in view of statistics they quote, which indicate each bed in a new hospital requires a $60,000 outlay.

But Columbia Memorial officials insist no hospital should be built with less than 70 beds. They note the existing facility has 84 beds and that a 74-bed hospital already represents a reduction.

However, they say 74 beds represents their best planning for future needs in light of possible population increases — especially if the AMAX plant comes in — and increased hospital use as more medical specialists are recruited.

It’s that time of the year when the steelies run on all Oregon coastal streams and Clatsop County’s creeks and rivers are among the most popular.

Old iron mouth (steelhead) also brings out the best and the worst in man, but also creates a sort of togetherness where young and old of all sexes can match their wits with this denizen of the deep.

There are in Clatsop County such outstanding steelhead streams as the Necanicum, Big Creek, Klaskanine, Lewis and Clark and Gnat Creek, plus many, many more small feeder streams barely deep enough for the steelies to navigate en route to their spawning gravel beds.

A steelhead angler is from the big city, the small town and the country. The angler is as hardy as his prize catch, for there’s all kinds of weather to test the nimrod’s endurance.

SALEM — The Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge on the lower Columbia River was completed today by the State Land Board and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The land board unanimously approved a 50-year agreement to allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to manage 28,100 acres of state land within the boundaries of the refuge.

The 35,600-acre refuge, which extends from Tongue Point about 15 miles upstream, consists of submerged and submersible lands and a chain of marshy islands on the Oregon side of the main Columbia River channel.

The Fish and Wildlife Service already has acquired or has under option all private lands within the refuge boundaries.

Under the management agreement, the state retains ownership rights of its land.

75 years ago — 1949

Four floodlights have been installed on top of the Astoria Column, City Manager Brewer Billie announced Monday.

Three of the floodlights point downward, while the fourth on the west side points down and outward, to illuminate the parking area at the foot of the Column.

Billie said the floodlights were installed to provide illumination of the area at night for the benefit of evening visitors who go to the Column to see the view.

“We will probably leave one light on all night, just like street lights,” Billie said.

Billie did not indicate the city had any intention of discouraging amatory couples who have made the Column area a nocturnal rendezvous spot for many years.

SEASIDE — The City Council has passed a curfew ordinance that will not only penalize minors under 18 years of age for violation of the ordinance, but also the parents.

The ordinance forbids minors on the city streets from 10:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday to Friday and midnight to 5 a.m. Friday to Sunday. The ordinance also provides that during school vacation the curfew hours will be from midnight to 5 a.m. through the week.

Penalty for violation of the ordinance will subject the minor to juvenile court action and the parents to a fine not less than $5 and not more than $25 or imprisonment of five days or both fine and imprisonment.

The state of Oregon, of which Astoria and Clatsop County are an integral and important party, had a cash return this year of $110 million against which there are no debits.

It was spent by people who came to the state from every part of the U.S. to enjoy the supreme privileges bequeathed to this region by Dame nature. This amount of money, however, is $5 million more than was expended in 1947 and $12 million more than was expended in 1948. This increase definitely shows that the residents of Oregon are becoming aware of the fact that they have one of the nation’s most lucrative industries — “Tourist Travel.”

Nearly 1,000 people turned out at the Armory to see the Boy Scouts of the Astoria district put on their “Scouts in Action” show Saturday night.

A highlight was the Noah’s Ark presentation put on by some 200 Cub Scouts of the district. Garbed as animals, the cubs filed out of the ark two by two in biblical fashion, the procession, including two centipedes of about 30 boys each.

Two rabbits went into the ark and two dozen came out.

More than 300 high school and junior high school pupils of the Astoria public schools displayed their musical accomplishments to a large number of parents and friends at the annual school Christmas music program in the Armory Tuesday evening.

Choruses from the high school and three junior high schools presented a program composed entirely of Christmas music, doing the job in polished fashion.

The threat of hunger facing 50 Clatsop County families was disappearing Wednesday, as organizations and individuals throughout the community joined in a spontaneous effort to provide food for the needy.

A newspaper report Monday told of the appeal by Mrs. Bertha Roth, county welfare administrator, for help to supplement the welfare commission’s bankrupted general assistance funds. At least 15 children and 100 adults, Mrs. Roth told the county court, were destitute.