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

•••

More than 25 years after a woman’s skeletal remains were discovered in Clatsop County, the Oregon State Police has released a facial illustration in the hopes of jogging someone’s memory.

On Nov. 3, 1999, mushroom pickers reported finding human skeleton remains in a wooded area off of U.S. Highway 26 near milepost 29.

An initial forensic examination revealed that the remains belonged to a woman between 16 and 30 years of age, about 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighing between 108 and 117 pounds. Forensic anthropologists believed the woman had given birth some time prior.

For decades, all law enforcement had to work with was a pencil drawing of what they believed the woman looked like.

But a recent collaboration between Parabon NanoLabs and Oregon State Police forensic anthropologist Nici Vance highlighted the ability to use the individual’s genetic phenotype to construct the new illustration.

“This has been a case that we’ve been working on since 1999, and it’s very near and dear to my heart, because I was actually out there in Astoria and I helped recover her,” Vance said.

See the story by Jasmine Lewin by clicking here.

•••

Cities and counties in Oregon are eyeing changes to the state’s lodging tax law as a potential fix for strains on local services and infrastructure.

For decades, local governments have collected lodging taxes from hotels, motels and other short-term lodging providers — but in 2003, the Legislature imposed a statewide tax. The statute also established restrictions around how local lodging tax dollars could be spent, requiring at least 70% to go toward tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities and reserving the remaining 30% for local discretionary spending.

The law is meant to support tourism while also putting money back into communities, but many local governments have called out what they see as an imbalance.

To Jenna Jones, a lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, it’s time to reexamine the revenue distribution.

The League of Oregon Cities has included increased flexibility for lodging tax spending on its list of legislative priorities for the upcoming session in Salem in January. Where it may have been necessary to build up tourism economies 20 years ago, Jones said some cities are advocating for a shift toward maintaining those economies and responding to the burdens that come with them. Under the statute, existing definitions of tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities only leave local jurisdictions so much leeway to respond to those strains.

“When you have a huge rush of tourists who come over a weekend and your population doubles, for some communities, your roads wear out a lot faster. There’s a strain on your water system. Sometimes that means people tend to buy vacation homes in your area to rent out and things like that, but that impacts your housing stock,” Jones said. “People come to your parks because they have children and they want to experience your community and everything it has to offer. You’ve got public restrooms in a lot of communities that have TLTs (transient lodging taxes), public parking lots, and all of those are things that the city bears the burden of maintaining and operating.”

Take a look at the story by Olivia Palmer by clicking here.

•••

We invite you to help sustain local journalism on the North Coast. Please consider subscribing. We have several options available at: www.dailyastorian.com/subscribe-now/

— Derrick DePledge