10 years ago this week – 2012

The weather dried up, carolers sang, Santa took wishes in the Liberty Theatre while Christmas movies played in the background and the streets of downtown Astoria lit up.

On Saturday, the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association and the city kicked off the holiday shopping season with the Downtown Astoria Sparkles event.

In addition, downtown retailers kicked off Astoria’s sparkling deals, special sales at various downtown merchants that run until Dec. 25. The event coincided with the third annual Small Business Saturday.

“It’s got that small-town, Americana feel that most places don’t have anymore,” said Andy Fuhrmann of Imogen Gallery about the decorations. The unique experience of downtown is one of the ways he and other merchants said Astoria can compete and set itself apart from larger retailers across Youngs Bay.

The U.S. Coast Guard said no pollution resulted from a barge accident in the Columbia River early Friday.

A barge carrying 1.8 million gallons of diesel fuel struck the walls of a lock approach to The Dalles Dam and not a submerged object as originally believed. The Coast Guard said there are no reports of a hazard to navigation in the Columbia River.

SEASIDE – A “Change Reaction” coin drive was held at Seaside Heights Elementary School. The $822.16 that was collected will go to the American Red Cross to provide help to the people hit hard by Superstorm Sandy.

“Change Reaction” came about as a result of “Rachel’s Challenge,” that was brought to all of the school districts of Clatsop County earlier this fall. The collection was done in six days by the school students, who want to continue to make the community and world a better place.

“We’d like to help the people in most need,” said Dan Gaffhey, principal of Seaside Heights Elementary School. “If that includes the people of Seaside Heights, New Jersey, we’d be very pleased to know that one ‘Heights’ is helping out another ‘Heights.’”

CANNON BEACH – A city committee distributed more than $60,000 in grants over the past three years, just to lure people to stay overnight in Cannon Beach.

Is it working?

Yes, say members of the tourism and arts commission, who decide which nonprofit organizations have projects that will benefit from funding. The process is improving every year, they add, but the projects being funded need much more scrutiny.

Yes, say some of the organizations receiving the money, but more tweaking needs to be done.

But it is not as well as it could be, said Mayor Mike Morgan. More money should be spent on the fine arts and less money paid to promote Cannon Beach, he added.

“Cannon Beach is a brand anyway,” Morgan said. “It has already established its brand as an arts center. I think that more than 50% should go directly to art activities.”

50 years ago – 1972

SEASIDE – A loosely organized group of Seaside citizens desiring public kindergarten here formed Sunday night into the Committee for Kindergartens in District Schools.

At a meeting attended by some 20 persons, mostly young parents, the committee established its objectives: To encourage the Seaside School Board to establish public kindergartens and to make the public aware of the need for public kindergartens in Seaside.

To meet those goals, a petition drive will be launched during December to sign up as many people as possible who want kindergarten education in the district, officers said.

Reports that a tidal wave pummeled the Oregon and Washington coasts over the weekend probably aren’t accurate, says Bernard Spittler, manager of the National Weather Service Office at Clatsop Airport.

Spittler said the heavy surf that hit the beaches was churned up by this season’s most vigorous storm and that high waves possibly were sneak waves forming at high tide.

He said describing the heavy surf as a tidal wave was inaccurate and tended to “blow things out of proportion.”

Boredom and curiosity brought the new Miss Tongue Point to the Job Corps Center from Georgetown, South Carolina, three months ago.

Sue Linnen worked as an operator, a cashier and a waitress since her high school graduation in 1970. But she wanted to do something more challenging with her life than just answering phones, ringing up sales or serving food.

“I didn’t feel needed in those jobs,” commented the 20-year-old in a recent interview. Because she wants to work with people, and especially with people who need her, she is studying to be either a laboratory technician or a registered nurse.

Ron Caton, Astoria finance director, made a mad dash to Salem earlier this week to save the city $300.

The scenario went like this: Caton jumped in the city manager’s car shortly after noon last Monday and raced – probably within the speed limit – to Salem to pick up a check.

Not just any old check though, a check for $3,665,000 from the state to purchase bonds to finance the City sewer system.

Caton quickly deposited the money in a Salem bank so it could begin earning interest, a whopping $325 per day.

The Clatsop County Land and Water Use Planning Task Force succeeded Tuesday where it failed two weeks ago.

The 40-to-50-member community planning group, organized as part of phase one of Clatsop County’s comprehensive land use plan, completed a draft of a broad statement of goals and objectives for the future of the county.

Sections of the statement ranged from encouraging development of new industry and transportation routes to recognizing the fragile nature of the county’s environment.

75 years ago – 1947

Three little tots, the children of Mr. and Mrs. George Alexander of Ocean Park, Washington, fell out of the back of their father’s panel truck into the Necanicum River Tuesday.

Alexander was riding home from Portland with his family when the truck went down the bank at a bad curve 2 miles south of Seaside.

The plunging vehicle came to stop on the brink of the river and out slid the three little Alexanders, Susan, age 1, Kathleen, age 2 and Robert, age 3.

The father, his head bashed against the cab, was dazed. Mrs. Alexander leaped out just as her husband revived. They both rushed into the water to pick up the children.

The water, swift and muddy at the point, was only about 2 feet deep, up to Bobby’s chin. He had a cut on his scalp.

Mrs. Alexander and the children are recovering from shock and bruises at the Seaside Hospital.

The Clatsop Veterans Memorial Library board will undertake a campaign immediately to raise $100 for each Clatsop County serviceman in World War II as a fund for construction of a veterans memorial library, it was announced following a meeting of the board Tuesday night.

SEASIDE – Fred Meisner and Roy Wooldridge, veteran timber fallers who live at Cannon Beach, have invented and begun manufacture of the “safety faller,” a device which makes the falling and bucking of timber with power saws easier and safer.

The safety faller consists of two parts, a steel wedge with a round protruding pin or “thumb” and a plate which is bolted to the chain-type power saw near the motor end.

The wedge is driven into a tree or log, and the power saw is hung from the thumb. This makes it unnecessary for the operators to support the weight of the 90-pound saw.

Among the claims made for the device are that it absorbs all kickback of the saw, makes “side-notching” easier, simplifies undercutting and makes operation of chain saws completely safe.

The Columbia River Fishermen’s Protective Union will seek to have traps, seines and set nets outlawed on the Oregon side of the Columbia River as they have been on the Washington side since 1933.

A resolution calling for the union to sponsor an initiative measure for ousting these stationary fishing devices was adopted Tuesday at the annual conference of the union’s delegates here. It is to be on the next general election ballot.

This action was taken despite an announcement by William Seufert, The Dalles fish canner and seine operator, that he would promote an initiative to ban commercial fishing on the Columbia River if the union “went after seines.”

Ever since it was organized, the union of gillnet fishermen has been opposed to the operation of traps and seines. More than 20 years ago the union succeeded in its fight to eliminate fish wheels, but two initiative measures to ban traps and seines died short of the ballot.

Sixty-nine families have moved into the new 368-unit housing project south of Tongue Point Naval Station and some 15 more will move in during the coming week, naval authorities reported Tuesday.

So far, delivery of furniture has not quite kept pace with completion of the houses.