Convicted kidnapper sentenced
$46 Million for Oregon children
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Wednesday, August 17, 2022
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$40 million to address abandoned vessels impact to the Common School Fund. Since 2017, the Common School Fund has expended $12.9 million removing commercial and recreational vessels from public waterways. “Oregon’s schoolkids foot the bill for cleaning up abandoned and derelict vessels,” Walker said. “Every dollar spent cleaning up these messes is a dollar out of the classroom.” During the State Land Board meeting Tuesday, Aug. 9, DSL officials outlined how the $40 million in general funds would be used, with emphasis on removing the 19 known commercial vessels of concern statewide, as well as hundreds of recreational vessels. Read the removal plan memo.
JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net
Removing abandoned and derelict vessels from Oregon’s waterways will be a focus in coming months, according to state officials, who addressed the issue during the Aug. 9 meeting of the State Land Board meeting. Safety concerns Abandoned vessels along the Columbia River present a myriad of safety concerns including water, navigational, and environmental hazards, according to Columbia County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Shaun McQuiddy. McQuiddy said that vesselabandonment cases have tested officer capabilities on a state level. “These abandoned and derelict vessels have increasingly robbed our resources and time, statewide,” he said in previously published interview with The Chronicle. McQuiddy also said that the majority of abandoned and derelict boats are located in South Columbia County waterways from the Multnomah County line on the Columbia River down to Goble and the Multnomah channel. Penalties The penalties for vessel abandonment range from $440 on the low end to thousands of dollars on the high end. If the vessel becomes submerged, it becomes an even greater expenditure to remove the vessel that, for one boat owner, came out to a total of
Collaborative work
Courtesy from CCSO Lt. Shawn McQuiddy
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol reports abandoned vessels are a continuing hazard along the Columbia River.
$55,000. The most common types of offenders of abandoned vessels range from people living on their boat, to scrappers and owners of “fixer uppers,” he said. $40 million In June, the State Land Board directed the Department of State
Lands (DSL) to request $40 million in general funds during the state budget process to address the hundreds of commercial and recreational vessels littering Oregon’s waterways. Abandoned and derelict vessels are a serious threat to waterway health and safety, and they create both environmental and navigational hazards, according to
DSL Director Vicki Walker. For years, DSL has been working with state, federal, and local partners to clean up and remove vessels, Walker said. Collaborative efforts have resulted in removing hazardous vessels from waterways, said Walker, but lack of a statewide abandoned and derelict vessel program with dedicated funding has meant ongoing
DSL is currently working with federal, state, and local partners to remove four commercial vessels from waterways. Emergency removal of the Tourist No. 2, a former river ferry built in the 1920s, is underway in Astoria. Pollutants have been removed from the vessel, according to Walker, but the vessel’s poor condition, proximity to a fuel dock and the navigational channel, and the continued impact of tides on the vessel’s structural integrity present an imminent threat to public health and safety. “Not taking action to remove this hazard from the water is not an option,” Walker said. “But Oregon’s schoolchildren are paying yet again to clean up a mess creat-
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Where did all the hotel and restaurant workers go? DAMON RUNBERG Chronicle Guest Article
Jeremy C. Ruark / The Chronicle
Betsy Johnson placed this large sign at Scappoose earlier this summer to gather voter support as an Independent candidate for Oregon Governor.
Election 2022: Johnson submits voter signatures in bid for governor Opinion ..................... A4 Poll ............................ A4 Community Calendar A4
Obituaries ................. A5 Classified Ads ......... A6 Legals ....................... A6 Crossword ............... A9
Phone: 503-397-0116 Fax: 503-397-4093 Email: chroniclenews@ countrymedia.net 1805 Columbia Blvd., St. Helens, OR 97051 Vol. 140, No. 33
JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net
Oregon gubernatorial candidate Betsy Johnson has announced that she has the required voter signatures to qualify for the November General Election. In a release to the media issued Monday, Aug. 15, Johnson and her supporters said they would deliver the signature petitions to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office in Salem at noon Tuesday, Aug. 16. As an Independent candidate running unaffiliated from any political party, Johnson needs to collect 23,744 signatures to be certified for the ballot. Oregon laws (ORS 249.008(2) and OAR 165-0110) allow the Oregon Elections Division to verify petitions based on a random or samples of the signatures rather than verifying all of the signatures. The number of random signatures selected is based on the number of signatures turned in for verification Once the signature petitions are submitted by the candidate, the Oregon Elections Division staff, trained in handwriting analysis,
Oregon businesses are on the verge of fully recovering all jobs lost from the COVID-19 pandemic recession. As of June 2022, total nonfarm employment levels were only 0.9% below the previous peak. When looking over the recovery by industry we see a fairly large disparity. For some industries, employment is now far higher than pre-pandemic levels, such as construction; transportation, warehousing, and utilities; real estate, rental, and leasing; and professional and technical services. Meanwhile other industries remain below their previous peak, such as educational services; leisure and hospitality; other services; and local government. These disparate trends are not surprising. The pandemic recession was not an equal opportunity offender. The largest job losses were concentrated in restaurants, hotels, tourism facilities, personal care services, and education. Employment in accommodation and food services, the sector that includes
hotels and restaurants, remains roughly 6% below the previous peak. The industry is sitting with 6,200 fewer jobs than before the pandemic, yet there were nearly 10,800 new unique job ads between April and June as these employers try to ramp back up. Frustratingly slow Clearly the demand exists to lead the state’s accommodation and food services into a full recovery, but that recovery has been frustratingly slow for many employers with 77% of Oregon vacancies identified as difficult to fill this past spring. The most common response when businesses were asked why their vacancies were difficult to fill? A lack of applicants. If these restaurants and hotels remain far from recovered and yet the demand for workers is high, it begs the question: where did all the restaurant and hotel workers who were working in the industry before the pandemic go?
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compare the petition signature to signatures on file in the signer’s voter registration record, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. If the signature does not have sufficient points of similarity, it is rejected. Earlier this summer, Johnson placed a large sign in Scappoose urging voter support and she held a signature gathering event at the Columbia County Fairgrounds in St. Helens. Johnson announced earlier this year that she was mounting her gubernatorial campaign as an Independent and leaving the Democratic Party after serving as an Oregon legislator for years. “I think it’s a unique moment in time to select an Independent leader,” she told The Chronicle. Johnson is running against Democrat Tina Kotek, Republican Christine Drazan and Libertarian candidate R. Leon Noble. Follow this developing story at thechronicleonline.com and in the Wednesday print editions of The Chronicle.
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The pandemic recession was not an equal opportunity offender. The largest job losses were concentrated in restaurants, hotels, tourism facilities, personal care services, and education.