Walmart Back To Square One

The Oregon Land Use Board Of Appeals agrees with the attorney representing the anti-Walmart group in Clatsop County.  Warrenton can't break it's own codes.

There were several issues brought forth at the planning commission level during public hearings about the permit to build the new superstore in the Warrenton Business park.  Wisely, the planning commission decided to hear all comments at the hearing whether those objections applied directly to the land use permit or not when the hearing was opened late last year.

The process was interesting to watch but there was never any doubt that ultimately the majority of the planning commissioners would buy into the findings staff brought forward.  Warrenton generally has the reputation of being development friendly and the final decisions made by the planning commission bore testimony to just how far that body was willing to err on the side of new business coming into the area rather than insisting on a strict interpretation of city code.  The City Commission erred in not being sufficiently clear about whether or not they had adopted the findings of the planning commission by using language in city code that would allow the city fathers to "make the planning commission decision their own" and refuse to hold a public hearing on the matter.

It is interesting to note that city staff had suggested early on that a hearings officer be employed to hear the matter bypassing the planning commission entirely.  That idea was rejected.

LUBA, in their final decision to remand the matter back to the city, clearly felt that Warrenton's planner had not made a correct interpretation of the city codes regarding a requirement to provide a set number of bike racks per parking space and declaring the requirement to include the correct number of bike racks in the plan a "hardship" on Walmart saying that given the nature of the business it would be unlikely that people would ride bikes to the store in great numbers therefore the number of bike racks required would "waste" space and resources and therefore a hardship they are not creating themselves. LUBA says the finding was inadequate and did not prove a hardship at all.

  In another matter related to the plan it was found that the developer did not have the proper fill permit required to fill wetlands on the site when city code requires that the permit be "in-hand" when the permit application is filed.  The city planner had recommended that acquiring the permit be made a condition of approval.  In other words, the city would not allow the project to move forward unless Walmart had that permit approved before any construction could begin and with that condition the planning commission could then approve the plan without actually having the permit yet. The developer for Walmart had testified that
They would prefer to have city approval of their plan before going to the time and expense of getting that fill permit.  LUBA disagreed with the city planner's recommendation citing Warrenton's own code that does not allow for that particular conditional approval.

Then there was the clear violation of code involving the placement of the store loading docks.  The code says that a store building placed on 101 may not locate those loading docks facing the highway.  Pretty clear.

The developer argued that the while its true the loading dock and disposal equipment would be located on the rear of the store which faces the highway the dock would actually face a wall that would be built between the loading dock and the highway saying this would mean the wall would face the highway not the loading docks.  LUBA didn't buy that argument either.  At the time of the hearing the planning commissioners were not in love with that wall which one member said made the store look more like a prison than a retail establishment. The deloper responded by saying they would plant more trees to hide the wall.

I don't think I've ever seen a single Walmart store anywhere that was designed to be hidden.  Makes me wonder what kind of sign they are thinking of putting up to greet visitors traveling the highway.  But I digress.


So if Walmart wants to build on the Warrenton site they will have to come up with an alternative plan which staff indicates would require the entire permitting process to start anew.

It will be interesting to see how the developer will wriggle out of this.  I'm sure they will try.

NASA "It Is Alive"

I don't know about you but when I was a kid everyone was paying attention to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We were actually sending men into space! We were going to go to the moon! We didn't ask how much. We didn't question. We just sat by our televisions and watched the launchings and made scrapbooks full of newspaper and magazine articles about every Astronaut and every detail about their lives NASA felt was good press. At least until Apollo 13 when the television networks decided to go with regular programing instead of tapping into the feed from the space capsule on it's way to the moon. It wasn't until hours later that anyone caught up with the fact that the mission was in danger after an explosion on board. Then we had plenty of coverage. For a while.

Today when I mention the Antares launch most people have no idea what I'm talking about.  When I bring up Space X, or Orbital Sciences I usually get a blank look and the comment "I thought we were done with space travel".

No we are not done.

In 1998 I attended a convention in Tucson, Arizona and heard Astronaut Neil Armstrong talk about the future of space transportation systems and his hopes for a continuation of manned flights into deep space. It was interesting but I didn't think it would happen.  There just didn't seem much will to go beyond the shuttle orbiter and what was then the early beginnings of what would become the International Space Station.

Public attention dwindled further with the retirement of the 30-year-old shuttle program.  Today even NASA's top administrators say the program's biggest problem is in engaging the public.  They feel a little like the world's best kept secret.  I get the feeling they comfort themselves with the fact that they are still getting a big chunk of the federal budget to work on a wide array of scientific endeavors with space transportation systems just one part of the total picture.

NASA is working with private industry to build a fleet of space cargo vehicles to resupply the space station and that's what the Antares test launch was about on Sunday.  Right now we are dependent on the Russians to get our people to and from the station and to make resupply runs.  Nasa is also working with Space X on
human transportation systems.  As that is going on, NASA is also fully engaged in developing a new deep space human spaceflight program with a new booster rocket and new crew capsule. That should have it's first test launch next year and it's first mission the next year will be to capture an asteroid and move it into a stable orbit. Then they intend to take samples and study those to learn more about the rock's composition. It might be handy someday to have to ability to redirect an asteroid.

The Curiosity Rover is the most advanced piece of engineering we have ever landed successfully on Mars. Next month Mars and the Earth will be aligned once again and live remote contact can begin anew as the rover continues to explore. Last month the rover drilled rock samples that scientists found to have quantities of argon that indicate that at one time Mars did have a dense atmosphere.  This mission is answering questions we have been pondering for years from afar.

Want some real science fiction stuff?  Okay! The Glenn Research Center at NASA is throwing around some purely theoretical discussions about warp drive.  Yes. Warp drive.  They say while it's true laws of Relativity are pretty much accepted that lightspeed will remain something for science fiction, there may be a loophole..or wormhole possible and there is a demonstration project underway that might prove you can create a field that will fold space. If you can fold space in front of a spacecraft and fold space behind a spacecraft then the craft doesn't actually accelerate it just moves from one place in space to another..something like that.

Why are they even talking about this?  To reach the nearest star system to ours it's estimated that if you could accelerate near the speed of light and then decelerate so you don't swing right by, it would take about 1600 years.  We aren't anywhere near getting anything up to lightspeed.  If we could bend, or fold, space then that same trip would take a few weeks.

NASA is doing some amazing things these days and in many ways far more interesting than that flight to the moon decades ago.

I wish someone besides me was paying attention.

Way To Go Astoria!

I just couldn't help myself.  I wanted to wait but this news is just too good not to share right away.

Astoria city staff have really pulled off something major for us by putting in the effort to show up at the right place at the right time.  The result means $10 million dollars in a grant from ODOT that only requires a 10% match.

The money goes into a project that will improve an important piece of infrastructure along the city waterfront.

At this writing Bergerson Construction is hard at work on the new and improved 17th street dock.  The new dock replaces an aging wooden dock with a modern steel dock system with a concrete surface. It's not the only pier in Astoria though and those short piers on the end of those streets that hang over the river have been a $60,000 to $70,000 annual headache for many years.  This grant will change all that.

It will take a lot of planning and a whole lot of work but when it's all through those wooden piers will be replaced by construction similar to what's happening at 17th street.

Imagine how that will look at pier eleven, or the tenth street pier. Nice.  The best part is that these new structures will not require the same level of maintenance so that annual city budget item can go elsewhere for other good projects.  No, maybe the BEST part will be the construction jobs that will result.

The Mayor is pretty excited about this news.  Word is he spent some time recounting all the zeros in that grant amount just to make sure of what he was seeing.

The city has planned an official announcement on Wednesday at the 11th street pier but when I found out we were going to be hearing about a $10 million grant from the State and that it's roughly twice the size of any grant the City has been given to date my curiosity got the best of me.

This happened because of a lot of groundwork by many people including City Manager Paul Benoit that goes back to the brownfield grant the city got for the old plywood mill property that made the Mill Pond Village development possible.  Astoria probably scores more grants than any other city because our city staff is careful to jump through every hoop and once a grant is given they are very careful to make sure all the requirements of the grants are met.  That makes for the kind of track record state and federal agencies are comfortable with.

In this case Public Works Director Ken Cook and City Engineer Jeff Harrington went the extra mile, literally, traveling to Salem to make sure they were at the meeting where these grants were being considered.  Cook told me that the committee members had some serious questions about the other proposals asking "What the hell do they need that for?" when looking through the piles of proposed projects.  Unfortunately for those proposals there wasn't anyone there to answer those questions.  When questions came up about Astoria's proposal, Cook and Harrington saved the day, in my opinion.

Goodbye Facebook

First, let me say that I don't have anything against Facebook.  I started a FB page a few years ago and at times it's been interesting but for the most part more demanding of my attention than I would like.

It was an interesting experience but I'll just have to make do with my cell phone, email, texting, webpage, and blog.

I think that's enough.