Credit Where It's Due

Faithful readers of my ramblings here have probably noticed that when it comes to the Port of Astoria I've been quite critical when it's clear things aren't going quite right. You may also have noticed that nothing much has been written here about the Port in general for quite sometime other than the recent, inevitable loss of air service.

It's time to break that silence. The Port is doing very well and in spite of my personal feelings about at least one member of the Commission it seems we have the right mix of people on board..Well at least four of them..Maybe three but I digress.

According to BST research findings released recently the Port returns approximately $60 for every tax dollar they spend. They have created jobs. The average Port job runs about $45,000 a year which is above the county average of $36,000. So far the log ship business has made the Port over $400,000 alone and instead of the estimated six loads in the first year we're looking at twice that. With Hampton coming up on line at some point this summer there is also a good chance we could see finished lumber exported from our docks as well.

As far as the number of jobs? direct and indirect job creation comes in around 1400. It may be higher because the indirect job creation is a little harder to track.

In short, the Port of Astoria is doing exactly what it should be doing. For a guy who came from a Port District without a single pier or serious marina that Crider fellow is doing rather well.

Protect Our Border. Save Lives

We have spent untold billions, trillions? on the war to protect oil supplies. Many would say that action is justified because in protecting our supply lines we help protect our way of life and therefore the security of our nation. But what about our nation's security in view of the escalating crime and violence found in our border neighbor to the south? The stories we hear coming out of Mexico makes be fear for those friends I have made there in years past. Our nation's security is surely threatened by this brutal behavior. Americans have personally invested in Mexico in the form of real estate and monetary support for organizations that aide the very poorest in that country. Millions of Americans were vacationing in places like Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta but no longer. Cabo San Lucas is still considered safe that will cease to be the case soon. I have a good friend who is a native of Mazatlan. She had a business giving cultural tours for cruise ship tourists and it was a good business. She told me once that she had plenty of money, enough to live comfortably in the U.S. but she would not leave her home in Mexico to do so. She said far too many educated Mexicans had fled the country already leaving less to run the government properly. This was two years ago and even then she feared things were going to get far worse. She was right. It is clear to me that if the U.S. has a responsibility to the world and it's own people to take over and occupy nations halfway around the world, we have the same responsibility in Mexico. We must send in peacekeeping forces in large numbers and do it as soon as possible. It is unfortunate that the culture of corruption that rules every part of Mexico has been allowed to continue until it has made what was once a developing, progressive neighbor a threat that we must deal with.

The Friday Show

Coming up in the 8am hour an in depth report on the County Commission meeting where planning commissioner supporters showed up in force to protest the firing of the entire planning commission on March 23rd and the reaction from the County Board. Open phones of course! The number to call in is 503-861-6621

Good Read

Tom, I had sent this to your old, but no good, email address, so perhaps this will now get to you--Art ---

On Tue, 4/12/11, Art wrote: From: Art Subject: Re: Letter to the Editor (online form) To: "Elleda Wilson" Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 12:54 PM Dear Ms. Wilson, Here’s your reply to my inquiry as to why my letter (shown way below) was not published: "Dear Mr. Hyland, Our county reporter, Katie Wilson, reviewed the letter, and it was not published because it contained a few problem areas: 1) We were unable to verify that the commission was meeting secretly 2) and the Planning Commission was on the meeting agenda" I fully recognize that the paper has a right to do whatever it wishes with regard to publishing what gets into print. But really, do you actually believe what you wrote to me? For you to reply, on behalf of the paper, " We were unable to verify that the commission was meeting secretly," might be something quite interesting for the Daily Astorian to share with its readers. Rather than allowing a mere reader such as me to opine that they met in secret, why don’t you come right out and tell your readers that you can’t verify that the commission met in secret about the planning commission decision so that your readers can more fully contemplate the possibilities. That I claimed the commission made their decision in secret is indeed a claim that I made and make. That's what I believe. I don't have the resources of a prosecuting attorney (nor apparently do you) to ferret out what did or did not happen prior to the public meeting, but the dialogue at the meeting was so sparse and ill-explained that the decision looked clear to almost everyone it had been well-discussed in private. But of course that just remains my humble opinion, one your editor thinks needs filtering from public view. If letters to the editor are not supposed to be opinion pieces but must be written based upon 100% factual evidence, they wouldn't be letters of opinion. Please refer to just about any opinion article of Paul Krugman's and you'll find so many factual, provable errors--not just ones "unable to verify,"--that none of his pieces would have been allowed to make it to print if you applied the same standard you applied to my letter. I would understand your argument to me if you were editing a news story; I didn’t know my letters had become the equivalent of one of the paper’s regular correspondents’ submissions. As for your no. 2 rationalization for not printing my letter--"the Planning Commission was on the meeting agenda,--tell me, was it put on as an action item? And, why did Commissioner Roberts not know it was on the agenda? Your paper is pathetic in so many ways, not the least of which is its willingness to ignore, TO ITS DETRIMENT, roughly half of the population it could serve by virtue of its editorial biases. Claim what you do that the paper's revenues are okay, you know they are not. They could be considerably improved if the paper weren't so biased that conservatives routinely mock it, and virtually none subscribe to it. It doesn't have to be that way. You can have both political spectrums engaged, producing a paper all parties would want to read (and in which more advertisers would want to be seen), but for reasons I cannot fathom, you (well, Forrester actually) wishes to be different. His father ran the paper much differently, and much smarter, but that’s just my opinion; I didn’t fact-check that statement, so we’ll keep that between you and me. If the nation, state and county weren't so important to me, I wouldn't care one wit what you or the paper think or do, but I do care about the nation, state and county. So I do care what you think and do. Yet you and the paper’s editors treat me and so many other conservatives like some sort of pariah. That says a lot more about you and your editors than it does about conservatives or me. Sincerely, Art Hyland my March 25 letter to the editor: Editor, Daily Astorian Single-issue commissioners spell trouble for Clatsop County

The sudden action taken by the majority of the Clatsop County Commissioners to remove all Planning Commission members is just the latest example of ill-conceived decisions made by this board in secret prior to public meetings. They don’t want the public to witness their debate or rationalization, nor even who originates a measure upon which they take action. Even ordinary public notice isn't considered important to this bunch. To this group it doesn't matter that decisions other than personnel and contract matters must be conducted and decided in open, public meetings. The legal weight behind this state rule is based upon functional as well as moral purposes: to purposely restrain corruption in government. That this commission is blatantly willing to ignore this rule means Clatsop County is now controlled by single-issue extremists who have virtually no regard for the public they serve, and are daring its citizens to stop them. It will be simultaneously interesting and depressing to see how county staff and departments operate under this kind of supremacy. The county manager will be spending lots of ;time conferring with legal counsel at the expense of all other department business. Current, potential and routine county business will all suffer because of the issue blinders worn by these commissioners. I’s a sad time for Clatsop County. I expect the next move by this regime will be to flee, to another county, or perhaps another state in their efforts to sidestep the normal processes of governing. That seems to be the latest government model by their political relatives in other states, so look for that decision soon. Art Hyland Art- I love that you fight the good fight but there is no way the paper would publish your letter. To do so would imply that what you are saying is factual instead of supposition because you don’t qualify the statement. I find it odd that they are fact-checking letters from the public now. How did all that garbage about LNG get published? I find it amusing that their response suggests they checked anything. Are they suggesting that Katie called someone on the gang of four and asked them if they had a secret meeting? Probably. I wonder if she asked if there was some other method they reached consensus. Emails? No, too smart for that. They wouldn’t leave that kind of trail. It would be interesting to see how often they get together in groups of two..say, over lunch at the Blue Scorcher, or a quick beer after the official meeting. It’s even possible they are meeting on Ted Thompson’s boat to get their marching orders directly from Larry Taylor. Who knows? tpf

To Protect And Defend...

I have to establish a new rule about comment posting effective immediately. Because of the potential for introducing malware, or spyware this blog will not publish comments that include links to other sites. I'm very interested in what readers have to say about the news of the day or the issues brought up here so the comment section won't be closed down. tf

Todays Show

This morning we take some time to review the March 23rd meeting where the Clatsop County Commission fired the entire Planning Commission. We go back to the audio and comb it for the reasons and the discussion that led to the decision. That's on am 1370, or on line at www.kast1370.com

Support For AAC

Here is another perspective on the Astoria Aquatic Center that comes from the editorial section of our main site kast1370.com ================================================================== Pool Support I find it frustrating to hear the city complain about how the Aquatic Center is not paying for it's own costs. I clearly remember one of things the city told the citizens when we voted for the bond measure to have it built. They said they did not expect the Aquatic Center to pay it's own way and that it would always need public funds but it would be a vital service to the community as a replacement for the pool at Tapiola Park. For years, the pool was poorly manages. Every time the kids were out of school for in-service days or holidays, you'd think the pool would be available for open swim or have activities scheduled. But no, the hours were very un-user friendly. Pool management at that time successfully trained most of the people that if the pool hours weren't convenient, too bad. Go do something else. I'm glad an outside consultant was brought in to "Save the Pool" and revamp the schedule to make it more accessible to the community at large. After all, that's why the pool exists. As a citizen of Astoria, I have no problem with my tax money going to support the pool, even though I don't use it myself. I don't expect it to be self-supporting although I DO expect it to be managed well. It is a vital service to our community and should remain so. But I will have a problem if the city decides at some point to close the pool because they don't want to support it with tax dollars. That isn't how it was sold to us in the first place.

Program Note

An unusual Friday morning meeting of the Astoria Development Commission is scheduiled for 8:30 this morning at Astoria City Hall. The meeting appearently involves the purchase of a vehicle but the specific use or department to which it has been assigned isn't clear. KAST News will be covering that meeting this morning and more details will be available in our Friday Noon news report and right here on kast 1370.com. Due to the special coverage the Friday edition of the Coast Watch Talk show will not be presented today and will return to the air on Monday.