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Bikers ride

St. Helens Football star

TODAY’S WEATHER Partly Cloudy Highs to 79 Page A9 Lows to 56

recognized for skills Page B8

for SAFE program Page A2

Classified Ads B3-B4 • Legal Notices B4 • Obituaries A6 • Opinions A4 • Out & About A7 • Calendar A7 • TV Guide A8 • Sports B8 • Weather A9

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The Chronicle

$1 Vol. 134, No. 32 20 Pages

www.thechronicleonline.com

Busy weekend for fire agencies

County residents warned of doorto-door scams BY JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net

Photos courtesy of Scappoose Fire District

Fire crews worked through the night of to control a brush fire

on Holaday Road in the Scappoose area this past weekend. Scappoose Fire District responded to the logging road in the late evening of Aug. 5 to find several burning slash piles on Weyerhaeuser property. No homes were threatened and the fire was stopped from spreading. Columbia River Fire & Rescue, Oregon Department of Forestry and law enforcement agencies assisted Scappoose Fire District in responding. Mop-up operations continued through the morning and the cause of the fire was under investigation. Another fire was reported at an abandoned home on EJ Smith Road

near Apple Valley Road. At around 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 7, fire crews responded to a fully involved structure fire in an abandoned house surrounded by large trees, deep in a wooded area. The fire did not spread and no other structures were threatened. Mop-up and containment operations began around noon. Fire officials reported a huge amount of debris surrounding the structure as well as nearby makeshift buildings, autos, piles of tires and other fire hazards. Several fire and law enforcement agencies assisted, and Portland Fire personnel provided station assistance. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Officials with the Oregon Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Division are warning residents in Columbia County and across the state of door-todoor scams. “We see a large uptick in doorto-door sellers and scams during the summer,” Oregon Justice Department’s Communications Director Kristina Edmunson said. Clatskanie Police officials said they have had citizen complaints over the past several weeks concerning door-to-door vacuum sales. The investigators said the salespersons do not have a required city business license. “Unless they have a valid City of Clatskanie business license, they cannot be conducting business in the city limits,” according to a Clatskanie police Department spokesperson who asked not to be named. “Residents need to make sure they are asking any door-to-door salesperson for the proper city business license before committing to any sale.” According to the Oregon Justice Department’s website, consumers have three days to cancel a sale for a full refund if they spend $25 or more on the product or service. This right extends until midnight of the third business day after the sale. This rule applies to any sale made in-person at the buyer’s home or workplace, or at facilities rented by the seller on a temporary or short-term basis, such as hotel or motel rooms, convention centers, fairgrounds and restaurants, with only limited exceptions. The Justice Department’s ­­­­

See SCAM, Page A6

Text 911 comes to Local artist mixes art with science Columbia County BY CODY MANN cmann@countrymedia.net

into their operations. The state, lacking the infrastructure to implement the program statewide, chose to test it in Oregon’s most populous region – Portland and its surrounding areas. “If it’s successful and if it really does work the way we intend, and if it really continues to work as we’ve tested, the state may offer this statewide as an interim solution,” Columbia 911 Director Steve Watson said. Currently the program is webbased, but the objective will ultimately be to integrate the service into the telephone systems dispatch centers use for voice calls. “They will have a phone system, eventually,” Watson said, “that will allow voice, and data, and photos, and text to come through one device.” The pilot project, though critical, is merely the first push by 911 centers across the nation to incorporate new technology into the way they receive information. In the future, concerned citizens will be able to send photos, videos, audio and other data directly to dispatch centers.

BY CLAUDE AKINS

cakins@countrymedia.net

It is easy and trendy to lament the amount of time many of us, especially younger people, spend with their heads lowered to their phones, but the new text 911 program launching Aug. 23 will be utilizing this technology to provide a new mode through which Columbia 911 will be able to serve the county’s citizens. Columbia 911, along with six other dispatch centers in the Portland metro area, will be the first in the state to incorporate the service

­­­­

See TEXT 911, Page A6

Leslie Hough did not always know she was an artist. It was not until after a career and raising her family that she discovered her ability to create beautiful works of art. Hough was born and raised in north Portland. She lived in Medford for 24 years before moving to St. Helens 11 years ago, settling near the river with her husband Larry, and Maddie, their playful black Labrador. Beyond high school, Hough said there was not a lot of opportunity to be involved with artistic endeavors. Life took her in a more scientific direction, attending Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University. She pursued a career as a dental hygienist after graduating. It would be 2004 before Hough found herself able to dedicate time to developing her artistic vision. “After raising kids and having a career, I decided I would spend some effort getting involved in the arts,” she said. “I was in my late 40s, living in Medford, and my neighbor was a woman who was becoming an internationally known watercolor artist.” Hough’s neighbor, Judy Morris, was beginning to teach classes in watercolor all over

CODY MANN/The Chronicle

Leslie Hough makes fused glass artworks at her home studio in St. Helens.

the world. She signed up to take classes from Morris in the south of France and later in Japan as well as in Medford. As a former high school teacher, Hough said Morris was gifted with an ability to work with students of any skill level, even the most inexperienced beginner. Hough was convinced to travel to France for an artistic adventure, taking a 10-day

trip that included classes and tutorials on painting with watercolors. Hough said, “I learned a lot about color, a lot about composition, details and the basics.” She also met her future sisters-in-law on that trip – they said she needed meet their brother who lived in Portland. ­­­­

See GLASS, Page B1

WEDNESDAY NIGHT BBQ

RIBS

3-7pm • August 10 1111 Columbia Blvd centerplacemarket.com/sthelens.html

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