Astoria City Council Work Session: Astoria Column Centennial and Parking Fee Proposal - January 21, 2026
Astoria City Council Work Session: Astoria Column Centennial and Parking Fee Proposal - January 21, 2026
On 2026-01-21 14:00:00+00:00 (the system date; the printed agenda and minutes list Tuesday, January 20, 2026), the Astoria City Council held a work session from 6:00 p.m. to 6:59 p.m. Mayor Sean Fitzpatrick presided, with Councilors Andy Davis, Andrea Mazzarella, Elisabeth Adams, and Joshua Conklin present. City Manager Scott Spence, City Attorney Blair Henningsgaard, and other department heads also attended. The session centered on a presentation by Friends of the Astoria Column President Jordan Schnitzer about preservation work, operations, the partnership with the Clatsop County Historical Society, plans for the column's 100th anniversary, and a proposed increase in the annual parking fee. No formal action was taken.
Presentation: Friends of the Astoria Column
- Jordan Schnitzer described the organization's 35-year history, beginning in 1988 when the City accepted help from a private board to restore the deteriorating column. Early work included $65,000 for scaffolding and canvas, cleaning off an ineffective tung-oil treatment, and guidance from a Getty Conservation Institute expert.
- The Friends have raised millions of dollars over the years, including replacing the stairs. Schnitzer outlined the nonprofit's business model: gross column income was $1.2 million in the last year; the organization has two full-time and nine part-time employees and pays approximately $300,000 in wages.
- The organization has $1.6 million in an Oregon Community Foundation fund and is aiming for $4-5 million to fund recurring conservation work, which is needed every 5-7 years at a cost of $500,000 or more per cycle. Conservation work is designed to be reversible so future techniques can be used.
- The gift shop generated about $800,000 in sales last year. The balsawood glider program sells more planes than the U.S. Air Force buys, and an anonymous donor has sent $40,000 per year for five years to keep the glider price at $1.
- Parking fee revenue totaled $360,000 in 2025, with an estimated 90-plus percent coming from non-Astoria visitors. The Friends paid the City $73,550 that year, and over roughly 10 years have paid almost $900,000. The City receives 20% of parking fees ($1 of the current $5 fee). The Friends also took over the park host house and grounds maintenance, saving the City an estimated $100,000 today.
- Since March 2024, the Friends have operated under a joint operating agreement with the Clatsop County Historical Society. Executive Director Mac Burns described shared staffing, purchasing, custodial services, and programming. In 2025, 3,965 visitors went from the column to Historical Society sites. A January 2026 fitness challenge sold $1 cards to climb the column 20 times in January; six people completed 20 climbs on January 1, and prizes had to be reordered.
- A proposed interpretive center has been put on hold until after the centennial to focus on the 100th anniversary.
Centennial Celebration Plans
- Schnitzer and event consultant Cindy Thompson presented plans for July 18, 2026: a free community celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Heritage parking lot at 12th and Duane Streets, with food, dancing, multicultural booths, and about 40 Astoria organizations.
- A smaller rededication ceremony is planned at the column for about 50-70 people, broadcast to the community celebration; Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston will write and read a poem. Tribal representatives have been engaged, and organizers said they are following the City's new tribal engagement policy.
- A higher-end gala for roughly 150 people is planned at Lum Lodge, with the Oregon Governor committed to attend. The Friends are also working on a Rose Festival parade float that would be used in Astoria's Regatta parade and are coordinating with Astoria schools.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Willis Van Duzen, a former Astoria city official, spoke in strong support of the parking fee increase. He recalled the column's dangerous condition before the Friends' restoration, the later need for costly structural work, and the difficulty of fundraising for unglamorous projects. He described the extra $5 as an investment and a way to have visitors, not just local donors, help pay for future upkeep.
Discussion Items
- Councilor Elisabeth Adams asked about tribal engagement. Mac Burns replied that the Historical Society did not have a formal policy at the start, but both boards paused planning until the City's tribal engagement policy was approved and will follow it. Adams encouraged the Historical Society to adopt a policy aligned with the City's.
- Councilor Andy Davis asked whether the City's revenue share would remain at 20% (rising from $1 to $2 per annual pass) and whether a shared pass with Historical Society museums was possible. Mac Burns described a 2025 pass experiment that brought about 4,000 people to the museums; in 2026 the pass will include the Heritage Museum. Davis proposed a lifetime pass, suggesting he would pay $100 to support the column; Schnitzer endorsed the idea, possibly at $100 initially, with funds placed in the investment account.
- Councilor Andrea Mazzarella raised affordability concerns for families and children and supported the resident coupon. Schnitzer said the Friends give free passes to all high school students and are discussing a possible high school prom/dance at the column.
- Councilor Adams suggested free days, such as January 1 or one day per quarter in the off-season; Schnitzer agreed January 1 could be a free day.
- Councilor Joshua Conklin said he supported the increase if it includes lifetime membership and a few free days per year.
- Mayor Fitzpatrick said he generally dislikes increasing costs but recognized cost increases over 10 years, noted that Astoria's lack of sales tax makes parking fees one way to collect tourist revenue, and said he would not oppose considering the increase. He asked to put it on a future agenda and invited the Friends to attend that discussion.
Key Outcomes
- No formal action was taken, as this was a work session, but a straw poll showed council consensus to support exploring the parking fee increase from $5 to $10.
- Council direction included maintaining the 20% City revenue share (approximately doubling the City's annual share from roughly $75,000 to $150,000), offering Astoria residents a $5 gift-shop coupon, developing a lifetime pass option, and establishing free access days.
- The Friends plan to return in about six weeks with more detailed centennial celebration plans. City staff and the Friends will prepare the parking fee item for a future City Council meeting.
Meeting Transcript
All right. Well, good evening. And welcome to the Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 work session of the Australia City Council. For the record, the time is 6 p.m. Mr. Spence, if we could have a roll call, please. Counselor Adams. Here. Counselor Davis. Here, Counselor Conklin. Here. Council Mozzarella. Here. Mayor Fitzpatrick. Here. So on our agenda this evening, we have 3A, which is a presentation from the friends of the Australia Column president, Jordan Schnitzer. And the um he's going to provide us with an update on the activities going on at the Australia Column and plans for the upcoming 100th anniversary celebration. So Mr. Schnitzer, welcome. Thank you for joining us this evening. And behalf of all the friends, the members who are here, uh, we appreciate the time and the continued partnership. As I've suggested before, I think uh with the uh complicated dynamics going on in this country right now. This is a role model of a public-private partnership where everyone's benefited, and it's been a wonderful relationship. So with that, uh appreciate you being here. So uh you have these in front of you, it's on the screen also. But if we turn to um the first page, um, you know, this started 35 years ago in 1988 when then Mayor Elizabeth Hemingsgard Miller. Um I went to the University of Oregon, and my next door neighbor was a family Dwayne Otson from the Odson family and Duane Odson's sister, married a man named Patton. So I grew up with a young man, you're younger, Philip Patton and the University of Oregon on campus there. I run into Philip and he has this fellow with him, where care but Blair, Blair. Anyway, so that's my first met Blair, right? It was years later when for our house in Gearhart that the uh the Hillings Guard would rent a house across the street. And uh I saw Edith and I said, you know, my mother's had an art gallery for years, and I have some experience with conservation of paintings and things, and I always take our guests into Astoria and show off the Flavelle House, the Maritime Museum, and we end up with the column, and right now the column is in such bad shape, it's all black on one side, you can't even see the glorious artwork. And boy, you know, I'd love to help. She called back about two weeks later and said the city council had met and wasn't sure what to do, and they'd welcome the help. And to make this part a little quicker, I then called um my next door neighbor, Mr. Vaughn, who headed up the Oregon Historical Society and found an architect professor at University of Oregon that worked on outdoor structures and we then put together a board of Michael Foster, other people, a joint board of Portland Astoria people, and we brought in some experts and we found a woman named Myrna Sachs that's in here, uh, lived in LA. She was a nationally recognized conservator, and she uh came up and real simply we spent 65,000 dollars putting up the scaffolding and then canvas and because in the 60s we were talking before the meeting, uh the city had thought that a process of putting tongue oil that you put on boats so they won't leak that would help preserve the column, which in the end was the worst thing to do, but they didn't know then. So she spent the first summer with some graduate students with uh soap that you'd use in your dishes and toothbrushes going through the column every square foot, sort of like brushing your teeth, um, getting the tongue oil off, and then it needed to sit for a year with the weather and the rain so that more of the tongue oil would sort of naturally come out. So we were excited about using her, but then uh mayor Willis Van Susan here called up and said, you know, she may be good with what she does. Oh, there you are. But uh but there were some personality issues in community, and we really don't want her back. So I called the Getty Museum, and I didn't know anyone there and asked for the head of antiquities, and I explained this whole column and uh he said we have the right man for you, Frank Freizick, who had just finished up being the deputy director of one of the Getty wings, the Conservation Institute. The Getty 12 billion dollar endowment has a museum, a conservation institute, and a research institute. And uh so he came and for the next 15 years was a wonderful professor teaching us the ethics and technically how to preserve a column like this. And the last point here that was important is when I got his resume, he'd grown up in Munich and had 25 pages of reports he'd done, and he'd worked on the Sphinx, Anchor Watts, Notre Dame. I mean, giant things. And I was intimidated. And I called him up and I said, you know, sort of sheepishly, you know. This column is, you know, about at that time, like 60, 70 years, 70, about 75 years, so 75 years, about seven years old. And you've worked on these things.
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