OUR 113th Year
SEASIDE YEAR IN REVIEW
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
December 25, 2020
$1.00
SANTA’S WORKSHOP
School offers
an early
grad date
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
R.J. Marx
In August, dual rallies at the Turnaround brought
the threat of violence.
City shaken
by pandemic
Seaside Signal
In a year where the coronavirus dictated the
rules, Seaside worked to navigate a complex
landscape driven by the pandemic, waves of visi-
tors and a highly charged election season.
After a surge of visitors on a springlike week-
end in March, the City Council passed a resolu-
tion declaring a state of emergency in the city
caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
City Hall, the public library and Sunset Pool
closed and businesses faced state and local restric-
tions. The Seaside Civic and Convention Center,
after a major expansion and renovation, sat empty
much of the year because of virus restrictions.
See Seaside, Page A3
GEARHART YEAR IN REVIEW
A new mayor;
school is sold
Seaside Signal
The coronavirus pandemic changed the way
people lived and businesses operated in Gearhart in
2020. The elementary school closed and the Pacifi c
Way shut its restaurant doors after 32 years. Even
the post offi ce changed, with two single-fi le entry
lines, plastic barriers and 6-foot distancing markers.
Plans for the proposed new fi rehouse simmered but
won’t come before the public until 2021, when new
M ayor Paulina Cockrum leads the council. And
fi nally, in Gearhart, how many elk is too many?
Katherine Lacaze
Sandy McDowall and Santa Claus greet community members as they come
to pick up toys for gifts at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center during
Seaside Rotary Club’s annual Santa’s Workshop program.
Rotary brings
holiday cheEr to
local families
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
The Seaside Civic and Con-
vention Center was transformed
into Santa’s Workshop last week,
with Seaside Rotary Club mem-
bers working diligently like elves
to ensure hundreds of children in
the community have a present for
the holidays.
“It’s a great project,” said Sandy
McDowall, the Rotarian who
serves as a co-chair for Santa’s
Workshop.
The volunteers spent several
days collecting presents, moving
them to and from storage and sort-
ing through them. Last Wednes-
day, parents from the Seaside and
Gearhart area were invited to the
convention center to pick out one
large toy and two smaller stocking
stuffers for their kids. They also
received a roll of wrapping paper to
take home. Overall, Santa’s Work-
shop served 93 families — or a
total of 325 children — this year.
Seaside Rotary uses some of
its reserve funds to purchase gifts
for Santa’s Workshop, but a major-
ity of the items are provided via
the Marine Corps League’s Toys
Katherine Lacaze
Volunteer Leah Griffi th organizes
toys for Seaside Rotary Club’s
annual Santa’s Workshop program.
for Tots Campaign. McDowall
praised the work of Clatsop Coun-
ty’s Toys for Tots coordinator, Lou
Neubecker, and his wife, Bev, who
dedicate signifi cant time and effort
every year to make sure differ-
ent groups throughout the county
have toys to distribute to their local
See Santa, Page A5
School sale
Built in 1949 and an icon at the corner of Pacifi c
Way at the city’s entrance, Gearhart Elementary
was one of four elementary schools sold by the
Seaside School District as students moved to a new
campus outside of the tsunami inundation zone.
Originally listed at $1.9 million, the school
district lowered the price to $1.2 million earlier
this year before authorizing the sale in August at
$750,000.
Scofi Gearhart, an Oregon LLC, purchased the
property for $500,000, which included a $100,000
educational grant to the seller in addition to the
$400,000 purchase price.
The managing members, Robert S. “Bob”
Morey and Timi Morey, are Gearhart residents.
Uses for the site are restricted, designed for
community or educational use. Any planned
Katherine Lacaze
One of Seaside Rotary Club’s three programs that take place during the
winter holidays is Santa’s Workshop.
Seaside High School is providing the Class of
2021 the opportunity to graduate early in order
to move on to the next chapter of their life amid
the coronavirus.
“We are going to have essentially two grad-
uation dates that will be effective the end of
second trimester and third trimester,” Seaside
principal Jeff Roberts told the Seaside School
District Board of Directors last week. “These are
students that have decided, ‘it’s time.’ They’re
ready to take that next step. We want to do all
that we can to support them when they’ve met
all the graduation requirements we’ve set in front
of them.”
According to Roberts, students must be offi -
cially provided an effective high school gradu-
ation date in order to access certain resources
for future opportunities, such as fi nancial aid for
college.
There are about 10% to 15% of Seaside
seniors who have indicated a desire to graduate
early. Roberts believes that number is likely to
fl uctuate as more information becomes available
over the next couple months. If extracurriculars,
like sports, are able to resume in the spring, some
seniors may choose to stay enrolled to access
those activities.
“If, in fact, those appear to not happen, I
would expect to see a larger number of students
say, ‘I’m done,’” Roberts said. “We’re not going
to require students to make that decision until
they absolutely need to.”
‘WE WANT TO SEE
DECLINING CASES IN
ORDER TO BRING OUR
STUDENTS BACK ON-SITE.’
Superintendent Susan Penrod
Another reason for making this decision is
that seniors do not have to complete Pacifi ca
Projects as a graduation requirement for the fi rst
time in nearly three decades.
Students who choose to graduate in March
will still be able to participate in the commence-
ment ceremony at the end of the school year.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to do that in per-
son,” Roberts said.
However, even if it ends up being a socially
distanced event, as it was for the Class of 2020,
the high school will allow all graduating seniors
to take part.
School board member Brian Taylor expressed
approval for the school’s decision to offer early
graduation, saying it will “allow these kids to
move forward during this year.”
During the meeting, the board also approved
a request from Superintendent Susan Penrod to
continue comprehensive distance learning until
at least Feb. 1, at which point leadership will
evaluate the current data on COVID-19 case
counts.
Penrod’s recommendation was based on Clat-
sop County’s increasing coronavirus numbers.
“This is sad news,” Penrod said. “We want to
see declining cases in order to bring our students
back on-site.”
Feb. 1 is approximately halfway through the
second trimester for Seaside schools. At that
See School, Page A5
See Gearhart, Page A3
Vacation property owners say they are unfairly targeted
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
While Mayor Jay Barber
and others applauded Jeff
Flory’s work as the city’s
code compliance offi cer
handing vacation rentals,
a group of vacation rental
homeowners were not as
enthusiastic.
Flory’s presentation to
the City Council in Decem-
ber reviewed his fi rst six
months in offi ce, addressing
the backlog of inspections,
developing local contacts
with homeowners and man-
aging vacation rental com-
plaints. He provided a com-
plaint/resolution breakdown
and introduced software to
monitor compliance.
“We really wanted to
establish a line of communi-
cation from the city to VRD
owners, property manag-
ers and Seaside residents,”
Flory said. “To me, it was
being accessible and having
that line open.”
“From the whole City
Council, bravo,” Barber told
Flory. “Amazing work in
the fi rst six months of your
tenure. Thank you, Jeff, for
a great report.”
In 2019, the City Coun-
cil voted unanimously to
raise annual permit fees for
the city’s 425 vacation rent-
als. The fee added $400 per
year to all permit costs, to
See Rental, Page A5
Jeff Flory, Seaside’s code compliance offi cer, at a City Council meeting this month.