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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 2015)
10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015 Fountain: Relocation was work of public art committee And his daughter-in-law, Maureen Dooley-Sroufe, is the moving between the Cannon Beach co-owner of Cannon Beach Book Chamber of Commerce and the ten- Co. “I can walk across the street nis courts on East Second Avenue. and get a drink of water,” she The latest relocation was the work of said. the public art committee. The drinking fountain actually “This was one of their projects, hadn’t worked in years, but is once to move the fountain over here in- again fully functional in its new lo- stead of bringing another piece of art cation. into town,” Judy Wood, co-president Another son, Peter Sroufe, also of the Cannon Beach library board, attended the event. Peter recalled said. how the fountain had been clogged James Harley Sroufe’s wife, Mar- with sand during its time at the park, garet, was a volunteer at the library when kids used it to rinse off after IRUDERXW\HDUVPDNLQJLWD¿WWLQJ coming from the beach. He and the location. rest of his family said they were Continued from Page 1A grateful for its move to a more vis- ible location. “It got made because our dad was a great guy,” Gerald said. Peter noted that Cannon Beach was once a logging town. His father would allow the loggers to purchase their groceries with credit until they received pay. He was 16 when his father died, and he remembers seeing a line of headlights from Seaside to Gearhart on the way to the funeral in Warren- WRQ&DUV¿OOHGWKHFHPHWHU\ “That’s when I realized who Dad was,” he said. Mayor Sam Steidel said he was happy to see the project completed, adding it “turned out so well.” Cannon Beach’s Design Review Board approved the fountain’s re- location in May and work began in HDUO\ -XQH ,W ¿QLVKHG ULJKW LQ WLPH for the city’s Fourth of July cele- bration, making it easily viewable during the library’s annual book sale. Wood called the installation an “engineering feat.” It includes an underground steel support frame to handle the 600-pound marble struc- ture and a well underneath that can be accessed for plumbing repairs. A new step to reach the fountain was also included. The Cannon Beach Public Works Department handled much of the physical work. Cannon Beach Con- struction was the main contractor and designer Beth Holland did the landscaping. Public Works Director Dan Gras- sick said they haven’t received the ¿QDO LQYRLFHV \HW EXW WKDW WKH ¿QDO cost is estimated around $6,000 with the landscaping. Now all who pass by the foun- tain can stop to “drink to the mem- ory of Harley Sroufe.” As the in- scription on the marble reads, the water that flows serves as “a toast from his friends.” Beg: Penalty for violating ordinance would increase to $700 Continued from Page 1A Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Lee Cain, an instructor with Upward Bound Summer Academy, points out a spotted sandpiper to Pi Espinoza, who is recording data about the number of birds in the area. Wild: ‘I don’t have to do much. Nature does the teaching’ Continued from Page 1A The water in the wetlands comes and goes, sometimes submerging the marshy ground and isolating spits of land where the students must go. And go they do. Students wore hip-waders or knee-high boots and paddled ca- QRHVWRQDYLJDWHWKHÀRRGHGDUHDV Learning from nature Lee Cain, an Astoria High School biology teacher, leads the Upward Bound wetlands project. “I don’t have to do much. Nature does the teaching,” he said. The students will ultimately col- lect, analyze and interpret data from the wetlands. At the end of the pro- gram, they will present their results. Even in the afternoon, the air teemed with bird calls — ornitholo- gists usually survey in the morning when most birds are active, Cain said. Cain is interested in exposing the VWXGHQWVWRWKHZRUOGRI¿HOGELRORJ\ They study amphibians, birds, water Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian quality, as well as any non-salmonid Shoshanna McCleary, left, and Pi Espinoza, right, listen for birds at the wetland restoration site near ¿VKWKH\LQFLGHQWDOO\HQFRXQWHU Teaching outdoors can open stu- the Klaskanine River. dents up to the complexity of the natural world and their place in it as citizens and as part of the ecosystem, he said. Breaching the dike The natural world enveloped the students. Two spotted sandpipers swept through the grass over clo- ven-hoof impressions in the mud. A blue heron took wing as Espinoza and McCleary surveyed. And a spooked bullfrog, a non-native species to the area, croaked in surprise as it was dis- turbed. 7KHZHWODQGLVDFUHVRIÀRRG- able land, but it wasn’t always that way. Sharnell Fee, the director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, bought the property for the center with the dream of breaching the dike to allow the area to return to its natural state. “It took me 18 years to breach that dike,” she said. “It was one folly after another. But it happened, and we’re happy.” Fee said bureaucracy slowed the process of breaching the nearly cen- tury-old dike along the Klaskanine River. Part of the hold up concerned neighboring property. “You have to consider neighbors WKDW\RXPLJKWÀRRG´VKHVDLG So they built a cross levee to pro- tect property. And now, she has what she has wanted all along. The dike was breached in February, and since then, ZLOGOLIHKDYHÀRRGHGLQZLWKWKHULYHU “It’s amazing how fast the wildlife discovered it,” Fee said. A way station for ducks The Wildlife Center recently re- leased rehabilitated mallard ducks Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Shoshanna McCleary, left, and Pi Espinoza, right, look out over the Klaskanine River. Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian A male spotted sandpiper stands on a sign in the wetland resto- ration site. had surveyed the area before the breaches, collecting data. That data can be compared to what his stu- dents have collected this summer, a before-and-after illustration of resto- ration. “His information that he’s gather- ing will be really valuable,” Fee said. The Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce will also study the DUHDIRUWKHQH[W¿YH\HDUVWRPRQL- tor water quality. Hands-on learning Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Asia Lambert, a student with Upward Bound Summer Academy, paddles a canoe along the Klaskanine River. DQG D NLQJ¿VKHU LQWR WKH ZHWODQG had trouble understanding she wants The ducks still live there, using it as to leave the land alone, that she does a way station before moving on, she not want to use it. said. “I want it to be natural,” Fee said. She has spoken with people who Cain’s Upward Bound project Upward Bound serves 71 high school students in the area. To qual- ify, students must meet criteria per- taining to need, including interest in higher education and academic abili- ty, according to the college’s Upward Bound website. Hands-on learning and rotating academic seminars make up the pro- gram. In the morning, students take classes on math, science, foreign lan- guage or writing. In the afternoons, they work on the projects. Besides the wetlands survey, the summer academy also includes projects on nutrition and cooking, wellness and theater. in any public place under a different or- dinance. The amendment to the itinerant merchant regulation would allow that activity — as long as the individual has obtained a permit. 7KH GH¿QLWLRQ RI WHPSRUDU\ ¿[HG OR- cation would also change to “any busi- ness location, public or private” and the amendment would also prohibit selling or providing services from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. Additionally, the amendment would add a new exception to limit licensing during KLJKWUDI¿FWLPHV The penalty for violating the ordinance is $500; the amendment would increase that to $700. Most of the nearly dozen speakers took issue with the idea of requiring pan- handlers and street performers, many of whom don’t make $50 per day, to pay for a permit. For some who spoke, the change carries implications about how individu- als and society should approach poverty and homelessness. “This is not a monetary issue, it’s a mo- rality issue,” said Todd Irving, a traveling street performer known as Funkplastic. Lisa Dooney of Portland said if com- munity residents are concerned about pan- handling or seeing homeless people on the streets, this isn’t the way to handle it. No ordinance will make them disappear, she said. “The way I was raised, it didn’t mat- ter if a person was begging or asking for help. You didn’t ask if it went for booze, or drugs, or cigarettes or toilet paper. It didn’t matter. What mattered was a person was asking for some help,” Dooney said. Many took issue with the $50-per-day charge, which Irving said is “unprecedent- ed.” Sam Condron agreed, adding the way the amendment is written seems to be aimed directly at excluding from Seaside homeless people who don’t have an option except to solicit money from passers-by. “By charging them $50 per day, you’re making that cost-prohibitive,” he said. “You’re making it cost-prohibitive for them to live, to eat, to sustain life. That’s not fair to anybody.” Anne Danen, a working mother of two, also confronted the message she believes would be sent by passing the amendment. “We want our nice, little town to ap- pear to be something other than what it is,” she said, later adding, “I can’t afford $50 per day. If I can’t, what makes you think they can? Oh, but that’s right — that’s the point, isn’t it?” Those concerns were echoed by sever- al people in the audience who engage in panhandling and said paying $50 per day would be too much of a burden. A few people offered possible solutions or different ways to mitigate panhandling and help homeless individuals. “For me, pushing the envelope in terms of getting the housing and the food and the resources and the humanity to the people is a worthwhile cause,” Eng said. Irving and others talked about similar permits for panhandlers or street perform- ers in other cities that carry a yearly fee of up to $127, which might be more prac- tical. Seaside resident Angela Fairless also spoke against the council’s tendency to do multiple readings in a single meeting — as was done with this ordinance June 29 — because it allows less time for public awareness and involvement. She described it as “a slap in the face of de- mocracy,” and suggested councilors take more time to work through the process, especially when dealing with complicated or convoluted issues. For instance, Fairless said, this ordi- nance would apply to children selling sea- shells or lemonade from a stand, so maybe there should be an exemption for them. Irving said the council needs to discuss what to do with the money brought in by the fees. He suggested putting it toward creating positive recreational outlets for youth. After the public hearing, the councilors voted unanimously to table the ordinance to take the received comments under con- sideration. No one spoke in favor of the ordinance, but Seaside Police Chief Dave Ham said the department gets numerous calls from people complaining about panhandlers and who see it as a livability issue.