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-
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“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-
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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“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.
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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
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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.