One last ride
on the trolley
Gull girls
soar to win
NORTH COAST • 3A
SPORTS • 7A
143rd YEAR, No. 114
MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2015
ONE DOLLAR
Blaze destroys three Seaside homes
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — In the aftermath of a Sunday
morning bla]e on 11th Avenue, ¿re investiga-
tors from throughout the county are meeting
this morning to determine a cause, Seaside
Division Chief Chris Dugan said.
“It’s ¿re marshal, chiefs and of¿cials from
throughout the county,” Dugan said. “It’s
such a large ¿re, there will be a lot of work as
far as doing the investigation.”
The American Red Cross Cascades Region
provided temporary lodging and assistance
for 14 adults and two children affected by the
¿re.
Fast-moving blaze
Fire departments and emergency person-
nel from Seaside, Cannon Beach, Gearhart,
Astoria and Hamlet responded to the alarm
Sunday morning at 2:33 a.m. Ultimately
more than 50 ¿re¿ghters responded to the
fast-moving ¿re which destroyed three homes
and badly damaged a fourth.
Three other homes nearby had minor
Firefighters
respond to
a blaze in
Seaside that
destroyed
three homes.
David Doney
For The Daily
Astorian
See BLAZE, Page 10A
Plenty of parks, not enough time
Seaside
wants
room
to grow
City planners
look at several
sites to expand
By KATHERINE LACAZE
EO Media Group
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
People walk along the playground of Alderbrook Park during a parks tour Saturday morning. The tour covered several locations from the
Alderbrook Lagoon to the Ocean View Cemetery in Warrenton.
Parks and rec director
leads tour of Astoria’s
63 parks, sites
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
T
SEASIDE — By state law,
Seaside’s urban boundaries are re-
quired to expand to accommodate a
growing population. But what will
growth look like in 20 years?
Rather than projecting two de-
cades ahead, the Planning Com-
mission is considering a more con-
servative approach expansion by
looking at a 14-year projection for
the city’s future land needs.
This approach would allow the
city’s potential expansion to have
less of an impact on the South Wa-
hanna Road area, whose residents
comprise a majority of the opposi-
tion to the project.
For a 14-year land-needs analy-
sis, the city needs to apply to bring
an additional 141 acres into the
urban growth boundary, consul-
tant Don Hanson of Otak, told the
commission last week. To satisfy
the city’s projected population in 20
years, an analysis showed about 208
acres.
“We can back our 20-year de-
mand down to where it would be a
14-year demand and go with that,”
City Planner Kevin Cupples said.
This would show the state that
the city is considering public input
and testimony, he said. “And then
we can re-evaluate that seven years
down the line, or 10 years down the
line.”
he Astoria Parks and Recreation Depart-
ment maintains 63 sites in the community
— parks, trails, restrooms, facilities and
cemeteries — but dedicates only three full-time
employees to the task.
Citywide and beyond, the department’s
maintenance crew mows the lawns, whacks the
weeds, trims the trees, rakes the leaves, clears
the litter, cleans the bathrooms, inspects the
playgrounds, empties the garbage cans, removes
the vagrant camps, replaces the facility equip-
ment, keeps the community halls habitable and
performs 150 cemetery burials a year.
“It’s quite an undertaking,” Angela Cosby,
parks and recreation director, said.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Since the commission started
considering the expansion, mem-
bers focused on the Southeast Hills
site, to the south and east of Spruce
Drive and Wahanna Road. They
See PARKS, Page 5A
Pam Pearce, manager at the Astoria Aquatic Center, talks during a tour of the center Satur-
day morning. The center was the first many stops on the parks tour.
See SEASIDE, Page 10A
Dispersing the impact
Artist e[plores writing as he ¿nds his inner child
From a family
of teachers, out
pops an artist
C
Dani Palmer/EO Media Group
Bill Steidel poses with his new children’s book, “Whose
Move,” at his gallery in Cannon Beach.
ANNON BEACH — The
bell overhead chimes as
a woman in a yellow raincoat
steps inside Steidel’s Art, a
smile on her face as she tells
her friend “You have to see
this. I’ve bought some of his
pieces. I love them.”
Bill Steidel, 88, is well-
known for his art, but that isn’t
all he does. Culminating a de-
cades-long work in progress,
Steidel released his ¿rst pub-
lished children’s book this fall
titled “Whose Move.”
The book is a story about a
boy and dragon, accompanied
and enhanced by Steidel’s il-
lustrations.
“The stories have been
around for years and years,”
he said.
Steidel has drawn since he
was in elementary school. His
third-grade teacher would let
him draw in class, where he’d
focus on fairy tale themes. A
junior high teacher encouraged
him to enter contests. He won
consecutive years and went on
to encourage him to go to col-
lege for art, which he did at the
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
His parents were acade-
micians. Many in his family,
including siblings, became ed-
ucators.
“All of a sudden out pops
a child that doesn’t want to do
anything but draw pictures,” he
said. “They told me they didn’t
know what to do with me.”
But they “backed me up”
when he chose a different path.
After college, he illustrat-
ed his ¿rst book with Simon
and Schuster. Eventually,
with “itchy feet,” he ended up
See STEIDEL, Page 10A