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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2016
Artists, homeless to protest Seaside rules
Pipe maker
wants to gather
on the Prom
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
rousted by Seaside Police.
They say the itinerant mer-
chant rules are too restric-
tive for artists and performers,
many of whom are homeless
and may be able to proit from
their skills.
Last year, the City Coun-
cil considered a $50 a day
licensing fee, or $1,000 a
year, to regulate solicitors,
entertainers and performers.
The proposal would have
raised fines to $750. During
the public hearing, words
such as “wrong,” “brutal,”
“discriminatory” and “a
street-sweeping technique”
were used to describe the
amendment, which would
have expanded the defini-
tion of “itinerant merchant”
to include anyone who “pro-
vides a service ... or solicits
for any form of compensa-
tion or remuneration.”
The proposal was tabled.
A city ban
SEASIDE — Artist Walter
Whitman and his companion
Dowell McLaughlin say they
are being rousted from down-
town tourist areas and plan to
take their protest public.
Whitman,
58,
and
McLaughlin, 43, said they
will be out on the beach Sat-
urday in Seaside to stand up
for the homeless and itinerant
merchants.
Whitman makes jewelry,
medicine bags and all-natural
pipes of bone, stone and sea-
shell. He doesn’t charge for
the material, but accepts gifts
or donations, which he said are
freely given.
Whitman and McLaugh-
lin occupied a spot along the
Prom until Memorial Day,
when they said they were
City ordinances ban beg-
ging or soliciting on the
streets or in any public place.
Adopted in 1984, the itin-
erant merchant ordinance
regulates the buying and sell-
ing of merchandise by indi-
viduals who do not have a
ixed location. Vendors who
use a temporary ixed loca-
tion to promote or sell mer-
chandise are subject to pen-
alties up to $500. Charitable
and fraternal organizations
are exempted.
“If somebody wants to set
up a business and sell their
hand-painted rocks, they
would more than likely be
turned down,” Seaside Police
Chief Dave Ham said.
Most people are “pretty
compliant,” the chief said,
Survey provides
insight for Cannon
Beach priorities
City to focus
on housing,
safety needs
BY LYRA FONTAINE
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH —
During two full days of strate-
gic planning sessions, Cannon
Beach city councilors and staff
considered major community
issues, from parking to short-
term rentals, before coming to a
consensus on city priorities for
the next ive years.
Results from the recent citi-
zen survey, which received a 40
percent response from residents,
guided the discussions last week.
After analyzing survey results
and a consultant’s past inter-
views with councilors and staff,
the group identiied ive prior-
ities: affordable housing, infra-
structure planning, emergency
management, relationship with
the community and effective
government.
“This allows me to focus on
speciic goals and allows us to
be held accountable for achiev-
ing these results,” City Manager
Brant Kucera said.
Consultant Marv Weidner
said a strategic plan is a contract
with the community and told the
room to set measurable, achiev-
able goals for each priority.
The public could attend but
not participate. The plan will be
adopted at a council meeting in
July.
Affordable housing
The city will aim to add 25
units of affordable housing for
various household sizes by 2018,
and 25 more units by 2020.
About 75 percent of sur-
vey respondents indicated it was
essential or every important that
the city assist with the develop-
ment of additional affordable
housing.
Most people who work in
Cannon Beach, including ser-
vice industry workers and city
employees, live outside the city
because they cannot afford it,
councilors and staff said. Many
said the absence of affordable
housing and a school were inter-
woven issues.
Some recent overnight camp-
ers have been employees of Can-
non Beach businesses who were
unable to ind a place in town to
live, Police Chief Jason Scher-
merhorn said.
“When people live in town,
they take pride in their commu-
nity and get involved,” he added.
Haystack Rock Awareness
Program employees are renting
rooms or unable to ind housing,
program coordinator Melissa
Keyser said, adding that afford-
able housing would increase
workplace stability.
City Councilor Wendy Hig-
gins agreed that inding employ-
ees is more dificult than ever.
“I live in Tillamook because
I can’t ind housing in Clatsop,”
Kucera said, calling the afford-
able housing deicit “terrifying.”
“I hear from everyone now that
they’re afraid their landlord will
sell their house and they’ll be
homeless.”
For 59 percent of survey
respondents, it is important that
the city reduces the number of
short-term rentals in residential
neighborhoods.
The city could ind ways to
encourage private ownership for
long-term rentals, Mayor Sam
Steidel said.
The city tentatively planned
to not renew vacation rent-
als until 2017 and rewrite short-
term rental regulations by the end
of this year. Although the goals
were agreed upon by most, some
said it may be unfair to change
short-term rental rules.
Councilor George Vetter said
Cannon Beach has consistently
been a resort town. “People don’t
want to give up second homes;
they want to use them in the sum-
mer,” he said. “We can’t expect
that if we limit short-terms we’ll
have more long-terms.”
Emergency management
With the threat of a devastat-
ing earthquake and tsunami, city
staff and councilors discussed
the vulnerable water plant, mass
care and the need for a long-term
recovery plan.
The group said they want cit-
izens to be informed, safe, coni-
dent and healthy. The city should
have enough supplies to take care
of the population plus 25 percent
more, Kucera said. The city will
aim for a mass care site — an
open and accessible area without
infrastructure — at South Wind
by the end of 2018.
The city also set goals of cre-
ating a water puriication sys-
tem by the end of 2017, hiring
an emergency management pro-
gram manager by mid-2017 and
acquiring better emergency com-
munications assets by 2018.
By 2019, the city aims to
have 100 emergency-certiied
residents, recruit more Medi-
cal Reserve Corps members and
protect computer information in
an off-site facility. In ive years,
the city hopes to have a long-
term recovery plan.
Infrastructure planning
The city’s ive-year goals
include saving $2 million in
reserve to relocate essential ser-
vices to South Wind, and for rate-
payers to support utility opera-
tions, maintenance and capital
improvements, since the city’s
general fund subsidizes utility
funds.
Public Works Director Dan
Grassick said it would take years
for the city to be able to move crit-
ical services, like police, to South
Wind, due to the expense of add-
ing roads and other infrastructure.
The city will aim to create 50
parking spaces by 2017, have water
and wastewater capital improve-
ments by 2017 and adopt a trans-
portation system plan by 2018.
Councilors said they have
heard about or experienced the
lack of parking for years in down-
town and local streets.
The city will make a inal deci-
sion on whether to purchase the
elementary school site by the end
of the year.
invited to Seaside beach
Saturday, Whitman said.
“I’m inviting all the home-
less, because I want to raise
awareness,” he said. “They
don’t have to stand in a park-
ing lot with their raggedy-ass
sign. If you have a gift, a
craft, why are you standing
there holding a sign?”
The gathering is planned
from noon to sunset on the
beach about 40 or 50 feet
south of the Prom. “I’m
going to set myself up, have
my generator and I’m going
to sit there and carve and
make pipes like I always do
up on the Prom,” Whitman
said.
“I will be obedient,”
Whitman added. “But they
ain’t going to like how I’m
going to do it. I’m going to
stand up and holler at the
top of my lungs, ‘Listen to
this!’ and I’m going to shout
it out for everybody to hear.
We are American citizens
and we have a right to live,
to feed ourselves and to pay
our bills.”
‘Times have changed’
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Walter Whitman and Dowell McLaughlin hope to raise
awareness of what they say are restrictive rules for artists
and entertainers.
but occasionally may become
boisterous or loud and may
receive citations for disorderly
conduct or unreasonable noise.
“Usually we handle it with
an educational piece,” Ham
said, with information about
city ordinances and a warning.
On Wednesday, Whit-
man said the city’s statutes,
written in the 1980s, are
outdated.
“Times have changed
since then,” he said. “Make
a permit fee reasonable that
we can afford.”
Artists,
the
home-
less and supporters are
Washington state limits carbon
pollution from largest sources
Governor has
struggled to
win lawmaker
approval
By PHUONG LE
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Wash-
ington state regulators
on Wednesday unveiled
an updated plan to limit
greenhouse gas emis-
sions from large polluters,
the latest attempt by Gov.
Jay Inslee to push ahead
with a binding cap on car-
bon emissions after strug-
gling to win approval from
legislators.
Washington
would
join nearly a dozen states
including California that
have capped carbon pol-
lution from industrial
sources.
The proposed rule
requires large indus-
trial emitters to gradually
reduce carbon emissions
over time. The rule would
cover many industries,
including power plants, oil
reineries, fuel distributors,
pulp and paper mills and
others.
Inslee, who has called
climate change “the single
most important issue of our
time,” has gained national
attention on environmen-
tal issues but so far has
failed in his own state to
pass ambitious carbon-re-
duction proposals, includ-
ing a plan to charge pol-
luters a fee for emissions.
Frustrated by inaction in
the Legislature, Inslee last
year used his executive
authority and directed state
regulators to limit carbon
pollution under the state’s
Clean Air Act.
“Today is an exciting
day in our continued quest
to provide cleaner air for
Washingtonians,” Inslee
said in a video statement
Wednesday. He said car-
bon pollution is hurting the
state and cited two consec-
utive record-setting wild-
ire seasons that burned
about 2,000 square miles,
among other climate-re-
lated problems.
West Coast pact
On Wednesday, Ins-
lee joined leaders of Ore-
gon, California and British
Columbia in San Fran-
cisco to sign a climate
agreement with six West
Coast cities. The pact says
they will work together to
encourage zero-emissions
vehicles, to reduce energy
use in buildings and to take
other measures.
Under Washington’s
proposed rule, expected
to be inalized in late sum-
mer, large emitters would
be required to reduce car-
bon emissions by an aver-
age of 1.7 percent annually.
The rule would initially
apply to about two dozen
oil reineries, power plants years, such as improved envi-
and others that release at least ronmental and health con-
100,000 metric tons of car- ditions, according to a state
bon a year. Many more facil- analysis.
ities would likely be covered
Oficials with the Wash-
by the rule as the
ington Department
threshold is low-
of Ecology say
ered over the next
the rule is needed
decades.
to protect human
Kris
John-
health and the envi-
son, president of
ronment from cli-
the Association of
mate change. It
Washington Busi-
would cover about
ness, said his group
two-thirds of the
is still concerned
state’s emissions.
about the poten-
“Carbon pollu-
tial economic dam- Gov. Jay Inslee tion has reached
age from this new
rampant levels and
regulation.
we’re committed to
He said in a statement that capping and reducing it,” said
the cap “sends the wrong sig- Sarah Rees, Ecology’s special
nal to businesses of all sizes, assistant on climate policy.
both those that are here
Some critics said the pro-
already and those hoping to posed rule doesn’t require
relocate here, by driving up enough emissions reductions
energy costs for employers and disregards current sci-
and families.”
ence. “We are extremely disap-
pointed,” said Andrea Rodgers,
Economic analysis
an attorney representing young
According to the state’s activists who sued the state to
preliminary economic analy- force it to adopt new rules to
sis, the rule would cost busi- limit carbon emissions based
nesses between $1.4 billion on the best-available science.
and $2.8 billion over 20 years
Businesses can comply by
to comply. But it’s also esti- lowering their emissions, buy-
mated to provide about $14.5 ing “emissions reduction cred-
billion in beneits over 20 its” from others in the pro-
gram, investing in projects that
permanently reduce emissions
in the state or buy allowances
through another cap-and-trade
program such as ones run by
California and Quebec.
Second attempt
It’s the state’s second attempt
at an emissions rule.
Ecology oficials said
Wednesday that the latest ver-
sion addresses concerns raised
by businesses, environmental
groups and others when the irst
draft was released. The agency
withdrew that draft rule in Feb-
ruary to make changes.
Stu Clark, the state’s air
quality manager, said this ver-
sion tries to accommodate busi-
ness growth, recognize actions
that have already taken steps to
reduce their emissions before
the rule takes effect and pro-
vides provisions for energy-in-
tensive businesses that face
intense global competition.
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