3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2016
Jesse bids for another
term on Gearhart council
Lorain seeks re-election
in Gearhart council race
Councilor calls
for greater
emergency
preparedness
Rentals, ire
hall on horizon
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
GEARHART — Dan Jesse
is making his second City
Council bid in Gearhart.
Jesse’s career in public ser-
vice began with the Seaside
Civic and Convention Center
and the Seaside Improvement
Commission, before he and his
wife Julie moved to Gearhart,
where he served on the Plan-
ning Commission before elec-
tion to City Council in 2012.
Jesse, raised in Silver-
ton, met his wife — a lifelong
Gearhart resident — while a
student in Seattle. The cou-
ple returned to the region after
school. Trained as a commer-
cial photographer, Jesse is a
builder by trade.
“When we moved here,
commercial photography was
not a viable way to make a
living,” Jesse said. “I love the
ability in a small town to see a
client I’ve worked with in the
grocery store,
to have smiling
faces and peo-
ple happy with
what
you’ve
accomplished.
I wish I could
Dan Jesse say the same
about politics.”
Jesse was referring to the
last four years on the City
Council, which have seen a
number of contentious issues,
from a mayoral recall vote
and vigorous short-term rental
debates to ongoing litigation at
Neacoxie Creek Barn.
The reason for the city’s
disquiet, he said, is a “gener-
ational shift,” in which many
longtime residents are either
leaving or being displaced by
newcomers. “People knew
each other and had a mutual
respect and understanding,
how to get along and play nice
together,” he said.
With a vacation rental ordi-
nance expected to pass in Sep-
tember, Jesse said the conten-
tious topic would likely spill
into future council sessions. “I
don’t think this is coming to an
end,” he said.
Both a referendum or a
lawsuit in response to the
ordinance are possibilities,
Jesse said, “and I’ve heard
rumblings of both. At least
with a referendum, people
could decide based on what
the referendum is.”
He said he welcomed a
public vote on the ordinance
or portions of it, which could
come in the form of a special
election in 2017. “I’d like to
hear what the people think,
and I hate to see tax dollars
going into a lawsuit.” Jesse
said. “I’m not convinced the
people wanting short-term
rentals would come out as
well as they think it would if
it was put to referendum.”
Jesse said he hopes the
dispute with Neacoxie Creek
Barn owner Shannon Smith
will draw itself to a conclu-
sion as the process moves to
Circuit Court. “I’m hoping
we put that one behind us,”
he said.
One issue he would like
to see greater attention to is
emergency preparedness.
“I think we’re still missing
the boat in dealing with emer-
gency preparedness,” he said.
“We need to be putting time
and effort as well as money
in trying to put ourselves in
a better position when a cata-
strophic event happens.”
Chronic absenteeism holds
students back, AP analysis says
Education
secretary calls
rate a national
problem
GEARHART — Nearing
the end of her irst four-year
term, Gearhart City Councilor
Sue Lorain gathered enough
signatures to qualify for a
re-election bid in November.
“It feels like it takes two
years to get up to speed,” she
said. “Then you start partici-
pating. To me, a second term is
important — to have the back-
ground, be more prepared and
inish the things we started in
the irst term. It’s continuity.”
Lorain and her partner
moved to Gearhart in 2004.
A retired teacher — “I taught
everything at some point,” she
said — Lorain spent much of
her career teaching ifth- and
sixth-graders in Washington’s
Highline School District.
Lorain serves on the
Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce board and as
personally. I think this coun-
cil position is about doing
what’s good for all of us in
Gearhart.”
Lorain said the coun-
cil’s short-term rental solu-
tion “meets extremes on both
sides.”
As chairwoman of Gear-
hart’s Fire Hall Committee,
she said she hopes to develop
a community-involved cam-
paign for the new building,
designed to replace the ire-
house on Paciic Way. A pro-
posal could go before voters
in 2017.
If re-elected, Lorain said
she foresees a relatively calmer
council interaction. “What’s
cool about this group now is
we can disagree on issues, but
at the end of the meeting we
can look at each other and say
something funny and laugh,
and be respectful of each other
as human beings. That hasn’t
always happened. I like the
group I’m working with, even
though we’re not always on
the same page. We’re a good
group, and diversiied.”
Grounded cargo ship pulled by tug
back into Columbia River channel
Associated Press
SKAMOKAWA, Wash.
— A 751-foot cargo ship from
Hong Kong that ran aground
in the Columbia River near
Skamokowa, Washington,
has been pulled back into the
channel.
Oficials say a Colum-
bia River Bar Pilot tug boat
pulled the Rosco Palm back
into the channel late Friday.
The U.S. Coast Guard
told KGW-TV that the ves-
sel posed no environmental
hazard and didn’t block other
river trafic.
National park to host long-distance radio events
The Daily Astorian
Lewis and Clark National
Historical Park will host mul-
tiple ham radio events in Sep-
tember, including the chance
for local students to talk
directly with crew members of
the International Space Station.
The park is partnering
with the Mouth of the Colum-
bia Amateur Radio Club.
By JENNIFER C. KERR
and MEGHAN HOYER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
problem of students habit-
ually missing school varies
widely from state to state,
with about one-third of stu-
dents in the nation’s capital
absent 15 days or more in a
single school year, according
to an Associated Press analy-
sis of government statistics.
Overall, the national aver-
age of chronic absenteeism
was 13 percent, or about 6.5
million students, the Educa-
tion Department said. In Ore-
gon, the rate was 22.7 percent.
“Chronic absenteeism is a
national problem,” Secretary
of Education John B. King
Jr. said in a statement. “Fre-
quent absences from school
can be devastating to a child’s
education.”
Bob Balfanz, a research
professor at Johns Hopkins
University and director of the
Everyone Graduates Center,
called the numbers disturbing.
“If you’re not there, you
don’t learn, and then you fall
behind. You don’t pass your
classes. You don’t get the
credits in high school and
that’s what leads to drop-
ping out,” Balfanz said in an
interview.
The report was the irst
release of chronic absentee
igures from the department.
The Obama administration
began a program last fall that
now works with states and
local groups in 30 commu-
nities to identify mentors to
help habitually absent kids get
back on track. As part of the
effort, the White House said
last week that a New York-
based company, STATE Bags,
was donating 30,000 back-
packs to children being men-
tored in the program.
NBA star Kevin Durant is
working with the administra-
tion on the initiative. “Some-
times the reasons come down
to not having what you need
to be present and ready … like
a book bag, school supplies or
the support of a caring adult,”
Durant said in a statement.
Detroit is among the new
communities to sign up for the
My Brother’s Keeper Success
Mentors Initiative.
Of the 100 largest school
districts by enrollment,
Detroit had the highest rate of
chronic absenteeism. Nearly
58 percent of students were
chronically absent in the
2013-2014 school year.
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
vice-president
of
Seaside
Scholarships, a
nonproit pro-
viding scholar-
ships for local
students.
Sue Lorain
L o o k -
ing back on
her four years as councilor,
she singled out short-term
rentals, legal actions at Nea-
coxie Creek Barn and the
attempted mayoral recall of
Mayor Dianne Widdop as key
issues. “I didn’t see that com-
ing,” Lorain said. “That was
tough.”
Lorain said she objects
to the personal tone injected
into local politics. “What puz-
zles me is how issues don’t
become about the commu-
nity and what’s good for the
community, but they become
personal issues against cer-
tain individuals,” she said.
“I’m running to make deci-
sions for the good of the com-
munity, not for the good of
an interest group, this person
or that, or even where I stand
Alycia
Meriweather,
interim superintendent of
Detroit Public Schools, said
Wednesday: “This is a serious
problem, which I would term a
leading indicator, that impacts
everything else we are trying
to accomplish at the District.
DPS must address this issue in
order to see greater results in
our classrooms and schools.”
Meriweather said Detroit
was working with absentee-
ism and behavior experts to
address the problem, and hop-
ing to gain “some new per-
spectives and ideas” from the
My Brother’s Keeper Summit
this week in Washington.
In Washington, Michelle
Lerner, press secretary for the
District of Columbia Schools,
said the district is taking an
“all-hands-on-deck approach”
to try to ensure that students
attend school.
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radio stations at the park’s
Netul Landing on Sept. 2.
The stations will be operating
until the afternoon of Sept. 4.
Sometime during the week
of Aug. 29 to Sept. 3, local
students — who have been
learning about the Interna-
tional Space Station — hope to
have a brief radio conversation
with an astronaut (Dr. Kath-
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Since the call between the
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For more information, call
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