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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
What gives us the right?
O
ver the next week, this newspa-
per will turn over much of its
editorial space to endorsements
of candidates for local, state and federal
offices.
We’d like to take the opportunity,
before you read those endorsements, to
explain why we do it.
In this day and age — when every-
one has an opinion and everyone else
is going to hear about it — many news-
papers are rethinking the endorsement.
They can be contentious. Almost every
election season we hear from some-
one who so heartily disagrees with our
recommendation that they cancel their
subscription.
And they are especially fraught in
local races, when we’re not arguing
about dense economic policy or the far-
away concerns of peace in the Middle
East. We’re talking about people who
we see on a regular basis in our jobs
and on our sidewalks. And who we will
likely have to work with if they win,
whether we endorse them or not.
Yet we feel that as an editorial board,
we can offer some helpful insight to
voters. We have the opportunity to dis-
cuss issues with and ask questions of
all of the candidates running in local
elections. We sat down with all eight
Clatsop County commissioner candi-
dates, all five state House District 32
candidates and all six 1st Congressional
District candidates. The discussions
were frank and fruitful.
We believe that has some value. And
we’d like to tell you what we heard,
thought and learned. You are certainly
welcome to disregard our advice. But
we do our best to present an indepen-
dent summation of our meetings, as
well as our thoughts about who we
think will make the best use of the
tax dollars we entrust them with, and
will do the best work for all of their
constituents.
It is possible to do that. Sit down
with enough people running for polit-
ical office (especially in a primary),
and political distinctions seem to fade
away. We look for people who are expe-
rienced. We look for people who have
new, interesting ideas. We look for peo-
ple who answer our questions honestly.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
An audience begins to gather at Astoria High School for an April 3 candidate forum.
We look for them to be knowledge-
able about the position they are running
for and committed to learning more if
elected. We look for people willing to
work hard. We look for people with a
record of accomplishments, and time
spent as partners and leaders in our
communities.
Federal and state representatives and
county commissioners ought to be held
to high standards. They play key roles
in how our tax money is spent, what
projects get priority, and in determin-
ing the values under which we are gov-
erned. Those running for those positions
require a critical eye to their qualifica-
tions and their proposals.
But you have the final say. And your
vote is powerful in local elections. With
our endorsements, we’re not trying
influence your vote as much as we’re
trying to empower it. We’ll tell you
what we know because we want you to
know it, too.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Gearhart to tsunami: Wait until 2020
I
t was almost a year ago when a
Gearhart committee presented an
option for a new firehouse on park-
land at Pacific Way and North Marion.
Reaction was swift and generally
unfavorable from longtime residents
and newcomers alike, who spoke of the
need to protect open space and the park’s
historic location.
“The fire station is the one thing here
we need to work on most of all,” Chad
Sweet, a Gearhart firefighter and the
city’s administrator, said at an April 7
emergency management town hall.
Only 22 feet above
sea level and con-
structed of hollow-core,
nonreinforced cinder-
block, a “little-bitty
shake” could bring the
building to the ground.
“Hopefully we can dig
R.J. MARX the trucks out,” Sweet
said. “We’ll see.”
With fewer than 1,000 full-time res-
idents and limited land out of the inun-
dation zone, the city’s geography and
demography has focused on preparedness
as the first line of defense.
Members of the firehouse committee
hope to identify one of three sites for
relocation of the 60-year-old building
and to present a bond to voters in
2019. Now they’re stalled, according
to firehouse committee chairman Jay
Speakman. “We’ve come to a place
where we’ve kicked it into neutral,” he
told Gearhart’s City Council on April 4.
“We’re not racing ahead.”
Remaining at the existing site at 670
Pacific Way is not an option. “This build-
ing should be condemned,” Speakman
said.
‘Costs, traditions, aesthetics’
The Gearhart Fire Department faces
complex issues of geography and histor-
ical perspective: a low-elevation location
at the current site and a city park that
comes with a glorious heritage — open
parkland preserved at a cost of political
and social equity of generations of
Gearhart residents.
Alternatives are limited to inflexible
criteria: need for a centrally located
site, enough elevation to survive most
Cascadia Subduction Zone disaster sce-
narios and a budget determined by vot-
ers. The state’s Department of Geology
and Mineral Industries told fire commit-
tee members that if another site existed,
they would not recommend replacing the
station in its present location.
Gearhart Park and a privately owned
property on North Marion Avenue
referred to as “High Point” remain the
only serious options after the committee
reviewed locations throughout the com-
munity, east and west of U.S. Highway
101.
Despite a less-than-enthusiastic recep-
tion from the public, the park is clearly
the favorite. While its elevation is 48 feet
to High Point’s 63 feet, the North Marion
Photos by R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
The Gearhart firehouse is said to be unable to withstand the impact of even a small quake.
Of sites for a new firehouse, Gearhart Park remains one of three in consideration.
site comes with a hefty price tag, starting
at $4 million for purchase.
“We’re up against costs, traditions and
aesthetics,” Speakman said.
Plans include extending the west side
of the park, regrading, replanting and
creating an open space that’s as big as
the existing space, Speakman said. The
city would be required to work with the
county to lift deed restrictions allowing
rezoning.
The committee plans to increase
the park’s area with fill. “We would do
everything we can to replace park space
that would be lost by the addition of the
fire station,” Sweet said.
Size matters
The Gearhart fire station at 670
Pacific Way was built to standards of
the late 1950s, years before anyone
understood the extent or potential conse-
quences of a Cascadia Subduction Zone
event.
Subsequent scientific studies provided
evidence that Gearhart and other coastal
communities are at ground zero for a
Cascadia event.
In 2015, the City Council reopened
with city councilors discussions about
renovating or replacing the station, mak-
ing it one of the city’s top priorities.
Any earthquake that is going to hap-
pen in Gearhart is going to “shake us up
pretty good,” Sweet said.
When the school bond went to voters
in 2016, superintendent Doug Dougherty
and bond supporters presented worst-
case scenarios — a wave of up to 120
feet — when advocating a new campus
in Seaside’s Southeast Hills.
Gearhart doesn’t have the luxury of
that kind of height outside of the inun-
dation zone. According to state geologic
maps, while none of Gearhart’s 1,729
buildings would survive an extra-large
tsunami, almost half of those would
survive a medium-sized event.
“There are going to be some homes
that come down,” Sweet acknowledged.
That doesn’t mean residents shouldn’t
prepare. Chances of the Big One hitting
— with waves reaching more than 75
feet — are only 3 percent. “There’s no
guarantee the tsunami that comes in is
going to be the big one, the ‘XXL’ that
will cover Gearhart,” he said.
“Gearhart will fare very well in
90-some percent of all scenarios,” Sweet
said.
A well-equipped firehouse on higher
ground could prove a matter of life and
death after waves recede. “The more
resilient we are, the faster we’re going to
recover.”
Wait until next year?
With two new county bonds on the
November ballot and voters still feeling
the pinch from passage of the $99.7
million Seaside School District bond to
move schools out of the tsunami zone,
the firehouse committee elected to roll
back the bond timetable to November
2019.
“If you work backward for approv-
als, plans and council readings, that’s
probably the soonest this could hap-
pen,” Speakman said.
By delaying the bond vote to 2019,
the committee and proponents have
another 18 months to make their case.
Speakman hopes a town hall meet-
ing this fall will educate the public and
“help people get their mind around
this is something that really should be
done.”
He anticipates resistance from
second homeowners who objected to
taking the park out of public use. “We
really don’t know what to expect. It’s
anybody’s guess.”
Estimated costs for a firehouse
project, not including land purchase,
reach about $5 million, of which $3.4
million would go to a 12,800-square-
foot public safety building. Costs to
voters could run an estimated 78 cents
per thousand dollars of assessed home
value if a station is built at the park site.
Costs would be “just about double that”
for the High Point location after land
purchase.
Along with replacing the fire station,
the bond issue would also fund a new
fire truck, with a potential price tag
of $500,000. For taxpayers owning a
$300,000 home, the bond cost would
be about $234 per year. For a $500,000
home, taxes would increase about $390
per year.
“It’s an expensive proposition,”
Speakman said. “But we’re kind of in
a box. We can’t put it to the voters this
November. These things can take a long
time, but in the end if we prevail it will
be worth it.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s
South County reporter and editor of
the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach
Gazette.