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3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2018 Hotelier announces campaign for council in Cannon Beach Swedenborg joins fray for two seats By BRENNA VISSER Cannon Beach Gazette CANNON BEACH — Greg Swedenborg, a hotelier and president of the Cannon Beach Chamber of Com- merce board, has announced his intention to run for City Council. A Cannon Beach native and co-owner of The Waves Oceanfront Lodging, Swe- denborg decided to run after feeling the business commu- nity and working families needed a stronger voice. “I care about the people and businesses in this city, and I think I could add to the discussion,” Swedenborg said. Swedenborg will join Robin Risley and incum- bent Mike Benefield in vying for two council seats in the November election. If elected, Swedenborg would focus on promoting sustainable tourism, afford- able housing and addressing parking issues. He advocates for more private and public cooperation to address the affordable housing shortage, like supporting tax rebates, providing land at a lower cost to those intending to build affordable homes or other solutions that don’t involve the city being a landlord. “I can draw on feed- back from a staff of employ- ees who haven’t necessarily felt represented in the topic of affordable housing, as it keeps going on for years without any action,” Swe- denborg said. He would also make parking and overcrowding issues a pri- ority. Swe- denborg has long been an advocate for instituting a food and Greg beverage tax and install- Swedenborg ing paid parking mechanisms in city- owned parking lots to gener- ate more revenue for the city. “The current council has a lot of projects and good ideas,” Swedenborg said, “but there’s no funding to address these issues. I don’t know what the answer is, but you can’t do anything with- out money.” While a majority of the city’s budget is supported by lodging tax revenue, these measures would be a way to offset costs incurred from people who take day trips to Cannon Beach and put pres- sure on city services, Swe- denborg said. “I want to keep Cannon Beach a sleepy and small town, but the fact we’re the closest beach town sit- ting next to Portland, which has doubled in size in the last 10 years, is not going to change,” Swedenborg said. “To be able to address the volume of people that come here, we need to make steps to manage that future but also respect the (town’s) past.” Before taking over opera- tions at The Waves, Sweden- borg worked in Los Ange- les, California, and Bend in technology sales and man- agement with Hewlett-Pack- ard. Swedenborg believes he will draw from his expe- riences collaborating with a large staff of employees and budget management in both the tech and hospitality sec- tors to problem solve on the City Council. Initiative would require vote on tolls Ballot measure sought for 2020 By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau Oregonians could have a chance to vote on whether to approve a proposal to toll interstates through the Port- land metro area. Gladstone Planning Com- missioner Les Poole and state Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Inde- pendence, have filed Initia- tive Petition 9, “Tolls Need Voter Approval,” for the 2020 ballot. The initiative would amend the Oregon Constitu- tion to require a vote of the people to implement tolls. “Regardless of the valid- ity of that concept, the (toll- ing) recommendations by ODOT (the Oregon Depart- ment of Transportation) are full of holes,” Poole wrote in an email. Putting the plan to a vote would hold state transporta- tion officials accountable for addressing issues such as how the revenue from tolling will be used and preventing diver- sion of traffic into neighbor- hoods, he said. A policy advisory com- mittee earlier this month rec- ommended tolling all lanes of Interstate 5 between North- east Going/Alberta Street and Southwest Multnomah Bou- levard and on the Abernathy Bridge on Interstate 205. The bridge toll would go toward paying for building a third lane on I-205 between High- way 99 East and Stafford Road. “I am not at all surprised that someone has filed an ini- tiative to get this to go to vot- ers,” said state Transportation Commissioner Sean O’Hol- laren, who co-chaired the pol- icy advisory committee. “It would clearly slow the plan and in order to implement it, if it has to go to a vote, it will take a lot more effort and time to do it.” Pamplin Media Group An initiative proposed for the 2020 ballot could slow efforts to toll Interstate 5 and Inter- state 205 in the Portland area. If the initiative qualifies for the ballot, it would have a good chance of receiving approval, O’Hollaren said. “When it comes to impos- ing user fees, which is what tolling is, people want to have a voice in it.” If the plan ends up at the polls, “people will have a choice to vote to sit in traffic or vote to try to do something about it,” he said. Congestion-priced toll- ing — a system in which tolls vary according to the amount of congestion on the roads — helps reduce traffic bottle- necks in other places, includ- ing the Seattle area, O’Hol- laren said. The plan also is a way for ODOT to pay for new infrastructure, which can’t be funded solely with gas tax revenue. “We don’t have that many options and the rate of popula- tion growth continues to out- pace our rate of capacity,” he said. State lawmakers approved a $5.3 billion transporta- tion-funding package in 2017. As part of the legislation, the Oregon Transportation Com- mission was charged with considering a tolling plan to help encourage more efficient use of Portland-area inter- states and to raise revenue for As farmers brace for trade wars, USDA announces $12B in temporary assistance Bailout shows impact of tariffs By EMILY CURETON Oregon Public Broadcasting The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced $12 billion in aid Tuesday to help farmers hit by the Trump administration’s trade wars. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue called the payments a short-term solution that gives the president time to negotiate new trade policy. And Oregon farmers like Darren Padget will likely be eligible for the federal aid. Padget grows wheat in Grass Valley, southeast of The Dalles. He said he exports almost all of his crop to Asia, and this year his harvest was sold in advance. But with long- time export markets closing because of retaliatory tariffs, Padget doesn’t know what’s going to happen next year. He also doesn’t know if he’ll sign up for federal assistance. “Quite honestly, I’d rather just have open markets — sell my wheat for what the world demand is,” Padget said by phone as he sat in a semitruck taking a load of grain to storage. Padget said his family has been cultivating relationships with buyers in Asia for 60 years, since the end of World War II. And he can’t put a price on those relationships. Still, Padget is waiting to see how to react to the admin- istration’s trade policies. “I’m cautiously optimis- tic,” he said. “Because (Pres- ident Donald Trump) has a track record of getting things done. But, it’s a bit unortho- dox to what we’re used to in the political world … But, you know, it’s hard not to won- der. That’s for sure. I’ve got to remain calm, level-headed and pay attention.” The USDA’s plan includes three programs. The largest one, officials said Tuesday, is a market facilitation program that would provide incremen- tal payments to producers of the hardest hit commodities: wheat, soybeans, sorghum, dairy and corn among them. Another program would buy food commodities directly from producers and distrib- ute them to food banks and nutrition programs. And the third program is a vaguely-de- fined trade promotion initia- tive, intended to develop new export markets. Oregon agriculture thrives on foreign trade, said Gail Greenman, director of national affairs for the Oregon Farm Bureau. “We grow 220 recognized commodities,” she said, “and 40 percent of that leaves the country.” As for which Oregon farms stand to bear the brunt of a trade war, Greenman said the list is too long to rattle off. “Grass feed, wheat, beef, dairy, apples, onions, blueber- ries. All of those are so heavily dependent on trade.” At Tuesday’s press brief- ing, USDA officials didn’t say when the new farm payments will roll out, how the payments will be calculated or what the sign-up process will be. Nationally, many farmers remain critical of Trump’s tar- iffs and the damage done to commodity prices and markets but were appreciative that he offered to provide some cash to help offset their losses. Farmers said they would rather have Trump settle the trade disputes with China, Mexico, Canada and the Euro- pean Union and get free trade flowing again. “A Band-Aid doesn’t cure an illness, but it might make it temporarily better,” said Dave Struthers, who grows corn, soybeans and hay on a 1,100- acre Iowa farm near Col- lins, about 30 miles northeast of Des Moines. He also sells about 6,000 pigs a year. Reaction from trade part- ners to Trump’s tariff policies have pushed soybean prices about 18 percent lower and corn and pork prices down 15 percent from the time Trump began discussing tariffs this spring. David Pitt of the Associ- ated Press contributed to this report. projects to further reduce con- gestion or add capacity. The Department of Transportation convened a policy advisory committee to research and come up with a recommen- dation for tolls. The commit- tee was led by O’Hollaren and Alando Simpson, who repre- sent the Portland area. The commission has a December deadline to sub- mit a proposal to the Fed- Consult a PROFESSIONAL LEO FINZI on your computer. Enter the drug and GoodRX will show you the price you can expect to pay at any of our e are local pharmacies. Sample results: ere to Prices ranged from $25.37 to $139.82 elp and $9.99 to $70.14 on two of my M-F, 10-6, Closed this Sat. & Sun. recent prescriptions. 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