7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2018
Cannon Beach: The campaign is competitive but peaceful
Continued from Page 1A
The new council will be
faced with navigating some
specific projects — such as
developing the 55-acre parcel
of land known as South Wind,
rehabilitating an aging water
and wastewater system and
addressing a deteriorating City
Hall — as well as the ever-
green task of managing a tour-
ism industry that brings both
benefits and challenges.
Since being appointed to
the City Council five years
ago, many of the same issues
that inspired Benefield to
serve remain. One is to pre-
serve the community charac-
ter that attracted him to Can-
non Beach.
“I flew out to the coast, and
drove through every town,” he
said. “When I got to Cannon
Beach, I loved it because it had
the appearance of a village. But
now it’s becoming a resort.”
At the crux is a lack of
affordable housing, Benefield
said. It’s an issue the council
attempted to tackle a few times
during his last term. Plans to
introduce park model homes
at the city’s RV park have been
stalled amid city staff turnover.
The council, including Bene-
field, voted down zoning code
amendments pitched as a way
to encourage workforce hous-
ing, finding them ineffective at
building housing the average
worker could afford.
“I don’t have a clear answer.
I think we’re in that holding
pattern because we don’t have
the answers,” Benefield said.
“But I don’t think it’s just the
city’s problem.”
If elected to another term,
Benefield would support
directing lodging tax dollars
away from promotion efforts
and putting the money into
public art, building trails and
buying the former Cannon
Beach Elementary School as
an event center.
While in favor of the cham-
ber’s efforts to market during
the offseason, he questions
its effectiveness in driving
tourism away from summer
months.
“People are going to see
the promotion and come when
they want, which is summer,”
Benefield said. “It’s just too
crowded.”
A listening ear
While this is her first bid
for City Council, Risley is no
stranger to local politics. Over
the course of three decades, she
has served on several boards
and committees, including the
Cannon Beach and Clatsop
County planning commissions,
the Oregon State Parks and
Recreation Commission and
the chamber board.
As a member of public art
committees, supporting the
town’s art identity and legacy
would be a priority for Risley.
Other goals include working
more collaboratively with the
chamber and exploring solu-
tions for a new City Hall. As a
member of the parks commit-
tee, preserving the integrity of
the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve
would also be on her agenda.
As a former chamber board
member, Risley sees the value
in promoting Cannon Beach
to tourists, but as a councilor
she would work with the state
to try and expand what proj-
ects can be funded through the
lodging tax.
“We’ve got quite a bit in the
coffers, but we’re stuck with a
formula on how to spend it,”
she said. “I think when a good
thing gets too good you need
to rethink, and that’s why I’m
talking about the Legislature.”
If elected, Risley’s main
goal would be to be a sounding
board for her constituents.
“I love this place because
there’s a spirit of independence
and cooperation with each
other,” she said. “When we
work together we can accom-
plish so much, so I want to hear
what’s on your mind.”
Finding a balance
For his first bid for public
office, Swedenborg hopes to be
a voice for people busy running
businesses and raising families
— a cross section of the com-
munity he feels often isn’t
well-represented.
Born and raised in Cannon
Beach, Swedenborg worked in
Los Angeles and Bend in tech-
nology sales and management
with Hewlett-Packard before
moving back to the area to take
over operations at The Waves
Oceanfront Lodging.
Remembering the small
and sleepy Cannon Beach of
his childhood, in conjunction
with the reality of a booming
tourism industry today, is what
inspired his campaign slogan:
“Manage the future, respect the
past.”
“I think we really need to
look at the character balance
of Cannon Beach. Create pol-
icy that allows for some change
and also will help create bal-
ance by allowing younger
families to live here and work
here,” he said.
Creating that balance
includes supporting paid park-
ing and a food and bever-
age tax to help bring in rev-
enue that, unlike the lodging
tax, wouldn’t be restricted to
mostly tourism purposes.
Swedenborg is the stron-
gest advocate for tourism pro-
motion in the offseason out of
the candidates, and argues that,
in comparison with other tour-
ism-based cities, the amount
spent on promotion is small.
“I do feel Cannon Beach
has to have some kind of pro-
motion,” he said. “The only
way we’re going to grow the
transient lodging dollars we
use to run the city is by grow-
ing business in the shoulder
season.”
Swedenborg suggests a bet-
ter way to manage lodging tax
dollars diverted to the Tourism
and Arts Commission and the
Chamber of Commerce desti-
nation marketing budget would
be to lump it all into one fund
and have it be managed by
an oversight committee that
would vote on how the money
should be used.
“I think the way we do it
today there are lots of duplicate
efforts. The city gives money
to one event in town, and then
the city gives money to the
chamber and they use some of
that money to market that same
event. I think there are some
synergies to be gained by look-
ing at how that is managed at a
city level,” he said.
Different approaches
While all of the candidates
listed housing as a top priority,
their approach to address it dif-
Robles: ‘I feel this place is
home. I like the rain, too.’
Continued from Page 1A
friends, Robles said. During
his work in Idaho, Robles
also met Krueger, a developer
behind several apartment and
housing projects on the North
Coast.
“He liked how I do my
work,” Robles said of Krueger,
who encouraged him to start
his own business, expand into
other aspects of housing con-
struction and eventually relo-
cate to the North Coast.
His new company, Broth-
ers Wood Finishes, pays hom-
age to his friend Torres. It was
difficult to prove himself to
developers and homeowners
on the North Coast initially,
he said, but he has slowly built
a reputation and an expanded
customer base.
Still in the throes of sum-
mer construction, Robles
now employs 15 to 20 peo-
ple doing painting, siding and
woodwork on the Pacific Rim
Apartments, a two-building,
68-unit complex scheduled to
open this winter.
Robles has been expanding
his reach into home remodels
in hopes of keeping more of
his employees working when
the weather fouls and outside
construction slows.
“I tell my guys to save
money, because winter can be
hard,” he said.
Robles’ journey has not
been without its challenges.
His first wife died in a car crash
several years ago, along with
one of their two daughters. He
and his second wife recently
separated after she did not like
the weather of the North Coast
and moved back to Idaho with
another daughter.
Robles spent 15 months
trying to gain custody of a son
taken from a previous girl-
friend by the state in Idaho and
placed into foster care, he said.
The two now live in Astoria,
regularly visiting his family
in Idaho and the beach, which
reminds him of Manzanillo.
“I feel this place is home,”
he said. “I like the rain, too.”
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fered. All of the candidates said
employers should do more to
develop housing for workers.
As a business owner, Swe-
denborg is directly impacted by
the employee shortage related
to the lack of workforce hous-
ing, and has had to provide
lodging on a small scale for
employees for years, he said.
Benefield said the city
should move forward with the
park model project and incen-
tivize accessory dwelling units.
He also believes regulating
vacation rentals is a way to
begin addressing the housing
shortage. He supports a pro-
posal about to go before the
Planning Commission that
would eliminate the five-year
rental permit that allows some
homeowners nightly rentals.
“Our volunteer base is dis-
appearing. Because of higher
costs, young people are mov-
ing out, and the older folks are
getting tired. The young people
who are here are working two
to three jobs,” Benefield said.
“We’ve displaced our younger
families with tourists. We need
people invested in the commu-
nity, not just their properties.”
Risley believes her real
estate background gives her
key insights into the complex
realities of building costs, zon-
ing and other housing issues,
she said. She joins Benefield
in supporting more accessory
dwelling units in limited areas,
but believes the place to start is
to crack down on unlicensed
properties and make sure lodg-
ing taxes are collected.
“Things have changed in
real estate. People buying these
expensive homes don’t need
any other income,” Risley said.
“I don’t see people opening up
these properties for workforce
housing.”
Establishing
emergency
services at South Wind is
also a priority for the candi-
dates, though each differ on
what development should be
prioritized.
In a place where land is at
a premium, Swedenborg and
Benefield both advocate using
a portion of South Wind prop-
erty for workforce housing.
Risley, however, said her
primary vision for the land is
to relocate the Cannon Beach
Academy, a charter school.
“I think everyone is expect-
ing to see us put a school on
this property,” she said.
As discussions of devel-
opment unfold, the issue of
whether the city should finan-
cially get involved with financ-
ing a school building has split
the City Council. Benefield
believes the city should not
take on the cost of building
any part of a school building,
as he feels the financial burden
is the responsibility of Seaside
School District.
Risley and Swedenborg,
however, would be willing to
direct some city resources into
building a dual-purpose struc-
ture that could be a school as
well as a supplies storage and
evacuation area, seeing it as an
investment in the youth and the
city.
The campaign is compet-
itive but peaceful, with can-
didates describing it so far as
a race between three people
who all love Cannon Beach.
No matter their disagreements,
there’s a certain unspoken rule
to stay friendly in a town of
1,700 people, Benefield said.
“Because no matter what,
you’ll end up running into
them at the coffee shop the next
day,” he said.