WEEKEND EDITION // SATurdAy, June 13, 2020
147TH yeAr, nO. 149
$1.50
Photos by Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
The North Coast Land Conservancy received a $2.1 million state grant to preserve land east of Arch Cape.
Land conservancy moves
closer to iconic purchase
A $2.1 million
grant toward a
$10 million goal
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
T
he campaign to preserve an
iconic stretch of forested slopes
and basalt cliffs near Arch Cape
landed key funding Thursday.
The Oregon Watershed Enhance-
ment Board approved a $2.1 mil-
lion grant to the
North Coast Land
Conservancy
MORE
for the Rainfor-
INSIDE
est Reserve proj-
Big money
ect. When added
bought the
to the $6 mil-
forests • A2
lion in grants and
donations
the
land conservancy
has raised, the state grant brings them
within hopping distance of their $10
million goal.
State staff had recommended
approval of the project, saying it rep-
resented an “uncommon opportunity.”
The proposed reserve will encom-
The North Coast Land Conservancy will use the new funding for the $10 million
Rainforest Reserve project.
pass 3,500 acres, turning industrial
timberland into protected land. When
the reserve is added to areas already
encompassed by Oswald West State
Park and the Cape Falcon Marine
Reserve, it will help form an unin-
terrupted conservation corridor that
stretches from the summits of 3,000-
foot peaks to Short Sand Beach and
the sandy seabed and rocky reefs of the
nearshore ocean.
The property is populated with a
unique mix of animals and plants and
also includes the headwater streams
that supply drinking water to Cannon
Beach and Arch Cape. With the sup-
port of the land conservancy, the Arch
Cape Water District is working to pur-
chase an additional 1,500 acres to cre-
ate a community forest and secure full
ownership of the Arch Cape watershed.
For Katie Voelke, the executive
director of the North Coast Land Con-
servancy, Thursday’s grant award is
a meaningful statement by the state
about the value of the Rainforest
Reserve. The land conservancy has
received grants from the board before,
but $2.1 million was a particularly big
ask.
“It expresses the confidence in the
North Coast Land Conservancy, but
more importantly speaks to the scale
and the uniqueness of what this project
means in Oregon,” Voelke said. “Con-
servation like this just doesn’t happen
very often.”
If you stand on the beach at Hay-
stack Rock in Cannon Beach and look
up toward the east, you can see the
hills and mountains that make up the
reserve. It is a familiar backdrop that
can be seen from vantage points in
southwest Washington state, as well as
from Oregon’s Tillamook County.
“The landscape is something that
is loved by hundreds of thousands of
people and many people who love that
landscape don’t even realize that it’s
private timberland,” Voelke said.
“A lot of people would assume a lot
of those mountains are already within
a state park. A place like that we just
tend to assume will be there forever.”
See Purchase, Page A6
Consultant shaped message County vows to count
in county commission races ballots on election night
Timber suit, cap and trade
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Courtney Bangs said she never saw her-
self as a politician.
But when the Knappa preschool teacher
decided to run for the Clatsop County
Board of Commissioners, she wanted to
have a strong campaign that could win. She
accepted help from a Salem-based campaign
consultant, David Kilada, and hired his com-
pany, Intisar Strategies.
In May, Bangs defeated Commissioner
Kathleen Sullivan 62% to 38% in District 4,
which covers eastern Astoria to Westport.
Kilada also helped John Toyooka, the
manager at Lum’s Auto Center, who pre-
vailed over Commissioner Sarah Nebeker
60% to 40% in District 2, which covers Gear-
hart, Clatsop Plains and parts of Warrenton
and Seaside. The consultant is also advis-
ing Tillamook Mayor Suzanne Weber, who
won the Republican primary for House Dis-
trict 32.
“Without David, I don’t think that I would
have had near the amount of experience and
organization to have run such
a streamlined machine,”
Bangs said. “He just had it
down. He knew what needed
to be done and the time frame
that it needed to be done.
And I would have been spin-
ning my wheels, I think a lot,
without him, and would not
have projected such a clear
and concise message.”
Early on, Bangs knew
she wanted to be an advo-
cate for working families and the natural
resource industries that are engines of the
economy on the North Coast.
See Consultant, Page A6
Staff delayed the count in May
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Clatsop County will count most ballots
on election night in November after revising
the reporting timeline in the
May election because of the
coronavirus pandemic.
The county reported elec-
tion results based on bal-
lots turned in on the after-
noon of May 19, but delayed
reporting the next batch of
results until the next day.
The county used employees
to count ballots instead of
volunteers, since many who
volunteer for elections are
elderly and at greater risk from the virus.
The county did not want employees to
work late.
County Manager Don Bohn said 95% of
the ballots were counted on May 19. “So,
again, that was a decision really based upon
COVID and the fact that we were supporting
the process differently,” he told county com-
missioners at a work session Wednesday.
The county also plans to make other
adjustments in the hopes of having a flaw-
less election in November.
New ballots were mailed to nearly 440
voters in precinct 22 — North Clatsop —
about two weeks before the May election
after a mix-up.
The county clerk’s office learned on May
1 that some voters received ballots that did
not include the District 2 race for the county
Board of Commissioners. Commissioner
Sarah Nebeker was running for reelec-
tion against John Toyooka, the manager of
Lum’s Auto Center, in District 2, which cov-
ers Gearhart, Clatsop Plains and portions of
Seaside and Warrenton.
Bohn explained that there are 138 differ-
ent ballot variations for the county and three
different ballot variations for precinct 22. As
updates were made to the boundaries of the
See Ballots, Page A6