A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2020
IN BRIEF
COEXIST
Seaside woman dies after being
hit by vehicle on Highway 101
A Seaside woman died Thursday night after
being struck by a vehicle on U.S. Highway 101 near
Gearhart.
Police say the driver of a Chevrolet coupe was
traveling northbound when he saw a pedestrian cross
into his path and was unable to avoid her.
Emergency crews arrived at about 9:30 p.m. and
Rachel Faith McCune, 35, was pronounced dead at
the scene.
The highway was closed to one lane for about
three hours after the crash.
Coast Guard rescues
two teens near Fort Stevens
Two teenage girls were rescued Wednesday near
Fort Stevens State Park in Hammond after getting
caught in a rising tide.
Emergency crews were called at around 5 p.m. to
a report that a 14 year old and an 18 year old were
stranded on rocks in a lagoon.
They were reportedly unable to paddle their inner-
tubes back to their starting point and the rising tide
prevented them from walking back to the park.
Crews were unable to reach the rocky area by boat
due to the shallow water.
A U.S. Coast Guard aircrew ultimately hoisted the
teenagers out of the water. No injuries were reported.
The Coast Guard said the rescue was a reminder to
always check the weather, including tide tables, and
wear a life jacket.
— The Astorian
Pacifi c County adopts
vacation rental regulations
SOUTH BEND, Wash. — The Pacifi c County
Board of Commissioners voted Thursday to adopt
new regulations for short-term vacation rentals,
while also voting to lift most elements of a morato-
rium in place since February on new vacation rental
applications.
The board unanimously voted to adopt amend-
ments that cover an array of issues, the most notable
of which aims to prevent clusters of vacation rentals
in residentially zoned neighborhoods.
The board also unanimously voted to lift the mora-
torium on new vacation rental applications in R-2 and
R-R zoning districts, while keeping intact the mora-
torium on R-1 zones for the time being.
The votes were held following a virtual public
hearing that lasted about an hour, which included
comments from more than a dozen people on all sides
of the issue.
The biggest issue for those opposed to the addi-
tional regulations is the density rule, which requires
new short-term rentals to have a radius of at least
300 feet — from all property lines — from any other
short-term rental property in R-2 and R-R zoning
districts.
They also asked the county to conduct a study on
how the new regulations would impact the county’s
economy.
— Chinook Observer
DEATHS
July 28, 2020
In SPATH,
Brief
Antone Ernest,
58, of Warrenton, died in
Warrenton. Ocean View
Deaths
Funeral & Cremation Ser-
vice of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
July 27, 2020
SMITH, Kevin Kelly,
65, of Astoria, died in
Seaside.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Criminal trespass
• Roy Hall, 44, was arrested Wednesday at Ninth
and Astor streets in Astoria for criminal trespass in the
second degree.
On the Record
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
TUESDAY
Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob
Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A.
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, noon, work
session, (electronic meeting).
Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., Seaside Public Library,
1131 Broadway.
Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., 450 10th St., (electronic
meeting).
Miles Crossing Sanitary Sewer District Board, 6 p.m.,
34583 U.S. Highway 101 Business.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
A jeep barrels through the surf near Seaview last weekend.
Sewage spill disclosed in Cannon Beach
Overfl ow estimated
at 26,000 gallons
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
CANNON BEACH —
Dump trucks carried 28
loads of sand off of Can-
non Beach in late July after
a sewage overfl ow.
The city said it was noti-
fi ed of a wastewater pump
station failure on the morn-
ing of July 24 that led to
more than 26,000 gallons
of sewage spilling onto the
beach at the end of Nelchena
Street.
While the city worked to
correct the problem, it was
unclear there was a sewage
overfl ow until the afternoon.
A report by Karen La
Bonte, the city’s public works
director, said she received a
phone call from a resident at
around 4 p.m. informing her
that he noticed water coming
from the southernmost out-
fall during his walk on the
beach that morning. When
public works staff went back
out to inspect the area, they
found specks of toilet paper .
The city notifi ed the state
Department of Environmen-
tal Quality and Oregon State
Parks .
Barricades and caution
tape were placed around
the area, along with sand-
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
A sewage spill was discovered in Cannon Beach on July 24.
wich boards with warning
signs. Signs on the beach
will remain for several more
weeks.
The city’s excavation con-
tractor brought four dump
trucks and removed 28 loads
of sand from the beach. The
sand was taken to an area
east of U.S. Highway 101 .
The city said the spill did
not reach the ocean and that
the clean up was completed
before high tide.
Notifi cations
regard-
ing the incident were sent
the evening of July 24 to
the City Council, city attor-
ney, nearby hotels , the Ecola
Creek Watershed Council
and Surfrider Foundation
and committees that partner
with the city on environmen-
tal projects.
La Bonte’s report said
the city’s electrical contrac-
tor concluded that the valves
on two of the wastewater
pump stations were adjusted
incorrectly. The incorrect
valves caused the pressure to
increase, which damaged the
pump stations. Other mal-
functions were also exposed
by the incident.
“We will be reviewing
our training procedures for
new employees starting to
do routine maintenance in
our pump stations, in addi-
tion to adding signage that
make certain procedures
more clear,” La Bonte said in
the report.
Public works will also
re examine routine mainte-
nance intervals.
In her report, La Bonte
said another contributing
factor was that the waste-
water department has been
short-staffed for some time.
“Team members from
other departments and agen-
cies have stepped up to assist
the wastewater team when-
ever possible,” she said.
“This has resulted in a level
of inconsistencies in who
was performing various
operations.”
She said there also needs
to be improvements to the
utility systems, but funding
will require adjustments to
utility rates.
The incident is expected
to be discussed Tuesday at a
City Council meeting.
County, Warrenton partner to dissolve water district
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
Clatsop County and War-
renton will work together
on how to dissolve the Ski-
panon Water Control District
and disperse two remaining
fl ood control structures .
The water district, whose
board decided last year to
request dissolution from
the county, oversees a fl ood
control structure at Cullaby
Lake that would go to the
county. The district’s Eighth
Street Dam in Warrenton
would go to the city.
County Manager Don
Bohn organized a joint
meeting between the two
governments Friday to fi nd
a collaborative way to dis-
solve the district and dis-
pense assets.
Warrenton city commis-
sioners were wary of taking
on the Eighth Street Dam,
which Mayor Henry Balen-
sifer equated to “a piece of
ground right now in terms
of its operational use and
maintenance.”
The water district and
the city once had a partner-
ship with Columbia River
Estuary Study Taskforce to
replace the aging dam with
a single-lane, $1.2 million
bridge funded by the Bonne-
ville Power Administration
as part of a fi sh habitat reha-
bilitation project.
But some at the city and
in the community ques-
tioned the water district’s
argument that the dam was
no longer useful for fl ood
control. The city, which at
one point declared an emer-
gency over the issue, also
spent more than $110,000
on an attorney in a failed bid
to claim ownership of the
dam.
Warrenton is still await-
ing the fi nal results of a
hydrological study from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers related to the dam’s
effectiveness. The city
would like those results
before taking on the dam,
Balensifer said.
“I would hate to just take
ownership of something that
frankly we don’t have a clear
picture of,” he said. “It just
feels like it’s being dumped,
so to speak.”
Collin Stelzig, the city’s
public works director, said it
appears from the study so far
that the dam is a useful water
control structure during peri-
ods of low to exceptionally
high tides, but less so during
100-year fl ood events. The
water district, expecting the
dam would be removed as
a hazard, kept the tide gates
up since 2012 and took them
off in 2015.
The dam has become
more important with pro-
posed development nearby ,
such as Jason Palmberg’s
Chinook Village RV Park.
The family of Mark Kujala,
a county commissioner and
former Warrenton mayor ,
also
owns
signifi cant
amounts of land nearby and
has contemplated residential
development.
Balensifer,
Commis-
sioner Mark Baldwin and
Commissioner Pam Ack-
ley agreed that having the
county organize an elec-
tion of affected voters on
whether to dissolve the
water district would be the
best way forward.
“I don’t think it would
make November, so it would
happen sometime next
year,” Bohn said of an elec-
tion. “And then that would, I
guess, give us a little time to
fi gure out some of the other
details.”
Election season underway in South County
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
SEASIDE — Elec-
tion season is underway in
South County, with
three open seats on
the Seaside City
Council and two in
Gearhart.
Gearhart Mayor
Matt Brown’s term
will also come up for
reelection in November.
Aug. 25 is the deadline
for candidates to declare
they are running .
Candidates submit their
signature sheets to the city
and they return them to the
board of elections to verify.
“Once they are veri-
fi ed we notify the
city and they will
then submit an offi -
cial candidate list
to us by Sept. 3,”
County Clerk Tra-
cie Krevanko said.
No candidates have yet
to fi le.
In Seaside, the City
Council terms of Randy
Frank, Seth Morrisey and
Tom Horning will expire.
Frank, who serves as
councilor-at-large
for
wards 1 and 2, joined the
council in 2012 and was
unopposed for reelection in
2016.
Morrisey was appointed
in 2015 to complete the
term of Stubby Lyons.
Tom Horning, a geol-
ogist who has called for
greater disaster prepara-
tion, was elected in 2016.
In Gearhart, Brown is up
for reelection as mayor and
the City Council seats of
Dan Jesse and Reita Fack-
erell are in play. Brown won
election in 2016 and domi-
nated the mayor’s race with
a platform of a “sustain-
able, residential Gearhart.”
Fackerell was appointed
in December 2018 after the
departure of Sue Lorain.
Jesse would be making
his third City Council bid
in Gearhart, defeating his
opponent in 2012 and run-
ning unopposed in 2016.
He served on the Planning
Commission before elec-
tion to City Council.