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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2021
IN BRIEF
PREPARATION
Vaccinations against virus
begin for teachers
The Clatsop County COVID Vaccine Task Force
has begun vaccinating school teachers against the
coronavirus.
The task force said 400 teachers from the Astoria,
Jewell, Knappa, Seaside and Warrenton school districts
were vaccinated at two vaccination events on Tuesday
and Thursday.
Child care providers, early learning and private school
personnel are next on the priority list. Vaccinations are
not yet available for seniors or the general public.
As of Friday, 3,071 vaccines have been administered
— 2,593 fi rst doses and 478 second doses.
The task force is seeking volunteers to help in a vari-
ety of tasks, including answering phones at the pub-
lic information call center and helping at vaccination
events.
People can fi ll out a survey on the county’s website to
help the task force notify them when they are eligible to
receive a vaccine, as well as other updates.
Anyone with questions can email covid19vaccine@
clatsopeoc.com.
Seaside balances competing
concerns in school reopening plan
SEASIDE — As the Seaside School District con-
tinues to wrestle with the decision of how and when to
reopen schools to in-person instruction, early learners
are being given top priority.
“Right now, if case counts don’t continue to rise, we
could begin hybrid instruction with some of our elemen-
tary students,” Superintendent Susan Penrod said during
a school board meeting last week.
The goal is to start bringing kindergarten and fi rst
graders back as early as Feb. 15, but the school district is
waiting to evaluate Clatsop County’s case count.
“We have had, as we all know, a lot of change this
year,” Penrod said. “I am very thankful to our leadership
team for their fl exibility and our staff for their fl exibility
as well and to our parents and our students.”
County commissioners
approve strategic plan
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners on
Wednesday unanimously approved a strategic plan.
The county hired the Portland State University Cen-
ter for Public Service in January 2020 to guide the stra-
tegic planning process.
The board chose fi ve focus areas: governance; infra-
structure; economic development; environmental qual-
ity; and social services.
County Manager Don Bohn said the next step will
be for the county to take the 14 actions identifi ed and
develop more detailed work plans for the board and
work them into the budget process.
“And again, it’s a cycle that we’d like to really imple-
ment so that it is very predictable for the board and for
staff,” Bohn said. “So there will be another process next
fall that will then lead to a new series of priorities and
an accounting of the priorities that you just established
and then going through the budget process, performance
benchmarks.”
County commissioners approve
declaration of cooperation on elk
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners on
Wednesday unanimously approved the Clatsop Plains
Elk Collaborative Declaration of Cooperation.
The declaration is the fi rst phase of a project that
began in April 2019 when Gov. Kate Brown designated
the Clatsop Plains Elk Collaborative as an Oregon Solu-
tions Project.
The document supports elk culling in unincorporated
parts of the county.
— The Astorian
ON THE RECORD
Assault
On
the Blaine
Record
• Matthew
Jacobsen, 39, of Astoria, was
arrested Thursday on Floral Street in Astoria for
assault in the fourth degree.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
SATURDAY
Seaside City Council, 9 a.m., goal setting, (electronic
meeting).
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
TUESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, noon, work
session, (electronic meeting).
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board of
Directors, 4 p.m., workshop, (electronic meeting).
Clatsop County Health District, 5 p.m., (electronic meet-
ing).
Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., Astoria Library, 450 10th
St.
Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., cityofseaside.us.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Safe Coast Seafoods, which is replacing Jessie’s in Ilwaco, is preparing to open for the commercial Dungeness crab season.
Warrenton adopts planning code
amendment as a ‘safety valve’
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
WARRENTON — The
City Commission unani-
mously approved a code
amendment Tuesday allow-
ing the city manager and
planning director to appeal
decisions made by the Plan-
ning Commission.
City s taff and city com-
missioners described the
amendment as a “safety
valve” that can be used to
rectify decisions made by
the P lanning C ommission if
they were based on incom-
plete or inaccurate informa-
tion provided by the commu-
nity development director.
The amendment was
drafted in response to two
decisions made by the P lan-
ning C ommission in recent
years while Kevin Cronin
served as community devel-
opment director.
“This covers, in my expe-
rience, a very rare circum-
stance,” Mark Barnes, a
consultant and former city
planner for Cannon Beach,
said during a public hear-
ing on Jan. 12. The city hired
Barnes part time while con-
ducting a search to replace
Cronin, who left in June after
being hired as the city man-
ager of Mount Angel.
The city hired Scott Hess,
a former director of commu-
nity and economic develop-
ment with the Wasatch Front
Regional Council in Salt
Lake City, in October.
“I’ve been doing this for a
long time — almost 40 years
— and I have never seen
a planning director appeal
the decision of the P lanning
C ommission to their gov-
erning body,” Barnes said.
“I understand you had a cir-
cumstance last year before I
arrived that might have war-
ranted this, but that’s a pretty
unusual circumstance.”
Mayor Henry Balensifer
described two recent scenar-
ios when he said the devel-
opment code has not been
applied consistently.
After Wendy’s opened
at the already busy Warren-
ton Highlands retail cen-
ter in April 2019, city lead-
ers began hearing complaints
from residents about traffi c
backups.
The city had agreed with
a traffi c study from Wendy’s
that determined a painted
intersection on Ensign Lane
Paul Mitchell | chairman of the Planning Commission
paid for by the developers
would be suffi cient.
Balensifer said, “pub-
lic works had raised sig-
nifi cant concerns about the
traffi c fl ow, and there was
some concessions made, but
it kind of still moved full
steam ahead. And ... a staff
member who sees a major
issue, should you be able to
say, ‘H ey, this isn’t going to
work. ‘”
Last February, Cronin
admitted the city erred in not
requiring Clatsop County to
build sidewalks along nearly
950 feet of 19th Street from
Ensign Lane to the site of the
new county jail.
The Planning Commis-
sion approved the coun-
ty’s design of the new jail
in January 2020 with a mul-
tiuse path covered in refl ec-
tive green paint to delineate
it from the roadway.
Planning Commissioner
Christine Bridgens, who
was the only commissioner
to vote against the applica-
tion, found the city’s side-
walk requirement after the
meeting and wanted to redo
the vote.
She had attempted to
appeal the decision, but was
not allowed because she had
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‘WE FELT LIKE WE HAVE BEEN
SORT OF NOT GIVEN ALL THE
INFORMATION AT ALL TIMES.’
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th
voted on the issue. Only the
applicant or someone who
gave testimony could appeal
the decision.
“So in this case, if there
was an issue that needed to
be brought up or a question
of law that had been brought
up, it could be then remanded
up through the process to the
commission to make another
decision,” Balensifer said.
“In my mind, that’s a check
and balance that history in
Warrenton proves to me is
needed.”
The Planning Commis-
sion unanimously recom-
mended the C ity C ommission
not adopt the amendment.
“We come from a place,
I think, over the last couple
of years where we as a com-
mission have felt very much
like we’ve had ... an ongoing
relationship with our former
planning director that lacked
a certain amount of trust,”
Paul Mitchell, the chairman
of the P lanning C ommis-
sion, said. “With that, we felt
like we have been sort of not
given all the information at
all times.
“So sometimes when we
make a decision, it is not all
the information that I think
that we were supposed to
be given the fi rst time, or
it’s been forgotten. I under-
stand now that’s a great rea-
son why you would proba-
bly want to have the ability
to correct some of the things
we did.
“I want you to know, we
feel very confi dent with the
interim we had and now our
new planning director. I feel
like we’re on a good path
moving forward.”
However, Mitchell said,
if the C ity C ommission does
not trust the P lanning C om-
mission’s decisions based on
the information it is getting
from staff, “and you want to
make changes, why have a
P lanning C ommission?”
He said he hopes to
increase communication and
understanding between the
C ity Commission and P lan-
ning C ommission through a
joint session.
City Manager Linda Eng-
bretson assured the P lanning
C ommission that the rule
change is not a power grab.
“But, you know, staff
isn’t perfect,” she said. “And
occasionally, maybe there’s
a fatal fl aw that’s found, and
this particular situation there
was no remedy to fi x that.
“I can’t imagine having
to, nor do I want to on a reg-
ular basis overrule the deci-
sion-making. But this is
an opportunity, if there is a
fatal fl aw or something that
has been overlooked, that is
a pretty major issue that we
have an opportunity to bring
it forward.”
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