»INSIDE
WEEKEND EDITION // SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2021
148TH YEAR, NO. 131
$1.50
CORONAVIRUS
Park
district
hopefuls
appear
at forum
College board races
focus on enrollment
ZONE 2, POSITION 3
Transparency, fi nances
among the issues
Challenges to rebound
from the pandemic
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For The Astorian
SEASIDE — Candidates for the Sunset
Empire Park and Recreation District met
at a forum Thursday night to discuss their
thoughts on transparency, the controversial
purchase of the former Broadway Middle
School building and other pressing issues
facing the board .
The forum, hosted by the Seaside Sig-
nal and the American Association of Uni-
versity Women Seaside Chapter at the Bob
Chisholm Community Center, featured the
park district’s fi ve directors and their fi ve
challengers.
While those vying to unseat the board
have frequently appeared together in cam-
paign materials and echo many of the same
concerns about the park district, they main-
tain that they’re not necessarily running as
a coalition, but as individuals with distinct
ideas and skill sets.
“I would not say there’s one philoso-
phy that we all agree with completely,” said
John Huismann, who is running against
board member Celeste Bodner. “We all
have diff erent things we’re interested in
pursuing.”
Based on Huismann’s comments during
the forum, the main issue for him is the
state of the Sunset Pool, which he claims
has gone downhill since 2016.
“It used to be a crown jewel in this town
and it’s not anymore,” he said. “The stew-
ardship on the part of this board of directors
toward that pool is simply lacking.”
Jackie Evans, who is running against
board member Erika Marshall-Hamer ,
agreed she was displeased with the state of
the pool, adding the board should “always
make sure there is pride in the staff ,
pride of ownership and pride within the
membership.”
For the other three challengers — Pat-
rick Duhachek, Stephen Morrison and Al
Hernandez — a perceived lack of transpar-
ency and fi nancial mismanagement are the
sticking points.
Hernandez, who is running against board
member Su Coddington, claims there are
too often mistakes or omissions in fi nancial
documents, going so far as to suggest board
members are “hiding” something. He also
brought up concerns about the board add-
ing line items during meetings and not fol-
lowing parliamentary procedure.
Robert Duehmig
Trudy Van Dusen Citovic
ZONE 2, POSITION 2
Sara Meyer
Patrick Preston
ZONE 3, POSITION 6
David Zunkel
E
nrollment is at the heart of the May election
for the Clatsop Community College Board of
Education.
The three candidates vying to unseat incum-
bents believe concrete plans and on-the-ground
outreach are needed to rebuild student numbers
and the community’s trust in a world severely
altered by the coronavirus pandemic. All three said
they were asked to run by people in the commu-
nity , including college board member Tim Lyman.
But the incumbents argue that institutional
knowledge and proven experience working with
the college’s president, faculty, staff and programs
are needed more than ever as the college fi g-
ures out what role it will play in a post-pandemic
landscape.
The pandemic hit Oregon’s community colleges
hard. Across the state, two-year institutions saw a
drop in enrollment as colleges pivoted abruptly
to online instruction or fi gured out how to off er
a combination of online and in-person learning.
Meanwhile, many students who lost jobs because
of the pandemic or who struggled to work from
home while also juggling child care and other con-
cerns put their education on hold.
Clatsop Community College lost more than half
of its student population last f all , according to state
data. Across Oregon, community colleges saw
similar declines. Clatsop lost a number of students
because of pandemic-related restrictions and deci-
sions by outside agencies and groups and expects
to see many of these students return.
See College board, Page A6
Suzanne Iverson
Three competitive races for college board
are on the ballot in the May election.
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
See Forum, Page A2
MORE INSIDE
County reports new virus cases • A2
County hits pause on citizen advisory groups
A review of the
comprehensive plan
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Clatsop County c ommission-
ers have agreed to indefi nitely
pause community involvement in
the comprehensive plan update,
prompting questions from volun-
teers who have worked on the proj-
ect over the past two years.
The comprehensive plan is the
long-term vision for the county and
sets planning policies that guide
land use, recreation, transporta-
tion, natural resources and hous-
ing. The plan has not been updated
since it s original adoption in 1979.
The update started in June 2019
with six citizen advisory com-
mittees representing the coun-
ty’s land use planning areas and
a countywide advisory commit-
tee. T he committees have covered
eight of 18 goals, with the expec-
tation of completing the review by
December.
County commissioners have
raised concerns about the slow
pace of the committees’ work and
want to simplify and expedite the
process. There have also been con-
cerns about some of the ideas com-
ing out of the committee meetings.
“I think one of the most crucial
areas and observations that we’ve
Danny Miller/The Astorian
Clatsop County is updating its comprehensive plan.
seen as a staff is what is coming
out of the committees in terms
of how it relates to what is pos-
sible under state statute and what
we believe to be the broad direc-
tion and how they would like the
planning process to proceed mov-
ing forward and what their expec-
tations are for the committee mem-
bers,” Gail Henrikson, the county’s
community development director,
told commissioners during a work
session in April .
“And so we see a lot of aspira-
tional goals that are being put for-
ward by the committees, but also
realizing that a lot of those aspira-
tional goals just will not be able to
be included in the fi nal plan sim-
ply because they’re not permit-
ted by state statute is one of the
big issues that we’ve seen over the
past year as we’ve gone through
this process.”
See Pause, Page A3