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THURSDAY
SEPT. 9
2021
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149TH YEAR, NO. 31
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
$1.50
Schools
urged to
curtail
activities
Caution could help slow
the spread of coronavirus
By GARY WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Schools should cancel or curtail some
extracurricular activities to help Oregon
maintain what appears to be the beginning
of a decline from
record high numbers
of COVID-19 infec-
MORE
tions, Gov. Kate
INSIDE
Brown said .
County
Multiple
fore-
reports three
casts over the past
new virus
week showed a peak
deaths • A6
in the two-month
surge of infections
driven by the highly
contagious delta variant.
Hospitals remain nearly full and virus
case reports are still 12 times what they
were in early July.
The fragile ebb in the worst of the crisis
will be challenged by the fl ood of students
See Schools, Page A6
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
The co-owners of Sparrow Bakery in Bend, Whitney, left, and Jessica Keatman, are shown with their sons, Brooks and Abel, at
the Scott Street bakery location, which is closing due to a worker shortage.
Workers in short supply
amid year of job growth
Labor shortage,
housing complicate
economic recovery
Gearhart
fi rehouse
bond off
ballot
By SUZANNE ROIG
The Bulletin
B
Complaint by residents
delays vote past November
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
GEARHART — A bond measure to
fi nance a new fi rehouse will not be on the
November ballot because a court hearing
on a complaint challenging the $13 mil-
lion request extended past the election fi l-
ing deadline.
Clatsop County Clerk Tracie Krevanko
said she would pull the bond measure
from the ballot after speaking with the
secretary of state’s offi ce about the timing
of the legal challenge.
In the complaint fi led in Circuit Court
by residents Jack Zimmerman and Harold
Gable in late August, the two asked the
court to suspend the bond measure until
costs for the project are determined.
See Firehouse, Page A6
Quake sensor
could off er up
early warning
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
A new monitoring station could give
Astorians precious extra time to prepare
for an earthquake .
At a meeting Tuesday night, the City
Council approved the installation of a
seismic sensor on city property off Pipe-
line Road near a Verizon cell tower.
See Sensor, Page A6
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Masudur Khan is a Seaside hotelier.
Seaside hotelier navigates
pandemic uncertainty
By ETHAN MYERS
The Astorian
EASIDE — When Masudur
Khan came to the coast and
got involved in the hotel indus-
try, he saw a problem with
how employees were hired and
managed.
Workers were brought on
for the busy tourism season and
then laid off in the winter. There
was often no loyalty in either
direction.
“I found that wasn’t the right
way to do it because we are a
team and family,” Khan said.
As he took over Seaside
Lodging LLC and came to over-
see more than a dozen hotels
along the coast, he made it a pol-
icy not to lay off workers. The
result was low turnover and high
retention rates for more than a
S
decade.
When the coronavirus pan-
demic struck , many in the hospi-
tality industry laid off workers.
Khan said he had to furlough
around half of his employees.
As government restrictions
to contain the virus lifted and
hotels welcomed back more
guests , many have reported a
signifi cant labor shortage, which
has disrupted the recovery .
But Khan has, for the most
part, eluded that issue and
said he was able to hire back
the majority of his furloughed
employees.
“There is a huge demand
and this is a market for the
employee,” he said. “So I had to
sit down with my management
team and say, ‘OK , look at their
See Hotelier, Page A3
‘IT SHOULD BE A PRIORITY FOR
INDUSTRY LEADERS LIKE ORLA
AND EVERYBODY TO BRING THE
WORKFORCE BACK AND MAKE THEM
CONFIDENT IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY.’
Masudur Khan | Seaside hotelier
END — With record job growth
in Oregon, Whitney Keatman
never imagined she would have
problems fi nding workers for her Scott
Street location of Sparrow Bakery.
And she didn’t. It was getting them
to stay that has plagued her longtime
Bend business.
In the past year, Keatman, a
co-owner, made 117 job off ers, and
most were accepted. But after just
three months, only about 42 workers
remained. The bakery needed a mini-
mum of 20 workers at the Scott Street
location, and by the end of this sum-
mer, there were six.
So she made a
hard decision: She
will close the bak-
ery at the Old Iron
Works Arts District.
“We’ve
been
struggling for seven
years with moments
of success,” Keat-
man said. “Over the
years, we’ve had
on-again and off -again good manag-
ers. When you don’t have the right
management, you have a hard time
retaining workers.
“It’s common for people to come
and begin training and then get
another job off er that competes with
wages,” Keatman said. “There’s no
allegiance. It’s a competitive market
for employers.”
During a year of record job growth ,
employers like Keatman have had the
hardest time fi nding workers to fi ll
positions. Across the state, compa-
nies, particularly in the leisure and
hospitality industries, are struggling
to fi nd workers.
The hospitality, hotel, restau-
rant and tourism-related industries
added 6% more jobs this year, econ-
omists say. Hiring is more compet-
itive than ever as employers raise
wages and off er signing bonuses,
referral bonuses, improved bene-
fi ts, even subsidies for housing. But
those incentives also have to com-
pete against federal unemployment
benefi ts, an increase in household
income from federal stimulus funds
and retirements.
See Workers, Page A3