»INSIDE
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inessJournal.co
CoastRiverBus
Volume 16 •
FREE
Chronicling
Published Monthly
ss in the Colum
the Joy of Busine
workers
tinue hunt for
businesses con
North Coast variety of hiring incentives
November 2021
light:
Industry Spot
Inside:
ering
Some are off
esses
Catering busin
Issue 11
bia-Pacifi c Region
Page 8
a
pivot
Pandemic disrupted events
Page 4
to it
Getting back
A return to fi tness classes
Page 6
ABBEY McDONALD
The Warrenton
Fred Meyer has
posted hiring
signs on its doors
and at the gas
station.
Menagerie opens in Astoria
A new local goods shop
Page 14
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2021
149TH YEAR, NO. 60
$1.50
SEASIDE
Frustration
builds over
homeless
campsite
Residents petition the city
to remove RVs and cars
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
SEASIDE — Residents who live near
a homeless camp off Necanicum Drive
came to the City Council last week with
an urgent plea.
“City Council has off ered greater pro-
tection to the homeless individuals than
to the residents, business owners and
homeowners that live here in Seaside,”
said Roxanne Veazey, who presented a
petition from dozens of residents asking
the city to remove the camp.
Veazey voiced concerns about the city
allowing the homeless on beaches, at
restrooms, under bridges, in the woods
and panhandling at markets downtown .
“Most residents thought that the situa-
tion would be resolved,” she said. “But in
six months, all we have accomplished is
meetings for the sake of meetings.”
Veazey and others want the city to
prohibit overnight camping in the lot off
Necanicum.
See Homeless camp, Page A3
Photos by Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Stanley and Rebecca Roberts are in a dispute with the city over a beach house off Hemlock Street.
Appeal reveals clash
in Cannon Beach over
oceanfront development
A proposed beach house has drawn statewide concern
City water
transmission
line repaired
Some residents
still advised to boil water
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
ANNON BEACH — City
Councilor Mike Benefi eld had
just hit a metaphorical wall.
Why, he wondered aloud at a meet-
ing in early November, was the City
Council even looking at an easement
request from Stanley and Rebecca
Roberts?
The couple wanted to use an unde-
veloped public right of way to access
their property. The private drive
they proposed was a far cry from the
access they had previously suggested
— a raised, curving road that looked
C
more like a highway overpass than
a driveway. But the request arrived
as the couple continued to fi ght the
city in front of the Oregon Court of
Appeals over a beach house they
want to build .
The access, city councilors noted, is
for a house that has not met city stan-
dards and that doesn’t yet exist .
The City Council will have to con-
sider access, but many unanswered
and thorny questions about the future
of the project remain. Chief among
them is what the implications will be
for the city’s oceanfront development
rules if the couple prevails .
The Roberts’ property sits where
Hemlock Street, Cannon Beach’s
main north-south corridor , climbs
steeply and takes a few quick, snak-
ing curves. The couple has owned
the 5,394-square-foot lot for two
decades.
Their property is right above the
beach and the view is fantastic. Iconic
Haystack Rock rises to the north. But
the slope off the property and those
curves leading up to it have some con-
cerned about the feasibility and safety
of new development .
The Roberts’ immediate neighbor
to the south is an undeveloped city-
owned lot called Inspiration Point,
purchased in the early 2000s with the
help of the public to preserve green
space along the coastal cliff . To the
north is land and a replica of a historic
cabin once owned by famed former
Gov. Oswald West.
The owners and caretakers
of the property, Haystack Rock LLC,
claim, among other things, that the
Roberts’ proposal would impact the
historical nature of the site and also
diminish the intent of Inspiration
Point.
See Clash, Page A2
Astoria repaired a broken waterline
over the weekend, but several outlying
water districts are still under boil water
notices.
The Willowdale Water District
and the John Day Water District are
waiting on test results, but expect to con-
tinue under boil water notices through
Tuesday afternoon. The Fernhill Water
District and the Olney-Walluski Water
Association could not be reached for
information.
C ity staff on Friday reported a
break at the transmission pipe that
delivers water to Astoria and other water
districts from the Bear Creek watershed .
The break was the result of a minor joint
failure and heavily saturated soil fol-
lowing days of heavy rain and stormy
weather.
People and businesses were asked to
conserve water since it was possible the
break could take several days to repair.
The city had an estimated fi ve days worth
of water stored in reservoirs. Crews
ended up fi xing the problem in 24 hours,
however.
One of the issues in the dispute involves the city’s oceanfront setback standard.
See Waterline, Page A3
Ilwaco woman recalls Cold War stunt
An adventure or an ordeal?
By PATRICK WEBB
Chinook Observer
I
Patrick Webb/Chinook Observer
Sharon Petersen looks over mementos of the two weeks in 1961 she and
her family spent in a bomb shelter to simulate survival after a nuclear war.
LWACO, Wash. — Ask Sharon
Petersen what she was doing 60
years ago, and you’ll get a know-
ing smile. And then the memories
fl ow.
As a young mother of two, she
was taking part in an unusual radio
station stunt that refl ected the tense
history of the era.
November 1961 was a key
moment in the Cold War, which
pitted the world’s two super-
powers, the United States and
the Soviet Union, in standoff s
which could have led to nuclear
annihilation.
Earlier that year, Cuban exiles
backed by the U.S. government
had failed in an armed invasion
of the island in a fi asco which
became known as the Bay of Pigs.
In August, the Soviets had erected
the Berlin Wall, a literal version of
what British leader Winston Chur-
chill had earlier called an I ron C ur-
tain between Eastern European
Communist nations and the free
West.
Against this background of
international tensions, nations
around the globe were consider-
ing whether humans could survive
a nuclear war. That led to the cre-
ation of fallout shelters, marked
with distinctive yellow and black
triangles, that now mostly exist
only in museums.
See Petersen, Page A3