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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 2015)
APRIL 10, 2015 • VOL. 39, ISSUE 8 Inside this week… SEAGULL PRIDE SEASIDE HIGH SCHOOL SPRING SPORTS 2015 Baseball Softball Golf Track Fishing Club CERT training SHS broadcasting Published by Seaside Signal & Cannon Beach Gazette Seagull Pride Spring Sports 2015 Two Saddle Mountain rescues: same time, same place, no relation Agencies respond to overlapping emergencies By Erick Bengel Cannon Beach Gazette One of the most bizarre incidents that Captain Matt Gardner, of Cannon Beach Fire and Rescue, has ever seen in his near- ly eight years with the department took place on March 27, the Friday of Spring Break. $W ¿UVW WKH &DQQRQ Beach Fire and Rescue team had no reason to sus- pect that the day would turn into a daylong series of res- cues, he said. But, once their units re- turned early that morning from Crescent Beach Trail after tending to a hiker with a possible femur fracture, the emergency call volume throughout Clatsop County started to pick up. Gardner began to sense how the day would trend. “Sometimes you get a gut feeling,” he said. “You can see that what’s to come could make for a long day.” Gardner’s hunch proved dead on. WWW.CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM COMPLIMENTARY COPY Lawmakers address Cannon Beach Academy, Oregon LNG at town hall forum Senator to give charter school a fl ag fl own over U.S. Capitol By Erick Bengel Cannon Beach Gazette Wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with the Cannon Beach Academy’s logo embla- zoned on it, 8-year-old Jacob Dewey took the microphone and told Senator Jeff Merk- ley (D-Ore.) and U.S. Repre- sentative Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.): “We need a school in Cannon Beach. I want to know how you can help us with that.” The homeschooled son of Kellye and Ryan Dewey, a Can- non Beach couple, addressed the state politicians at the Can- non Beach Community Hall, where Merkley and Bonamici held a joint town hall meeting on the morning of April 3. “This is the part of the job we really enjoy, is getting up here, talking to our constit- XHQWV ¿QGLQJ RXW ZKDW¶V RQ their minds,” the congress- woman said. The discussion of the North Coast’s most pressing social and political issues made for a packed hour, and touched on many familiar lo- cal topics: from the need to NHHS D OLTXH¿HG QDWXUDO JDV project away from Warren- ton, to the importance of fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund; from the desire to restore federal recog- nition to the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes, to the effort to establish a charter school in Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach Academy Jacob Dewey brought the charter school into the spot- OLJKW¿UVWWKLQJ In June 2013, the Sea- side School District closed ERICK BENGEL PHOTO Jacob Dewey, 8, of Cannon Beach, tells his elected offi cials at a town hall meeting that his city needs a school. Behind him are Jenni Tronier, left , and her husband Ryan Hull, president of the Cannon Beach Academy charter school board. Cannon Beach Elementary School and transferred its students to Seaside Heights Elementary School. Since then, a grassroots movement to set up a charter school, the Cannon Beach Academy, has taken shape, with the school’s organizers now aim- ing for a fall 2016 opening. “It is a very weighing time on a community, and it gets worse and worse as you don’t ERICK BENGEL PHOTO have a school in your com- munity,” Ryan Hull, the acad- Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), left , and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) take turns responding to audience emy’s board president, said. questions at the joint town hall forum, held April 3 at the See Forum, Page 11A Cannon Beach Community Hall. Attention all earthlings! Double trouble Shortly after noon, the Hamlet Volunteer Fire De- partment was dispatched to Saddle Mountain, where a middle-aged man appeared to be having a stroke. The Hamlet team required assistance, but LWV ¿UVW OLQH RI EDFNXS LQ the “mutual aid” network, Seaside Fire Department, was busy dealing with two calls of its own. ERICK BENGEL PHOTO At last year’s Earth and Arbor Day parade, held in downtown Cannon Beach, Bob Lundy, center, the 2014 Gaylord Nelson Award recipient, and then-mayor Mike Morgan carry the banner down North Hemlock Street. Th ey are trailed closely by the Haystack Rock Awareness Program. Cannon Beach’s Twelve Days of Earth Day is a one-of-a-kind event By Erick Bengel PAID PERMIT NO. 97 ASTORIA, OR PRSRT STD US POSTAGE See Rescues, Page 8A ERICK BENGEL PHOTO Th e original artwork for the city’s Beach Bill sign currently sits on the desk of the artist, Sally Lackaff , who rendered the images in pencil and watercolor, and, in ink, hand wrote the text written by Matt Love, a writer living in Astoria. By Erick Bengel Cannon Beach Gazette :LWKRXWWKHEHQH¿WRI2U egon’s public beaches, Matt Love, of Astoria, would not have become the writer and person that he is today, he said. “This is the most import- ant thing in my life, is being able to go to the beach for free,” Love said. “It means everything to me.” Cannon Beach Gazette All events are free and open to the public 'XULQJ WKH ¿IWK DQQXDO 7ZHOYH 'D\V RI Earth Day celebration, held this month from April 11 through 22, the citizens of Cannon Beach get to honor their home planet — and especially its coastal environment — from just about every imaginable angle. )ORUD DQG IDXQD VDQG DQG VHD ¿VK DQG fowl, humans and habitats, climate science and conservation advocacy — each is given its moment in the sun (so to speak). Saturday, April 11 Something for everyone And without the Beach Bill of 1967, which granted the public recreational ac- cess to the state’s coastline from the ocean to the vege- tation line, Oregon’s beaches would not be public. Instead, they may have become the private playground of a priv- ileged few. “Oregon is unique in the Encompassing a nature walk and a tree-planting ceremony, a walking parade and a paper shredding party, public lectures and a documentary screening, beach clean-ups and a county-wide birdathon, this year’s Twelve Days schedule is meant to appeal to coolly de- tached observers of Her Majesty Mother Na- ture and to card-carrying tree huggers. “It’s a different approach to make peo- ple aware of environmental issues, and it’s a positive approach,” said Kirsten Massebeau, a member of the Twelve Days of Earth Day Committee. “It’s education, and it’s excite- ment about saving the environment, and it’s a celebration of Earth.” The Twelve Days of Earth Day Commit- tee is an ad hoc committee of the city’s Parks and Community Services Committee. It com- prises all of the parks committee members, plus other involved citizens. See Beaches, Page 12A See Celebration, Page 12A ‘Beach Bill’ sign to be unveiled on Earth Day Twelve Days of Earth Day schedule of events, April 11–22 • Third annual North Oregon Coast Birdathon, a fund- raising event for the Wildlife Center of the North Coast (fi nd lists, instructions and pledge forms on Facebook at North Oregon Coast Birdathon): 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. • Haystack Rock Awareness Program on the beach: 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, April 12 • Birdathon wrap-up (where pictures and stories are shared, and prizes are handed out): 9 a.m. • Haystack Rock Awareness Program on the beach: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, April 13 • Sand screening for microplastics with Marc Ward at Whale Park: 1 to 3 p.m. • Lecture: “Climate Change Adaptation” by Charlie Plybon and Patrick Corcoran at Cannon Beach Com- munity Hall: 6:30 p.m. • Haystack Rock Awareness Program on the Beach: 12:15 to 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, April 14 • Cannon Beach City Council work session: 5:30 p.m. • Haystack Rock Awareness Program on the beach: 1 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 • Sand screening for microplastics with Marc Ward at See Schedule, Page 12A