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.
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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-
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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
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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-
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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