MAY 8, 2015 • VOL. 39, ISSUE 10
WWW.CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM
COMPLIMENTARY COPY
Beach Bill interpretive sign dedicated
Signage honors
public beaches,
landmark
legislation
By Erick Bengel
Cannon Beach Gazette
Now, when Oregonians
and out-of-staters play and
plod along the beach near
Second Street, they do so
in the presence of the only
Committee
considers
lodging tax
increase
known interpretive sign
honoring the legislation
that gave the public that
right.
Cannon Beach’s Twelve
Days of Earth Day cele-
bration concluded on Earth
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ceremony dedicating the
city’s “Beach Bill” sign, re-
cently installed just beyond
the west-end railing plat-
form where people can si-
multaneously study the sig-
nage and survey the shore.
In 1967, Governor Tom
McCall signed the Oregon
Beach Bill, which granted
the public recreational access
to the state’s beaches from
the water to the vegetation
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of Governor Oswald West,
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gon’s 363-mile coastline as a
public highway and thus kept
it free from commercial use.
Thanks to those two gov-
ernors, Oregonians became
the proud owner of some of
the most open and accessible
beaches in the United States.
The sign features illus-
trated photographs of Mc-
Call and West, and replicas
of their game-changing doc-
uments, against a tableau
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kites, building sandcas-
ERICK BENGEL PHOTO
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drawn in pencil and water- A windblown Sally Lackaff stands before the newly mount-
color by Sally Lackaff, an ed Beach Bill sign, for which she did the pencil-and-water-
color artwork. Lackaff also did the artwork for the interpre-
Astoria artist.
tive signs along the Cannon Beach Nature Trail, unveiled
See Sign, Page 9A last year.
PUFFIN SPOTTING
Half-percent tax
increase would
fund Info Center
By Erick Bengel
Cannon Beach Gazette
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get meetings looking at
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April 22 and 29, contained
two crucial pieces of advice
from City Manager Brant
Kucera.
The city should increase
the transient lodging tax,
from 6 percent to 6.5 per-
cent, solely to fund the
Visitor Information Center
through the Cannon Beach
Chamber of Commerce, and
should invest in long-over-
due improvements to the
city’s infrastructure.
The proposed FY2015-
16 budget represents a 7.6
percent increase over the
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— a jump from $13,508,389
to $14,539,865.
The increase is mainly
because of the half-percent
tax increase, which is ex-
pected to generate approxi-
mately $139,000 for the in-
formation center, according
to Kucera’s budget mes-
sage. The city is also count-
ing on nearly $400,000 in
grant money to come its
way, and approximately
$3,471,230 will carry over
from this year’s budget.
The city’s spending on
its personnel may increase
by about 12 percent be-
cause two positions — the
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information technology di-
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by employees rather than
be contracted out, Kucera
said.
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scheduled for May 13 at 5:30
p.m., will include a public
comment period. Members
of the business community
in particular are encouraged
to share their thoughts on the
tax increase, Kucera said.
PAID
PERMIT NO. 97
ASTORIA, OR
PRSRT STD
US POSTAGE
See Budget, Page 9A
With his eye to the bird scopes, Cosmo Simmons, 11, scans
Haystack Rock on April 22 for the tuft ed puffi ns that re-
cently returned to begin their four-month nesting season.
Tuft ed puffi ns receive a warm welcome
Story and photos by Erick Bengel
Cannon Beach Gazette
T
he four-month nesting season of
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colony began early last month,
and seven students from Arch Cape’s Fire
Mountain School spent their sunny Earth Day
morning, April 22, welcoming them back after
the birds’ eight-month excursion over the sea.
Melissa Keyser, the Haystack Rock Aware-
ness Program’s education coordinator, led the
students — Genevieve “Gigi” Gardner, 5; Otto
Harter, 9; Ocean Jones, 9; Taylor Kahrs, 6; Sean
Kerwin, 8; Adelia Lippold, 6; and Cosmo Sim-
mons, 11 — through a series of educational ac-
tivities designed to teach them all about the bird
and marine life at the rock.
First came the HRAP bird scopes. One by
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nests tucked into the rock through scopes and
binoculars, priming themselves for the next ac-
tivity: a game of tag meant to teach the students
the perils of nesting season.
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and while one “parent” stayed home at the
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possible.
But there are dangers out on the open ocean,
including bald eagles who try to swoop down
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Th e students and staff of Fire Mountain School take turns
viewing tuft ed puffi ns through bird scopes April 22. Th e
Welcome Back Tuft ed Puffi ns event is hosted annually by
the Haystack Rock Awareness Program.
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have barbs on their tongue, can hold up to 30
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dinator Samantha Ferber said.
The only eagle in sight, though, was a
hand-puppet worn by Fire Mountain teacher
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as they squawked and scrambled back to their
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Before Earth Day, Keyser had visited Fire
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their local anthem, the “Welcome Back Tufted
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Every picture tells a story
Artists celebrate the rites of spring at ‘Unveiling’
in such pigeonholing terms;
he or she may just be trying to
make something beautiful and
When perusing a piece of seeing where it goes.
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Take the work of Spencer
out which famous fore- Reynolds, the oil painter from
runners had the greatest Brookings, Ore., featured at
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which movement best de- Cannon Beach’s 15th annual
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Spring Unveiling Arts Fes-
But, when creating it, the tival, held citywide May 1
artist may not even be thinking through 3.
By Erick Bengel
Cannon Beach Gazette
Genevieve “Gigi” Gardner, 5,
breaks out the binoculars to
see tuft ed puffi ns nesting on
Haystack Rock.
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When the time came for Keyser and the
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back for real, Adelia Lippold’s mother, Sar-
ah Lippold, a Fire Mountain volunteer, ac-
companied them on the tenor recorder.
Finally, it was time for the children to ven-
ture into the rocky intertidal life around the
base of Haystack Rock, where sea snails and
even more elusive sea slugs awaited them.
And, high above them all, the tufted puf-
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able in their lofty — hopefully predator-free
— perch.
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painting of colossal, crashing
waves — whose orange rip-
ples Reynolds meticulously
traced with a pinstripe brush
during a demonstration —
has shades of surrealism
and 1960s-era psychedelic
poster art. It is also reminis-
cent, he noted, of Katsushi-
ka Hokusai’s woodcut “The
Great Wave off Kanagawa.”
But this kind of refer-
ence-based appreciation is
helpful only up to a point.
Reynolds said his style is
pretty hard to nail down; he
likes to joke that the work in
progress, like many of his
other paintings, falls into its
own special category called
“pinstripe impressionism.”
Reynolds, in fact, has a
background in impression-
ism and, after graduating
from the Art Institute of Se-
attle, studied for a couple of
years under Henry Stinson,
the Russian impressionist.
But, though that experience
does inform his work, Reyn-
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touch on several movements
at once.
See Artists, Page 10A