June 17, 2016 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 7A
High-schoolers ind ‘roots’ with senior projects
A way for students
to ‘reach higher,’
leave comfort zone
By Lyra Fontaine
Cannon Beach Gazette
For their Paciica projects, Sea-
side High School seniors devoted 50
to 100 hours to a range of activities.
They organized events like Cinco de
Mayo, plays and the school’s cen-
tennial celebration. They tutored,
coached sports, worked with Foster
Club and food banks, spearheaded
emergency preparedness efforts and
more.
Students presented their work to
the community June 1, articulating
how they balanced their time and
found creative solutions to obstacles.
Paciica Projects are “a place for
students to excel, to reach higher,
to get out of their comfort zones,”
Paciica adviser and social studies
instructor Mike Hawes said in his
opening remarks.
Microplastics removal
Dana Ottem, Jesse Trott and
Annuka Brown spent days iltering
sand to remove microplastics —
formed from larger plastic debris in
the ocean breaking down over time
— from local beaches. Mentor Marc
Ward, founder of Sea Turtles Forev-
er/Blue Wave, guided them.
“Marine animals often ingest mi-
croplastics mistaking them as food
and cannot digest them properly,”
Brown said. Toxins from the plastics
are passed down the food chain.
The presentation included a photo
of a sea turtle with plastic stuck in its
nose, and a bird necropsy that con-
tained microplastics.
For their Paciica Project, the
students used a static-charge screen
for plastic iltration patented by Sea
Turtles Forever, which helps con-
serve marine turtles and preserve
their nesting and foraging habitats.
The organization has sent screens to
areas around the world.
Community garden
From their experiences commu-
nity gardening and revitalizing the
school’s garden, seniors Esteban
Becerra, Joanna Ramos, Marilu Peon
and Xitlali Bello hope to convey that
growing your own food can be a fun,
rewarding way to learn about plant
biology, spend time outdoors and en-
joy organic produce.
The students learned about bal-
ancing work and school, beneits of
organic food and taking proper care
of fruits and vegetables they plant-
ed, with help from mentor Dorota
Haber-Lehigh, English language
learning and ethnobotany teacher.
“We learned how to use different
materials to enrich the soil and help
the plants grow better,” Becerra said.
Each student had roots in garden-
ing or farming.
They began working in commu-
The students cleaned the trail,
created 10 trail markers using recy-
cled wood boards, then placed the
trail markers in the ground through
both digging holes and using a me-
chanical auger.
Festival of Trees
LYRA FONTAINE/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
Seniors Paige Ideue, Alexander Barker and Abel Ryon helped Provi-
dence Seaside Hospital with the fundraising event Festival of Trees.
nity gardens like Green Angels Farm
and Sunny Pool Gardens last spring,
helping with weeding, watering,
readying garden plots, planting low-
ers to attract bees, planting and har-
vesting vegetables, composting and
more. The students fondly looked
back on seeing their hard work blos-
som into fruits and vegetables they
could pick, eat and share with others
in the community.
Restoration station
Brittany West, Danté Still and
Jack Whittle worked with North
Coast Land Conservancy, a nonproit
that preserves and manages land and
wildlife, to restore a trail.
They worked with mentor Katie
Voelke, North Coast Land Conser-
vancy executive director, as well as
land steward Eric Owen.
“We wanted to give communi-
ty members and visitors a place to
experience the unique beauty of the
northern Oregon Coast,” West said.
North Coast Land Conservancy
restored Seaside’s Circle Creek and
made the land available for the pub-
lic to enjoy through hiking, ishing
and bird watching. The area is beau-
tiful, the students said, and home to
bird species, elk herds and salmon
running in Necanicum River.
However, the overgrown Legacy
Trail was not clearly marked, leading
to confusion.
“The irst time we went to the
trail, we had a hard time inding it,”
Whittle said.
Seniors Paige Ideue, Alexander
Barker and Abel Ryon volunteered
with Providence Seaside Hospital
to help organize a major event: the
18th annual Festival of Trees gala,
a December fundraising event and
holiday tradition. The gala helped
raise money for surgical equipment
that allows the hospital to perform
more complex surgeries.
With help from their mentor,
Providence Seaside volunteer coor-
dinator Raven Brown, the students
irst advertised the event, attended
the hospital’s board meeting and
called business donating trees and
other auction items.
For the event, they helped create
the popular “Santa’s corner,” dec-
orated cookies and trees, ushered
guests, helped guard each tree and
assisted during the tree auction.
“To create a wonderful winter
wonderland and have the public en-
joy it made us feel accomplished,”
Ryon said. “Our hard work and lex-
ibility paid off.”
The event raised $116,000. Ideue
volunteered additional hours at the
Jason Goodding memorial, handing
out remembrance bracelets and ask-
ing guests to sign a book.
Residents voice objections to afordable housing options
Housing from Page 1A
Potential new
sites, ideas
City staff is considering
the Tolovana Park site of the
now-shuttered children’s center
for a third possible workforce
housing location, Barnes said.
The building became city
property after the children’s
center closed in April. A con-
cept design showed about nine
units with parking.
The 6 acres behind Sea
Ranch Resort could be another
potential affordable housing lo-
cation, task force member Ken
McQuhae said.
Incentivizing
affordable
housing development for
property owners of vacant lots
throughout town is another op-
tion, Barnes said.
Former city planner Rain-
mar Bartl and former mayor
Mike Morgan suggested “park
model homes” — factory-built
homes under 400 square feet
— as an alternative concept for
affordable housing at the city’s
RV Park.
The homes, which include
architectural details, could
meet the needs of individual
or two-person households and
would be affordable for hospi-
tality industry employees, Bartl
said.
“It’s scalable. You can start
with a set number and see how
that works,” Bartl said, adding
that the homes would be about
$90 per square foot and would
“pay for themselves.”
Silvis said park model
homes could be a “potential
tool in the toolbox.”
“City Council is looking for
an array of possible solutions
from the task force,” Barnes
said.
‘When it comes to afordable
housing, nothing is easy. … If you’re
committed to something, you
have to give something else up.’
Former city planner Rainmar Bartl
Community response
Residents responded with
both ideas and opposition to the
concept designs introduced in
May.
Plans for affordable hous-
ing will eat up downtown
parking, and homes should
be placed outside the tsunami
zone, resident Douglas Wood
told the Cannon Beach City
Council Tuesday.
“We would be able to re-
cover as a community more
effectively if we had a group
of homes and residences up
out of the inundation zone on
stable high ground,” Wood
said. “I see an opportunity to
encourage workforce hous-
ing in a less expensive, lower
market-value area ... resulting
in no change in character for
the town.”
A task force meeting
Wednesday did not allow for
public comment, unlike pre-
vious meetings. The group
agreed to permit public com-
ment at the next meeting in
August.
“I don’t want to stile public
comment,” task force member
Brandon Ogilvie said, “but I
hope people understand this
is a work session and we are
tasked with coming up with a
solution.”
“There was lots of lively
public comment over the last
few meetings,” Silvis said.
“All of that is good informa-
tion to gather.”
Resident Ed Johnson said
he objected to the denial of
public comment at the task
force meeting and he dis-
agreed with the affordable
housing concept being in-
troduced “without public in-
put.”
“I think if you’re going to
be on a committee, you have
the obligation to ind out what
the impact might be on those
people who live adjacent to a
new proposed project,” John-
son said. “It seems like, if you
want to build the city, you get
the people on your side before
you start out.”
Johnson did not oppose af-
fordable housing at other sites
that would be “less impact-
ing.”
Resident Phil Massebeau
said he objected to new afford-
able housing units in general.
ing the neighborhood as rea-
sons for opposing the concept.
More housing in the al-
ready populated neighborhood
“would create more stress on
infrastructure, water, sewer
and a high increase of trafic,
not to mention it would destroy
the aesthetics of this neighbor-
hood,” the petition stated.
If units were built on the
RV Park, the city could lose
revenue from the RV spaces.
“When it comes to afford-
able housing, nothing is easy,”
Bartl said during his presen-
tation. “People have to make
hard choices. If you’re com-
mitted to something, you have
to give something else up.”
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“We are property own-
ers. We’ve lived here all our
lives,” he said. “Why do we
have to build affordable hous-
ing? These businesses get
their employees how they get
their employees. It’s not up to
us to build housing for them.”
Johnson presented the task
force with a signed list of al-
most 30 people, collected by
Massebeau, who object to the
RV Park affordable housing
idea. The petition from “peo-
ple of Cannon Beach, Elk
Land Drive, Haskell Lane and
neighboring areas to the RV
Park” cited revenue generated
by the RV Park, tree removal
and an inlux of people chang-
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