October 7, 2016 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 5A
It’s time to build a tsunami-safe campus
GUEST COLUMN
BONNIE HENDERSON
buildings all over Oregon — on the coast
in particular — including aging schools
throughout the state. Minutes later,
what’s left of the houses and schools in
towns like Seaside and Gearhart will be
washed away by a tsunami equivalent to
the one that killed thousands of people in
Japan in 2011.
We don’t know if the next such quake
will strike the Oregon coast in the next
few years or in a few hundred years. But
geologists tell us there is a high likeli-
hood of it happening within the next 50
years. We know we are in the window. It
is time to get ready.
The Seaside School District is one
of the last two districts on the Oregon
Coast with schools still in the tsunami
inundation zone. Lincoln City has moved
all its schools to high ground. Waldport
has relocated its high school from the
mouth of the river to a nearby ridgetop.
Neahkahnie High School is in the tsuna-
mi zone, but unlike Seaside High School,
Neahkahnie High School has a solid rock
hillside right outside the building where
students can evacuate.
The challenges for the Seaside School
District are unique. No other school
district in Oregon — in fact, in the entire
country — has three schools located in
the tsunami inundation zone. Relocating
the schools here is an expensive proposi-
tion — and there’s no getting around it.
The need to relocate the schools in
the Seaside School District cannot be
disputed. It has to happen, and the sooner
the better. The sticking point, naturally,
is the cost, which is not insigniicant.
To be clear, I do not own property in the
Seaside School District; I will not be
affected by a property tax increase. But I
want to point out some important facts to
those who do.
Moving the schools is not the only
pressing need. Seaside, in particular,
must start rebuilding some of its bridges
to ensure that citizens leeing the tsunami
will be able to reach high ground. But
these are not competing priorities. They
both need to be done. Right now, the
proposal on the table is to relocate the
schools. I urge you to vote yes on Reso-
lution 4-185.
Bonnie Henderson is the author of
“The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless
Coast.”
LETTERS
Letters from Page 4A
cannabis years ago. I did too.
It is part of our history.
I’ve used cannabis for 46
years and I’m now 64. They
claim that there is no knowl-
edge of the long term effects.
That is just wrong. There are
millions of folks in this coun-
try just like me. Did it hold me
back? Well, I earned a college
degree and a graduate degree.
I’ve managed to support myself
and have a productive and hap-
py life too. Our federal govern-
ment has lied to all of us about
cannabis. It started with that old
movie “Reefer Madness” and
continues to this day. It is not
a schedule one narcotic, even
though our federal government
still classiies it that way.
Some seem to feel that a
cannabis store, if it is allowed,
should be restricted to less de-
sirable areas of Cannon Beach.
I will agree with that when we
subject alcohol to the same
strictures. Can you imagine
banning the sale and / or con-
sumption of alcoholic beverag-
es from our prime retail areas? I
didn’t think so.
It makes no difference
where in town a cannabis store
is located. By state law, no
consumption of the product is
allowed at the store. (We don’t
drink at state liquor stores ei-
ther, do we?) Why not let who-
ever opens the store decide
where to locate? It is just going
to be a storefront like the many
that we already have.
Folks, cannabis is here to
stay. We cannot afford to sim-
ply put our heads into the sand
that surrounds us. We need to be
smart and control it in a positive
way. Let’s not create unneed-
ed regulation. Our capitalistic
system will root out the weaker
players. It always has.
I had guests this summer like
most of you did. Guess what
they wanted? They wanted to
be able to see a cannabis store,
of course. They spent their allot-
ted shopping time and dollars in
Seaside. No shopping or dollars
spent here. Is this what all of you
local merchants want? I didn’t
think so. We are right now driv-
ing many of your potential cus-
tomers away.
The other thing that all of
you cannabis haters are ignor-
ing is the opportunity to tax the
sale of cannabis. We can add a
reasonable tax without killing
all sales. Why not use it to fund
something that we desperately
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need, but no one wants to pay
for. Something like affordable
housing perhaps?
The real truth that many of
you continue to deny, is that
many of your neighbors and
friends have used cannabis for
years. Remember prohibition?
Your elders found ways to drink.
It has been the same for us. Can-
nabis prohibition has worked
just as well. It has also created
the same criminal class that al-
cohol prohibition did. Isn’t it
smarter to tax and control that
what you cannot stop? We as a
nation once came to that con-
clusion regarding alcohol. More
recently we as a State made that
decision about cannabis.
If you oppose cannabis, I’m
sorry, but you lost. The majori-
ty of us see the value in making
it legal. Please don’t be sore
losers like those who opposed
alcohol. It is here to stay just
as alcohol is. There is no going
back from here.
Now you can be obstruc-
tionist and try to stop what will
eventually happen anyhow, or
you can embrace the change
that has happened and be a pos-
itive inluence on cannabis in
Cannon Beach.
Let’s keep our guests and
tax dollars in Cannon Beach.
Vote to make sure that cannabis
can be sold in our town.
John C. Huismann
Cannon Beach
Great performance
Recently we attended open-
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unexpected twists and turns,
and all of the actors and ac-
tresses provided great per-
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time attending the Coaster
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ter and entertainment. We were
also delighted with a delicious
dinner at the Castaways before
attending the performance.
Steve and Donna Oberg
Seaside
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A
nyone considering voting no on
Resolution 4-185 — to build a
new earthquake- and tsunami-safe
school campus serving the children of
Cannon Beach, Seaside and Gearhart —
must not have seen the photo I saw, in
the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and
tsunami in Japan, of a drift line of colorful
children’s backpacks in Hello Kitty
and Superman themes, sparkling with
seawater. They were left on the hillside in
a curving line after the tsunami that killed
those children receded. At Ookawa Ele-
mentary School, the children had drilled
many times about what to do in an earth-
quake, but when 10 of the school’s 13
teachers were killed in the quake, it’s no
wonder the kids didn’t have the leadership
to make it to high enough ground before
the tsunami that killed them struck.
We now know that it’s only a matter
of time before a quake and tsunami of
similar magnitude strikes the Oregon
Coast. The geological evidence, irst
discovered only 30 years ago and a sur-
prise to all of us, is now very clear. This
will not be a tsunami of the size some
coastal residents remember from 1964,
caused by a quake more than 1,000 miles
away in Alaska. This will be a tsunami
generated by an earthquake along a fault
line just off the Oregon. It will latten
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