6A • October 6, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
For those wheelchair-bound,
new program offers solution
Program moves along
in Cannon Beach
Cannon Beach Gazette
C
Serving a need
Manzanita, a town south of Cannon
Beach, has had three beach wheelchairs
available for use for more than 10 years.
The outreach was provided by a local
keeping community charac-
ter by limiting expansion,
developing the South Wind
property, affordable housing
and addressing emergency
management and aging in-
frastructure needs.
Once finalists are chosen,
city staff and Jensen Strat-
egies will work on form-
ing community and local
government administrator
panels to evaluate final-
ists. City staff will choose
representatives from the
Cannon Beach Chamber of
Commerce, the hospitality
industry, arts community,
environmental groups and
other locals to offer input,
interim City Manager Jason
Schermerhorn said.
“We want to include
people who have key rela-
tionships with the city from
a variety of perspectives,”
Schermerhorn said. “We
want a variety of different
points of view and interests.
People in this town are so
involved I think it will be
easy to form a panel, and
their voices will be helpful
in finding a good city man-
ager.”
The other panel will be
made up of three other city
managers and one special
district manager, Jensen
said, though who exactly
this will be has yet to be de-
termined.
Those interested in meet-
ing the finalists are invited to
a community forum Nov. 6
at 7 p.m. at city hall. Citizens
will be able to ask questions
and mingle with the finalists,
and whatever discourse hap-
pens in this forum will be
considered when choosing a
candidate.
“It would be interesting
to see how our candidates
interact with the public. I
think that’s important to
see,” City Councilor Nancy
McCarthy said.
Finalists to be
announced at
Oct. 17 meeting
By Brenna Visser
annon Beach will soon join the
small but growing number of
communities on the Oregon Coast
that offer beach accessible wheelchairs.
It’s an idea that has been in the works
for several years. The Cannon Beach
Chamber of Commerce and the Haystack
Rock Awareness Program joined forc-
es to purchase the first beach accessible
wheelchair, which are chairs with 4- to
5-inch-wide tires that ride on top of sand.
The goal is to eventually have two
wheelchairs at Tolovana State Park and
two at the Gower Street beach entrances
available to the public to check out for
free. The city will follow Manzanita and
Seaside as the third on the coast to pro-
vide any type of beach wheelchair, and
the second to provide them for free as a
public service.
Pooka Rice, the outreach coordinator
for the Haystack Rock Awareness Pro-
gram, said the group got involved earlier
this year to help write grants and facili-
tate a program. The group is at the center
of many school field trips and education-
al programs, and Rice said that she want-
ed to make sure anyone who wanted to
participate in these activities could have
access.
“There is a hugely underserved pop-
ulation,” Rice said. “I am a caregiver for
disabled people myself. It is so important
this program exists so kids (with disabili-
ties) can be included.”
Travel Oregon Chairman Ryan Sny-
der, who was part of the initial push two
years ago, said after developing Can-
non Beach’s program that he hopes to
work with Travel Oregon to make beach
wheelchair access a coastwide reality.
“Today is Cannon Beach. But this is a
topic I plan to bring up at the Travel Or-
egon level. Regardless of mobility, you
should be able to experience the Oregon
Coast line.”
List is narrowed
in city’s search
for a manager
By Brenna Visser
Cannon Beach Gazette
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
While many Oregon beaches are not accessible to individuals using wheelchairs,
communities like Seaside and Cannon Beach are making access easier.
ken foot to grandma and grandpa can go
to the beach.”
Court Carrier, the executive director
of the Cannon Beach Chamber of Com-
merce, said the chamber frequently re-
ceives requests for wheelchairs, as well.
“We’re anxiously moving ahead on
this,” he said. “It’s so important.”
Making it happen
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
Cannon Beach will soon join Man-
zanita and Seaside as the only coastal
communities to offer beach accessible
wheelchairs.
business before the owner retired and do-
nated the wheelchairs to the city, which
now operates the service from the Visi-
tors Center.
Dan Haag, the coordinator of the
Visitors Center, said the center receives
numerous calls and emails asking about
beach wheelchairs.
“If we had 100 chairs I don’t think it
would be enough,” Haag said.
The city, he said, plans to look into
investing in one or two more chairs. He
said having a city next door provide sim-
ilar access will be invaluable.
“I’m excited Cannon Beach is on
board. I hope more city entities get at
least one or two, because that makes a
difference in a lot of lives,” Haag said.
“It means everyone from kids with a bro-
Passion for the wheelchair project has
been around for years. Last year, the cham-
ber and others in the community came to
the City Council for support, Carrier said.
The first wheelchair was purchased
with donations from the chamber, Sny-
der and other local contributors. But with
each wheelchair costing about $2,500,
significant fundraising from donations,
grants and corporate sponsors will be
needed to pay for three more chairs and
the installation of the sheds where they
will be stored, Rice said.
The vision is to build code-protected
storage sheds where wheelchair users can
check out beach wheelchairs while safely
storing their own, Rice said. Until mon-
ey is raised for the sheds, however, us-
ers will be able to check out wheelchairs
starting in October from the Cannon
Beach Police Department.
“Our aging population affects a lot of
us. People haven’t been as vocal as we
need to be for those who are mobility im-
paired,” Rice said.
Cannon Beach is one step
closer to finding a new city
manager.
The hiring process began
after former city manager
Brant Kucera left in June
to take another city manag-
er position in Sisters. Since
then, city councilors and
the recruitment firm, Jensen
Strategies, have narrowed
down the search to eight
semi-finalists.
The semi-finalists were
funneled down from a pool
of 29 applications, city attor-
ney Tammy Herdener said.
At this point, not much
can be said about these can-
didates for confidentiality
purposes, other than the fact
candidates applied from all
over the country. City coun-
cilors will be interviewing
each candidate via video
chat next week during two
executive sessions. From
there, the plan is to narrow
the pool to three to five fi-
nalists, whose names will
be publicly announced at
the Oct. 17 special meeting,
Erik Jensen from Jensen
Strategies said.
So far, the process is run-
ning on schedule, but will be
nudging up against the city’s
deadline to hire someone by
the first week of Novem-
ber. The city must select a
preferred candidate by this
time to avoid violating the
city charter, which mandates
an interim city manager can
only serve for four months
until the position is filled.
The new city manager
will be expected to facil-
itate policy priorities like
Arch Cape residents come out in force in opposition to RV plan
RV Park from Page 1A
Waggoner said people
should expect a small RV park
with about 35 spaces. The pre-
liminary plan is to add walk-
ing trails around the site and to
preserve as many of the large
trees as possible to add to the
overall ambiance.
Before almost any detail
can be decided, Waggoner
said a variety of geohazard,
transportation and ecological
studies will need to be con-
ducted to complete a develop-
ment permit.
But some argued it doesn’t
take a study to recognize how
the narrowness of the highway
will impact pedestrian safe-
ty for people who will want
to leave the RV park to visit
Arcadia Beach. Many echoed
concerns how deceleration
and acceleration lanes, which
would likely be required by
the Oregon Department of
Transportation, will not solve
traffic buildup and blind spot
issues from drivers trying to
turn left into the park.
Waggoner said once the
development application is
filed, ODOT would provide
any necessary mitigation re-
quirements for pedestrian
safety. But residents like John
Mersereau is not sure whatev-
er is recommended would be
enough.
“Widening the highway is
not going to help the danger,”
Mersereau said. “I don’t see
how ODOT can make this safe
for pedestrians.”
The environment
Others were concerned
with environmental issues,
such as the fact the project
would be squarely in Arch
Cape’s watershed. Sharon
Stern said residents would be
vulnerable to any septic tank
failures or other waste con-
taminating the groundwater.
Residents like Bob Turk,
who has secondary water
rights to a creek that runs
Carrier to leave Nov. 20
Carrier from Page 1A
In his time as executive
director, Carrier helped estab-
lish a contract with the city
to invest lodging tax revenue
for tourism-related market-
ing support. He also played
a large role in organizing cel-
ebrations for the 50th anni-
versary of the Oregon Beach
Bill.
Ryan Snyder, the Travel
Oregon chairman and CEO
of Martin North, met Carrier
in 1997 when his wife was
in one of Carrier’s hospitali-
ty classes at Mt. Hood Com-
munity College. Through that
personal connection grew
a professional one when he
heard Carrier was chosen for
the director position in 2014.
“I was elated when he
found out he was going to
be executive director, so the
emotional pendulum really
swung when he told me he
was stepping down,” Snyder
said. “He’s a tremendous asset
to the industry, and his knowl-
edge in tourism has been in-
valuable to the small town of
Cannon Beach — more than
people realize.”
City Councilor George
Vetter worked with Carrier
when he served as a chamber
board member, and said that
Carrier’s high energy will be
“hard to replace.”
“Court has been a great as-
set to the chamber and to the
community. It’s through his
energy and leadership that we
are competing with other des-
tinations throughout the coun-
try and the state,” Vetter said.
In Snyder’s view, what ce-
mented Carrier’s legacy was
his ability to get people to
work toward a common mis-
sion.
“We shared a spirit of love
for people and love for shar-
ing experiences,” Snyder said.
“He will truly be missed.”
through both his property and
Smejkal’s, also worry about
what effect numerous campers
could have on the neighbor-
hood.
“I worry people will be
walking through that stream,
dumping things into that
stream,” Turk said. “It’s not
just me. This affects every-
body.”
Arch Cape resident and
environmental advocate Na-
dia Gardner, along with many
others at the fire hall, was also
concerned how the project
would affect the marbled mur-
relet, a seabird that can only
live in increasingly rare, old-
growth coastal forests. The
state Department of Forestry
identified the property as ad-
jacent to a marbled murrelet
management area in 2009.
Waggoner said many of
these drainage and environ-
mental concerns can be ad-
dressed once more engineer-
ing surveys are completed.
Problems with procedure
Questions about whether
the developer has followed
county planning rules were
also raised.
The county issued a cease-
and-desist order in July after
the Department of Forestry re-
ported Smejkal was planning
a logging operation on parcels
without county approval, Ca-
plinger said.
Waggoner and Smejkal ar-
gue they were cutting under-
brush to allow surveyors to
assess the land adequately to
fulfill county requirements.
“All we’re trying to do is
try to look at the property,”
Waggoner said. “We’re not go-
ing in to pillage the land.”
Oregon Coast Alliance
president Mike Manzulli said
between the lack of regard
Dining on the
for the planning process and
questionable applications for
tree removal, there is reason
to question whether the devel-
oper can be trusted to build the
project responsibly.
“Why would we trust you?”
Manzulli said.
Caplinger said part of what
has made the property so com-
plicated is its zoning. In most
cases, private landowners
would not need a permit to
clear underbrush to conduct
land surveys. But because
the land is former park land
and zoned recreational man-
agement, the number of ac-
ceptable uses is minimal and
vague.
“Going from preserva-
tion to development always
raises concerns,” Caplinger
said. “The code is not clear
on brushing on recreational
management land. While it
is feasible, it would be diffi-
cult to fulfill our development
requirements without a full
survey. The question is if you
need to do that much clearing
to conduct these tests. At this
point we don’t know.”
Waggoner and Smejkal still
need to complete a variety of
surveys before submitting a
development permit applica-
tion. After that, a public hear-
ing will be scheduled for com-
munity input.
Waggoner said he was not
surprised by the public reac-
tion, and that they intend to
move forward with the project
as permitting allows. Howev-
er, Smejkal reiterated that he
was open to selling the land,
but had yet to see an offer.
WE’LL SAVE YOU A BUNDLE
AND QUITE A FEW LAYERS.
North Coast
Excellence in family dining found
from a family that has been serving
the North Coast for the past 52 years
Great
Great
Great
Homemade
Breakfast, lunch and
pasta,
Clam
but that’s
dinner
steaks &
Chowder,
not all...
menu,too!
seafood!
Salads!
Seaside • 323 Broadway • 738-7234 (Open 7 Days)
Cannon Beach • 223 S. Hemlock 436-2851 (7am-3pm Daily)
Astoria • 146 W. Bond • 325-3144
TO PLACE YOUR
AD HERE!
25
ONLY $
per
issue
Seaside Office: 503-738-5561
Astoria Office: 503-325-3211
Another way we make
you feel better.
— RECEIVE UP TO —
1,600
$
IN REBATES*
WITH THE PURCHASE OF A QUALIFYING LENNOX ® HOME COMFORT SYSTEM.
Diamond Heating, Inc.
1425 N. Roosevelt Dr., Seaside, OR 97138
503-717-1667
www.DiamondHeating.net
“Professional Performance with Lasting Value”
Offer expires 11/17/2017.
*On a qualifying system purchase. Lennox system rebate offers range from $200 to $1,600. Some restrictions apply.
One offer available per qualifying purchase. See your local Lennox Dealer or www.lennox.com for details.
©2017 Lennox Industries Inc. Lennox Dealers are independently owned and operated businesses.