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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 2017)
OCTOBER 20, 2017 • VOL. 41, ISSUE 21 WWW.CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM COMPLIMENTARY COPY Th ree fi nalists are chosen for city manager Candidates come from Arizona, Florida and the Oregon Coast By Brenna Visser Cannon Beach Gazette BRENNA VISSER/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE Cat Wollen kisses her dog Pandemonium at Cannon Beach’s fi rst public dog blessing ceremony Oct. 4. Blessing of the animals Dogs and owners come to Cannon Beach to celebrate Feast of St. Francis By Brenna Visser Cannon Beach Gazette O n a sunny October morning, about 50 dogs and their owners gathered in Sandpiper Square for the fi rst-ever public blessing of the animals ceremony. The congregation at Cannon Beach Communi- ty Church, like many churches around the U.S., have had this celebration for years within chapel walls. The blessing happens every Oct. 4 in honor of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Church members bring in animals for faith lead- ers to bless to commemorate the life of St. Francis, who is the Catholic Church’s patron saint of animals and the environment. But this year, church member Cat Wollen wanted to or- ganize the ceremony in public as a way for the church to reach out to the community through the love of animals. “I named my dog ‘Pandemonium’ because when I got him my life was in pandemonium,” Wollen said. “But he’s the one who helped put me back together.” Wollen shared the idea with Emmas Lindsay, the owner of Dogs Allowed in Cannon Beach, and her pastor, David Robinson, who together arranged the program. People and their dogs sang worship songs, and after the blessing each dog received a St. Francis charm. The Christian faith has always been a part of Wollen’s life, but a period of depression and personal life challenges tested it, she said. Part of how she found her way back to her religion was through the support her dog provided her. To Wollen, there are many entry points into the faith. Wollen wants to be inclusive, and if the way she can do that is through a pet, then so be it, she said. “My faith has always been vital to me, but why I love it is because it is about love and kindness and mercy,” she said. “And honestly, that’s what animals do for you.” Lindsay said she hopes to work with Wollen next year to expand the ceremony to include more people, but was happy to see the reaction of those who did attend. “It’s been a dream of mine to have a public celebration like this,” she said. “I have no doubt it will continue to grow.” The search for Cannon Beach’s new city manager is now down to three fi nalists. The candidates, announced at a spe- cial meeting Tuesday, were chosen by city councilors in executive session last week from a pool of six semifi nalists. They come from as close as Nehalem and as far as Ari- zona and Florida. The process to fi nd a new city manager started four months ago after Brant Kucera left the position for a job in Sisters. Thir- ty-three people applied for the post , 14 from Oregon. “The level of management experience the applicants had was impressive,” Mayor Sam Steidel said. One of the candidates, Bruce St. Denis of Longboat Key, Florida, was also in the running with Kucera to be the city manag- er of Sisters. St. Denis is a manager at the Development Planning & Financing Group, a private development company in Tampa . He previously served as the town manager for Longboat Key for 15 years, and holds a master’s degree in management from the University of South Florida. The other out-of-state fi nalist, Peter M. Jankowski, served as town manager of Cave Creek, Arizona, for three years. He holds a juris doctorate from the Franklin Pierce Law Center and has worked more than 20 years in municipal government as a town manager in Massachusetts and Maine. He also served as a state representative in New Hampshire. Jankowski left Cave Creek because the C ity C ouncil decided not to renew his con- tract for another year, according to a city press release. Kevin Greenwood, the one local candi- date, lives in Nehalem and has 13 years of upper-level local government experience on the Oregon Coast. He holds a master’s de- gree in public administration from Portland State University and has worked as the city manager of Garibaldi and general manager of the Port of Garibaldi for fi ve years each. See Finalists, Page 6A Tackling tourism: Counties seek a balance to preserve resources By Brenna Visser Cannon Beach Gazette COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP PAID PERMIT NO. 97 ASTORIA, OR PRSRT STD US POSTAGE Overcrowding and lack of suffi cient parking are some of the concerns with increased tourism on the North Coast . After the weather, tourism has become one of the biggest conversation starters on the North Coast. As the number of people visiting the region grows, so does the impact on the com- munity. According to a study done by Dean Runyan Asso- ciates, tourists spent $779 mil- lion in 2016, almost doubling the $391 million recorded in 2000. More than 8,000 tour- ism-related jobs were support- ed by travel spending in 2016. But with the economic benefi t comes issues of over- crowding . Trails are taking a beating. counted More than 100,000 visitors were count- ed at Haystack Rock just this year. Insuffi cient parking in places like Cannon Beach has left communities feeling over- whelmed. To help address the con- cerns , the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Haystack Rock Aware- ness Program have secured a $20,000 rural tourism studio grant from Travel Oregon, the state’s largest tourism agency. “Around here, sometimes we have too much of a good thing,” Court Carrier, the chamber’s executive direc- tor, said. “What can we do to manage tourism better?” A rural tourism studio is a multi year project where professionals from Trav- el Oregon lead workshops and offer guidance on how to make tourism sustainable — environmentally and eco- nomically — for Clatsop and Tillamook counties. T he grant must be used to fi nance a tan- gible change or product, like connecting a trail system or launching an environmental education program . A committee of about 30 industry leaders from private businesses, state and national parks, environmental groups and visitors associations met last week in Cannon Beach to fi gure out how to expand tour- ism without sacrifi cing the area’s natural resources and quality of life . See Tourism, Page 6A A historical look at the city’s Chinook and Clatsop tribes How tribes conveyed history By Nancy McCarthy For Cannon Beach Gazette Cannon Beach hasn’t al- ways been a tourist Mecca or even an arts colony. Until the mid-19th century, Cannon Beach, as well as the rest of the North Coast, was home to the Clatsop and Chi- nook tribes. “The Chinook and Clatsop Indians were the fi rst residents of Cannon Beach. They were here probably for thousands of years. For the most part, these proud people are gone,” Robert Moberg, retired Seaside attor- ney and municipal court judge, told those attending the Can- non Beach Library member- ship meeting Oct. 4. The meet- ing also was one of the events planned this year to celebrate the library’s 90th anniversary. Moberg, who is 1/16th Chi- nook, is a descendant of Chi- nook Chief Comcomly. “It’s hard to imagine what Cannon Beach was like 150 years ago,” Moberg said. “In the 1850s, there were very few Caucasian people here; one book indicates there were only four Caucasians in Astoria in 1850.” Native Americans, how- ever, “would have been num- bered in the tens of thousands,” having originally traveled over a land bridge, he added. “Clatsops and Chinooks were probably composed of many nationalities that arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River and the Chinooks, who lived mostly north of the Columbia River, were part of a “vast trad- ing empire,” Moberg said. While the tribes’ oral tra- ditions extend back hundreds of years, their written histo- ry begins with the journals of Merriweather Lewis and Lewis Clark, who explored the local area in 1805. The explorers considered the tribes “quite ad- mirable,” Moberg said. “They described them as ‘mild with good sense, loqua- cious and inquisitive, king traders that held their own with the expedition.” Their major occupation, Moberg added was “trade, not war, although they were pretty good at war.” “Indians in this area had a much greater standard of liv- ing than most of those in most of the United States,” Moberg said. Their longhouses, made Retired Seaside attor- ney and municipal judge Robert Moberg displays a stone pestle and mortar found in the Columbia River basin. Moberg, who is part Chinook, believes the mortar and pestle was used by Indians to grind food. He displayed it during a lecture at the Cannon Beach Library. NANCY MCCARTHY/ FOR CANNON BEACH GAZETTE out of cedar planks, were dug fi ve feet into the ground. Sometimes, more than one family lived in a longhouse.” Slaves were kept, he added, but they often were treated like members of the family, staying in the same longhouse. “They were treated fairly well, except, on occasion, if the master died, they would kill the slave and bury it with the master.” A good slave was worth “as much as a horse or 10 to 12 blankets,” Moberg said. See Tribes, Page 9A