April 6, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 3A
Johnson, Boone hold Seaside town hall
Climate change,
emergency
preparedness,
tax reform
addressed
By Brenna Visser
Cannon Beach Gazette
SEASIDE — Climate
change, emergency prepared-
ness and other topics were on
the minds of residents who
came to City Hall on Satur-
day, March 31, to ask state
Sen. Betsy Johnson and Rep.
Deborah Boone questions.
With retirement on the
horizon for Boone, some
quizzed her about the future
of emergency preparedness,
her legacy issue.
One of those constituents
was Tiffiny Mitchell, a candi-
date running for state House
District 32 — Boone’s soon-
to-be former seat.
“I come from Utah, where
we have similar issues living
on a fault line,” Mitchell said.
“Then I moved here and I felt
I was moving from one com-
munity with emergency plan-
ning issues to another facing
the same issues. What do you
think needs to still happen to
make sure this area is pre-
pared?”
Boone, D-Cannon Beach,
mostly reflected on progress
the state has made, includ-
ing legislation that created
the Oregon Resilience Plan
following the 2011 Japanese
tsunami, as well as a bill that
allows retired medical profes-
sionals to practice in Medical
Reserve Corps like the ones in
Cannon Beach and Manzani-
ta.
Most of the success Boone
said she has seen has been on
a local level with neighbor-
hood mapping efforts and pre-
paredness groups.
“They’ve taken the wand
in the relay here and are put-
ting these ideas into place,”
Boone said.
Johnson,
D-Scappoose,
emphasized a need for clear
messaging when it comes to
responding to a disaster, after
a tsunami watch issued for
the Oregon Coast in January
caused local confusion.
In a separate interview,
Boone said she sees the fu-
ture of emergency planning
in promoting relocation proj-
ects like the Seaside School
District is embarking upon, as
well as supporting more du-
al-purpose, resiliency-based
development.
BRENNA VISSER/EO MEDIA GROUP
State Rep. Deborah Boone and state Sen. Betsy Johnson talk at a town hall at Seaside City Hall.
While there is more to be
done, Boone said she feels
confident in the progress she
has seen since taking office in
2004.
“I’m comfortable leaving
now. (Emergency planning)
has taken on a life of its own,”
Boone said. “I’m sure every-
one in this room knows some-
one connected to the resilien-
cy world.”
What the state is doing to
address climate change was
also on the audience’s mind
at the town hall, including
Oregon’s cap-and-trade bill,
which failed to move forward
in the last session.
The proposal was modeled
on programs in California,
as well as Ontario and Que-
bec, Canada, that set a cap
on greenhouse-gas emissions
and force large polluters to
buy allowances if their emis-
sions exceed the cap.
Clatsop County Com-
missioner Lianne Thompson
asked Johnson what it would
take to balance making a
cleaner environment with the
interests of the timber indus-
try, which could be adversely
affected.
Progress passing cap-and-
trade in Oregon is stop-and-
go due to larger unanswered
questions about how a law
would be implemented after
an audit of the state Depart-
ment of Environmental Quali-
ty showed there is inadequate
staffing to carry out a pro-
gram, Johnson said.
How money would be ap-
propriated and to what types
of projects also needs to be
refined, Johnson said, but she
still believes it will be the “sig-
nature bill of the next session.”
“We don’t want to acci-
dentally do damage like rais-
ing gasoline prices, or put an
older mill like Wauna Mill,
which employs hundreds of
people and invests heavily
to reduce pollution footprint,
that it’s not regulated out of
business,” she said.
Other topics included tax
reform, options for an over-
crowded Clatsop County Jail,
and issues with the Oregon
Department of Transportation
having enough staff to carry
out projects listed in the $5.3
billion transportation package
passed last year.
Candidates talk job creation,
county housing shortage
Eight candidates
vying for three
seats
By Jack Heffernan
EDWARD STRATTON/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Tiffiny Mitchell, center, stands with supporters during a
kickoff to her state House campaign at Buoy Beer Co.
Local activist, advocate
begins state House run
Mitchell
running for
Boone’s seat
By Edward Stratton
The Daily Astorian
When Melissa Ousley
dropped out of the state
House race to replace re-
tiring state Rep. Deborah
Boone, Tiffiny Mitchell
said she felt like there was
no longer a candidate quite
representing her views.
So Mitchell became the
third to file in the Democrat-
ic primary in May for state
House District 32, along
with Tillamook County
Commissioner Tim Josi and
local attorney John Orr. She
kicked her campaign off
Monday amid a packed tap-
room at Buoy Beer Co.
“When she dropped out
of the race, I felt this void
that really needed to be rep-
resented,” Mitchell said of
Ousley. “I listened to the
other two candidates, and
it’s not that they’re not good
people. They just didn’t rep-
resent my values or the val-
ues of so many other people
that I had talked to that had
also expressed that same
regret that Melissa dropped
out.”
Mitchell is a case man-
agement coordinator for the
state Department of Human
Services who moved to Ore-
gon from Utah in 2015 with
her husband, who works
for Pacific Power. She is an
organizer with progressive
activist group Indivisible
North Coast Oregon and
has focused her campaign
on broader social policies
such as affordable housing,
health care, reproductive
health, stable education
funding and equal pay. She
has received endorsements
from a variety of labor, ed-
ucation, women’s and con-
servation groups.
“I believe that my vote
will always fall on the side
of the working-class person,
because that’s who I am,”
she said. “I have believed
for a long time that we all
deserve fairness in the way
that we’re treated. We all
deserve health care. We all
deserve the things that are
supposed to make our na-
tion great.”
When she withdrew,
Ousley said she was con-
cerned about splitting the
vote among three Demo-
cratic candidates and that
her base was not strong
enough to prevail. Both
Mitchell and Orr, running
more grassroots campaigns,
face an uphill battle against
Josi. The former state repre-
sentative has broader name
recognition and more polit-
ical contributions, including
from a multitude of large
companies, Boone, D-Can-
non Beach, and state Sen.
Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose.
Seaside teacher Vineeta
Lower has filed as a Repub-
lican, and Brian Halvorsen
as an Independent.
Patient-Centered
Primary Care
on the North Oregon Coast
230 Rowe Street
Wheeler, Oregon
1-800-368-5182
WHEELER, OR
www.rinehartclinic.org
Nonprofit 501(c)(3) Federally Qualified Health Center
EO Media Group
At a forum that covered
a range of Clatsop County
issues, a few seemed to be
a priority for candidates and
spectators alike: job creation,
emergency preparedness, a
November jail bond, housing
and the environment.
Eight candidates for three
seats on the county Board of
Commissioners in the May
election gathered Tuesday
night for a forum at Astoria
High School sponsored by
the American Association of
University Women and The
Daily Astorian.
Commissioner
Lianne
Thompson is facing chal-
lenger Susana Gladwin — a
Jewell farmer — in the race
for the District 5 seat, which
encompasses Cannon Beach
and much of the South Coun-
ty. Both discussed housing,
economic development and
emergency preparedness —
three topics Thompson has
often highlighted at commis-
sion meetings, as well. The
most specific proposals from
each candidate came in a dis-
cussion about preparedness
for a Cascadia Subduction
Zone earthquake and tsuna-
mi.
Thompson said it is crit-
ical to train residents in di-
saster preparation, build up
supplies and establish rela-
tionships with other at-risk
counties. She mentioned her
attendance at statewide con-
ferences, which has drawn
criticism from other com-
missioners due to her travel
expenses, as useful in this
context.
“We have friends all over
the state to help us,” Thomp-
son said.
Gladwin said she was
isolated for four days on her
Jewell farm in 1996 due to
flooding on the Nehalem Riv-
er. She said Seaside needs bi-
cycle evacuation drills, bridg-
es and more truck routes out
of cities.
“We plan constantly about
how as a community we will
survive because we know
we’ll be isolated after a bad
earthquake and the bridges
are down,” she said.
Both
Thompson and
Gladwin largely avoided ad-
dressing a question about the
upcoming bond measure that
would relocate and expand
the county jail at a cost of
more than $20 million. Most
of the other candidates sup-
ported the need for a new jail
with the exception of McCa-
rtin, who questioned whether
such an expense is justified.
Candidates to replace
Commissioner Lisa Clement
in District 3 are Peter Ros-
coe — a former restaurateur
and Astoria city councilor —
Doug Thompson — a proper-
ty manager and also a former
Astoria city councilor — and
Pamela Wev — an Astoria
land use planning consultant.
In District 1, Mark Ku-
jala — owner of Skipanon
Brand Seafood and a former
Warrenton mayor — George
McCartin — a retired attor-
ney and regular presence at
public meetings — and Andy
Davis — a medical data ana-
lyst — are vying for the seat
being vacated by Scott Lee,
the board’s chairman. While
each candidate listed some
specific points of interest,
they all agreed on one area in
need of change: the commis-
sion’s functionality.
Clatsop Democrats elect
Larry Taylor as chairman
ber.
The
Clatsop
Taylor is retired
County Democratic
and served as coun-
Central Committee
ty chair from 2006-
elected Larry Taylor
2016. He is active
to lead the party as
with the progres-
chairperson, follow-
sive movement in
ing the resignation of
Oregon, having led
Doug Thompson. The
vote came during the Larry Taylor the fight against the
LNG facility within
March 26 meeting of
the state Democratic
the committee. Taylor
will fill Thompson’s unex- Party. He is also president of
pired term until the party’s the broadcast nonprofit Up-
regular elections in Novem- hill Media.
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