4A • April 6, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
Mayor Matty Brown steps
up to the tee in Manzanita
M
ayor Matty to the rescue.
Gearhart’s Mayor Matt
Brown — known colloquially
in Gearhart as “Mayor Matty” — is the
proud owner of the nine-hole Manzani-
ta Golf Links.
Brown purchased the course in
October from Jim Pentz and Tony
Erickson of Pine Grove Properties, and
reopened for play on Feb. 1.
“There was a period there we
weren’t sure who was going to be run-
ning it or how it was going to be run,
or if it was going to be open again,”
Dan Haag, director of the Manzanita
Visitors Center said. “Keeping it part of
this community has just been huge.”
Both the Manzanita Open and the
Mudd Nick charity golf tournaments
have decades-long roots in Manzani-
ta and losing the annual events was
unthinkable.
“To lose those was a big fear, be-
cause the Eugene Schmuck Foundation
and Mudd Nick Foundation both do
really important things in the commu-
nity and surrounding area,” Haag said.
“I think there was always a drive and
desire to get the right person to come in
and do it, and it sounds like we have.”
This year’s open takes place May
18 to May 20, with proceeds going to
higher education and community ser-
vices. The Mudd Nick tournament and
auction, with the goal of access to the
arts and athletic programs for children
in the community, takes place Sept. 15.
Mayor Mike Scott recalled the com-
munitywide angst felt after the course
closed last fall. “We didn’t want to lose
it,” he said. “We went through a dark
period where we weren’t sure what
was going to happen, so it’s worked
out great. We’re pretty happy to have
it back.”
HBO
Ramon Bayer-Boatwright, played by Daniel Zovatto,
rides a bike down Portland streets in “Here and Now.”
Trauma with
your comedy
H
R.J. MARX/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
Matty Brown at Highlands Golf Club.
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
Family affair
Founded in 1987 by Ted Erickson,
the course hosted generations of golfers
— and three generations of Ericksons.
When Ted’s son Steve Erickson
announced his retirement last fall,
golfers and residents alike feared the
loss of the 34-acre course to develop-
ment, a potential double-whammy as
a 37-acre neighboring property could
see development of up to 450 housing
units. Steve’s son Tony Erickson now
partners with Pentz.
“We went out and worked out how
we could keep the course alive,” Pentz
said. “Tony and I wanted to keep the
golf course rather than develop the
property.”
When Brown committed to pur-
chasing the course, Erickson and Pentz
granted a conservation easement on the
land to the city of Manzanita.
“You see other places where they
end up tearing golf courses down and
building homes, and you end up losing
something,” Brown said.
Pine Grove Properties sold the
course to Manzanita Golf Links LLC
for $1.3 million on Jan. 22, according
to the Tillamook County assessor’s
office.
While the neighboring parcel is
still “probably going to be developed,”
according to Scott, the nine-hole course
will remain intact. “We went through a
long process to get where we are today.
It will either be operated as a golf
course or will be perpetual greenspace
if it’s not operated as a golf course.”
‘Big part’ of community
Nine-hole public courses like Man-
zanita and the Highlands — which also
opened in 1987 —are “great ways to
get new people into the sport,” Brown
said, inexpensive and usually under
two hours to play. “A lot of courses
have been built in the last 20 years
that are these big, expansive, amazing
courses that cost hundreds of dollars,”
Brown said. “Only a certain segment
of the population can really afford to
play those type of courses.”
In Manzanita, golfers will find
challenging elevations and a mix of
short, narrow holes and wider, open
holes.
Highlands presents golfers with
a par 31, Manzanita with a par 32.
Gearhart Golf Course offers a 36 par
for each of its nine holes; Astoria is the
same.
“It’s a pretty cool course for all
ability levels,” Brown said. “Seniors,
ladies — every golfer has a story how
much they enjoyed playing Manzani-
ta.”
Nine holes at Manzanita typically
runs $25, with an array of local and cou-
ples packages offered.
Brown said he now offers a junior
unlimited golf pass for $99, “just as a
way to get more kids to play.”
“We’ve got kids that play every
day,” Brown said. “We’re trying to
introduce as many new juniors to the
game as possible. That’s what it’s
about, why I’m in the game.”
Manzanita’s course is “a lot like the
Highlands,” built on sand dunes with
good drainage. Golfers are limited
only by their tolerance for North Coast
weather.
Since opening, Brown said he has
experienced an outpouring of support
from the Manzanita community. “Peo-
ple are calling me, emailing. They’re
so happy this is going to remain a golf
course.”
R.J. MARX/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
Matty Brown at Highlands Golf
Club.
Residents love the open space
and scenic walk around the perime-
ter, he said. A men’s league Tuesday
breakfast typically brings in about 40
guests. People in the community help
the maintenance and golf shop team
maintain the landscaping.
Brown will continue his role as
general manager and head professional
at the Highlands Golf Club in Gear-
hart.
A separate management team, led
by superintendent Jerrod Kunde and
golf shop manager Jeff Mitchell, will
manage the day-to-day operations at
Manzanita.
“We know how to operate a nine-
hole golf course and make it sustain-
able, not only for the people who
play it, but for the whole community,
Brown said.
He plans to come to Manzanita
about once a week. “It’s about time
management.”
Brown sees a golf course as a great
way to maintain the environment, draw
tourism and to provide a community
service.
“It’s Matt’s operation,” Pentz said.
“When it comes to golf, Matt is very,
very good at the business.”
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CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
The Cannon Beach Gazette is
published every other week by EO
Media Group.
1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside,
Oregon 97138
503-738-5561 • Fax 503-738-
9285
Monday, April 9
Cannon Beach Rural Fire Protection District, 6 p.m., 188 Sunset,
Cannon Beach.
Cannon Beach City Council, 5:30 p.m., work session, City Hall, 163
E. Gower St.
Why would anyone want to buy the county’s jail bonds?
valuation and Clatsop County has just
over $6 billion dollars of property that is
taxed. The narrow Pacific coastal strip
of the county from Arch Cape to the
mouth of the Columbia River contains 70
percent of this property valuation. Using
state-issued tsunami inundation maps,
about 80 percent of the value of these
properties will be destroyed by a mid-size
Cascadia event. Event Astoria with about
13 percent of the county’s assessed valua-
tion will be hard hit by the earthquake
portion of a Cascadia event because of
the age of its downtown structures. The
state puts the probability of such a Casca-
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Tuesday, April 10
LETTERS
Yes, Clatsop County needs better
jail facilities. The county plans to seek
voter approval to issue bonds for new
jail facilities that will be repaid by future
property tax revenues. It all sounds pretty
normal, right?
Nestled behind their podium up in
Astoria, our county’s elected leaders and
paid staff are hoping that this time jail
improvements will be successful. They
really don’t want to acknowledge that the
investment community rates bonds for
buyers by the risk that they will not be
repaid.
Property taxes are based on property
ave you seen the new HBO series, “Here and
Now”? Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter play the
Mom and Dad of a multiracial family living in
the Trump Era. The show is set in Portland, which makes
it extra interesting. Writing about the show in The New
Yorker, television critic Emily Nussbaum wrote, “The
homes are rich-hippie real-estate porn,” and noted that
the sexual chemistry between two of the characters is
worth the price of admission. She also said, “But depth
requires digging. ‘Here and Now’ clearly wants to be part
of the Resistance. So far, it’s more the sort of thing that
makes people mutter, ‘This is why he won.’”
Politics aside, Alan Ball, the showrunner, creator of
“Six Feet Under”
and “True Blood”
is known for his
VIEW FROM
trauma-comedy
THE PORCH
style of story-
EVE MARX
telling. There’s
more trauma than
comedy here as
the characters struggle with what it means to feel alive
and not become alien vampires. Other reviewers have
commented how unlikeable the characters are, but that’s
like saying you can’t the sight of yourself in the mirror.
“Here and Now” is at heart a family drama. The fami-
ly is complicated. Three of the children, now adults, were
adopted from countries hurt by U.S. policies. Ashley,
who works in fashion, was born in Liberia; she’s married
to a white Republican and they have a bi-racial kid. Duc,
a “motivational architect” is a currently celibate sex
addict. Duc was born to a prostitute mother in Vietnam.
His brain is riddled with images of his mother working
on her back. Ramon, a video designer, is an orphan from
the Columbian drug wars. Tim Robbins’ character is a
moody, broody philosopher; Holly Hunter is a former
therapist who now runs a nonprofit. The couple also
have one child born of their combined loins, Kristin, a
precocious and snarky teenager whose best friend is a
gender-fluid Muslim boy whose dad just happens to be
Ramon’s therapist.
Tim Robbins’ character is burdened. He hasn’t pub-
lished anything meaningful in years, his professional stat-
ure at the college where he teaches is much diminished.
While he obviously cares about his wife, nonetheless he’s
been dipping into their joint checking account to finance
his relationship with a hooker. Holly Hunter’s character
is in full-blown career crises, not to mention she’s about
to fall into bed with a guy she knew decades ago when
they were both students at Berkeley. My favorite charac-
ter is Ramon’s psychiatrist, played by the excellent Peter
Macdissi, a Lebanese actor who is the real life partner of
Alan Ball. Portraying the most messed-up shrink ever,
he’s accused by his wife of being a pothead.
Call me shallow, but the detail I’m most obsessed
with is Holly Hunter’s au natural face. I snooped around
on-line to find before and after pictures of her with
fillers and Botox; she appears to have quit both when she
signed on to do “Here and Now.” Her upper lip and chin
area are positively wrinkled. I love the way she’s chosen
to play a desirable, educated, beautifully dressed, sophis-
ticated woman of a certain age in Portland. Her beat-up
face on this show is not a face you’re likely to see on an
affluent 60-year-old woman in New York or Los Angeles.
That’s thrilling.
Equally thrilling are the show’s locations. The gor-
geous house Holly and Tim live is in Laurelhurst. “I’ve
been in that house,” one of my Gearhart friends bragged.
You see the Burnside Bridge and the Pearl and gentri-
fied stretches of North Mississippi. You see homeless
encampments. The only off note about the show and its
Portland location is that it’s never raining.
What’s up with that?
dia event as 1 in 3 over the next 50 years.
As an investor would you want to
fund your children’s education and your
retirement on a “junk bond” like this?
But wait, didn’t Seaside School District
just successfully issue $100 million in
school bonds? Yes, but under duress from
Sen. Betsy Johnson, the state treasurer
guaranteed these bonds. There is no one
to guarantee these jail bonds nor many
of these other proposed non-school bond
issues presently being proposed by local
agencies.
John Dunzer
Seaside
www.cannonbeachgazette.
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Thursday, April 12
Cannon Beach Academy, 5:30 p.m. 3718 S. Hemlock St.
Tuesday, April 17
Cannon Beach Public Works Committee, 9 a.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
Seaside School District Board of Directors, 6 p.m., 1801 S. Franklin,
Seaside.
Thursday, April 19
Cannon Beach Parks and Community Services Committee, 9 a.m.,
City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
Cannon Beach Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
Thursday, April 26
Cannon Beach Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
Tuesday, May 1
Cannon Beach City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St.
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