4A • June 15, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
Defending your
space
When a
celebrity suicide
rattles us all
I
I
t seems like conversations about
parking always start too late.
“There is nothing happening
at this point,” city councilor
George Vetter said. “The last
time I brought this up, other council-
ors wanted to wait for some kind of
initiative from the public and business
community.”
Nothing is in the works, police chief
Jason Schermerhorn added. There will
be no changes in enforcement and
police are not adding any parking limits
or signage for the summer.
Former Mayor Mike Morgan
brought presented timed parking as an
option in 2008, during his campaign for
election. He had two options for reduc-
ing the need for spaces — more parks
downtown and timed parking zones to
discourage all-day parking downtown.
Shuttle service got a trial in 2011
and 2012, but it wasn’t cost effective.
At a charge to the city of $47 an
hour, “you could take a taxi to the Port-
land airport for less money,” Morgan
said at the time.
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
CITY OF BEND
Can Cannon Beach gather parking
tips from the city of Bend?
Study commissioned
R.J. MARX
Last summer, after about a half-hour
of impassioned arguments from the
community, city councilors voted to
table any discussion of timed parking
or any other parking solutions until
after the summer, the Gazette’s Brenna
Visser reported.
This after Brian Davis from Lancast-
er Street Lab presented a parking study
driving the timed parking experiment.
The study divided the city into three
parking areas: crossroads or major
downtown streets, outskirts and lots,
and stall counts and types. Almost 400
spaces were not timed. Drivers stayed
an average of 3 hours, 13 minutes.
Downtown areas were 85 percent full
by 10 a.m. on spring break Friday,
while lots at more than 90 percent by
2 p.m.
Numbers for a “sunny April
Saturday” were roughly comparable,
according to the study.
Three-hour parking limit signs on
some downtown streets were suggest-
ed by city council last year as a pilot
program to see whether or not timed
parking increases turnover as a way to
help the city reach the goal of creating
50 new spots by the end of 2018.
But business owners and community
members rejected the idea that timed
parking would increase business. More
than 100 residents and business owners
signed a petition against proposed park-
ing time limits.
“The city MUST offer additional
parking NOT limit parking areas!”
business owner Mary Ann Oyala wrote
in a letter to the city.
Timed parking is “against the grain
of our naturally family-friendly com-
munity,” jeweler Sharon Amber said.
Alaina and Marty Giguiere proposed
eliminating RV parking in downtown
and midtown and building a parking
garage by the recycling area with
free parking for merchants and their
employees.
Nick Hansen, Dalton Smith and Keanu Yokoyama, of Cannon Beach police
parking enforcement.
its 2018-19 top initiatives.
“Parking was not on the list,” he
said. “When I spoke I asked that as a
concerned citizen and business owner
that they make time this year for the
discussion.”
After the tabling of the two-hour
limit, the council “just put the topic on
the back burner.”
Their decision frustrated Swe-
denborg. “They just took the parking
engineering report they paid for and put
it on a shelf,” he said.
So he offered his own ideas,
including the suggestion that Cannon
Beach implement a fee-based parking
program.
“Nobody wants to damage the
‘character of Cannon Beach’ with
the idea of parking meters, increased
signage, burden on the locals, but the
reality is that for about six months of
the year, and probably 80 percent of the
weekends we have a parking problem,”
he said.
Swedenborg took the city’s 2017 re-
port to a company called Passport Inc.,
a parking solution company that has
a software-based solution and doesn’t
require meters or coins.
Using a mobile application, users
can be on the beach and repay if time
runs out.
In lots, there can be a fee-based
parking kiosk program could be rolled
out seasonally, limited to summer or
prime tourist dates, and locals can be
given a sticker that allows them to park
for free. Prices could be set at variable
rates depending on the time of year,
and could be enforced with tickets or
warnings.
Swedenborg provided examples of
communities similar to Cannon Beach
that have successfully implemented the
kiosk program — Carmel, California,
Breckenridge, Colorado, and Ocean
City, Maryland, among others. He
estimates the city could implement this
solution on city lots and generate about
$400,000 to $600,000 a year in parking
revenue — more if they include city
streets and the Tolovana Wayside.
‘The back burner’
Greg Swedenborg, this year’s
Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce
president and general manager of The
Waves, addressed the City Council ear-
ly this year, after the council announced
Swedenborg touts the projected rev-
enue opportunity “that pays for itself”
with almost zero capital investment
instead of “just putting our head in the
sand.”
If he gets sufficient backing, he said,
he plans on going to the City Council
again to share the idea and suggest that
they make this issue a priority.
Strategies from Bend
Maybe Cannon Beach can learn
some lessons from Oregon’s fastest
growing city, Bend — and the fourth
fastest growing city in the country.
The city met the problem with the
hiring of a dedicated staff person,
David Dietrich, as parking demand
manager to handle their traffic con-
cerns. The downtown parking district
maintains a two-hour parking limit.
“We want to have high circulation,” he
said. “Obviously the more circulation,
the more customers and visitors who
can go, spend and enjoy downtown.”
Police mark license plates using a
hand-held device, with a requirement
that cars move at least 750 feet after
two hours. A permit program designates
certain lots in the downtown area for
employee parking. “The idea is that we
maximize on-street and certain areas
for visitors and customers,” Dietrich
said.
Permit revenue from paid parking
pays for infrastructure — painting,
striping, lighting and capital improve-
ments. Enforcement pays for itself, he
said.
For officials in Bend, the plan is in
place to “enhance the customer expe-
rience here.” To handle future conges-
tions, options would be adjusting time
limits based on zones, expanding paid
hourly lots, enhancing connectivity and
wayfinding,” Dietrich said. “Say you’re
coming into downtown Bend and a
visitor, you’re probably going to the
first spot you see. If you have wayfin-
ding, we can steer you to the longer,
more cost-effective parking. It’s like
water — we want people to flow to the
right places.”
was still
digesting the sad
news about the
handbag designer
Kate Spade who
abruptly ended
her own life when
I learned the
celebrity chef and
world traveler bon
vivant Anthony
Bourdain had killed
himself. I woke up
last Friday morning
thinking only of
coffee. Scanning
AP FILE PHOTO
my news feed on
Anthony Bourdain in 2016.
social media, I
saw a post from
a friend, a high achieving, successful young man who is
the beverage manager at a restaurant in Manhattan and a
partner in two other New York City dining establishments.
“Never knew or met Tony Bourdain, but have been a
tremendous fan and follower for years,” he wrote. “Along
with millions of other restaurant professionals, I’ve
watched and read his work obsessively; he’s single-hand-
edly been the most impactful influence on my outlook and
passion for food and my industry as a whole, not to men-
tion, somewhat painful in its irony, a lust for life and the
world around us.
This one hurts.”
Bourdain, an
VIEW FROM
American chef, au-
THE PORCH
thor, and television
EVE MARX
personality, ended
his life last week,
only days after
Kate Spade, an American designer, ended hers. Both these
brilliant, talented, wealthy, charismatic, and driven people
chose hanging as their method. As is true with any celebrity
suicide, news programs, talk show hosts, experts on mental
health and culture pundits burst into action, discussing
suicide, how to recognize those who might be in danger,
and how to prevent it.
While most people cleave to the idea that mental illness
is the only explanation as to why anyone would end their
life, I think there are other factors. There is an increasing
awareness that homelessness, job loss, loneliness, poverty,
and chronic physical pain can drive people not normally
given to despair to suicide.
Neither Kate Spade nor Tony Bourdain were poor,
unemployed, or homeless. They both very much lived
in the public eye, constantly surrounded by friends and
supporters. To the average observer, it seemed they had ev-
erything: money, power, stature, and control over their own
lives. They were brilliant creative types blessed with talent
and vision. They did share in common, however, a history
of depression and in Bourdain’s case, a history of substance
abuse. After her death, Spade’s husband told Page Six of
the New York Post, she had been drinking heavily. Bour-
dain readily shared in interviews he’d been a heroin addict.
He was a former cocaine user. He never gave up alcohol.
You may have noticed how angry many people feel
when someone takes their life. Suicide is often called the
ultimate selfish behavior.
The battle between the dark and the light is a hard one.
Bourdain was a dark and mordant personality; despite his
love of food and his joy of eating it with others, it was his
darkness, his “bad boy” status, that drew us to him. He is
famously quoted for having said, “I should’ve died in my
20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my
50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I
keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights. But
there’s been nothing yet.”
I never owned a Kate Spade bag. Her style never was
mine. But I admired her verve and her ability to position
herself within the ranks of Great American Designers.
What I loved about Bourdain was his honesty and capacity
for self-effacement. While his death is sad, terribly sad, I
choose to view it with sympathy, not judgment or anger.
I accept he decided, for whatever reason, to surrender to
his dark side. Given the extent of his depression, I thought
he fought brilliantly for the light. He brought us joy in the
form of food, travel, humor, generosity, his fabulous animal
allure. I celebrate those parts and honor the truth that, for
decades, he was a valiant soldier against his own darkness.
Engaging students, community at the Fire Mountain School
magine this: first- and second-
graders studying their local
watershed and visiting the local
water department so that they can
understand where the water they
drink comes from and why we
have a responsibility to keep our
streams and rivers clean. Or this:
third- and fourth-graders surveying
the number of visitors for the local
state park to determine if needs of
the visitors are being met. These are
hands-on experiences for elementary
students, but they are also examples
of democracy in action, an effort
to educate young citizens who will
understand the importance of being
actively engaged in their communities.
In place-based education schools
and local organizations become part-
ners with students. The authenticity of
each project they create together guides
students to feel like citizens who are
I
FIRE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL
Kids at Fire Mountain School
around the May pole.
Publisher
Kari Borgen
Editor
R.J. Marx
Circulation
Manager
Jeremy Feldman
Production
Manager
John D. Bruijn
Advertising Sales
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Danielle Fisher
Staff writer
Brenna Visser
Contributing
writers
Rebecca Herren
Katherine Lacaze
Eve Marx
Nancy McCarthy
EDUCATION TALKS
LIZ BECKMAN
participating in their community.
Place-based education is a style of
schooling that immerses students in
local history, cultures, environment,
economy, literature, and art, using
these as a foundation for the study of
language arts, mathematics, social
studies, science and other subjects
across the curriculum. Place-based
education emphasizes learning through
participation in service projects in the
immediate schoolyard, neighborhood,
town or community.
Many parents focus on exposing
their children to the big wide world
and have them take in the magnitude
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to enlighten and enrich them. But chil-
dren tend to focus on their immediate
surroundings. While the vista may be
spectacular, the rocks underfoot or the
moss growing on the bark of a tree
are closer and often of more interest
in their world. Encouraging curiosity
helps children build confidence to
explore a bigger world.
The goal of place-based education
is for children to learn about and love
the place where they live enough to
want to become actively engaged in
caring for their community. When
students are engaged in projects that
satisfy some levels of their curiosity,
they become interested in acquiring
the core academic skill of reading,
writing, and math. These subjects
become tools to explore the world
rather than simply assignments.
They begin to see that learning is not
something that you just do at school
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— it is part of everyday life.
More than 100 years ago, John
Dewey wrote about the value of teach-
ing hands-on democracy. He wrote:
“Education is the preparation for the
social position of life, the preparation
of the individual to play his proper part
in the community or state of which he
is a member.”
This column is submitted by Fire
Mountain School. Fire Mountain has
a mission to nurture each child by pro-
viding a joyful, place-based learning
experience. It’s an independent school
nestled in Falcon Cove surrounded by
Oswald West State Park. By providing
a foundation of experiential, hands on
education for the whole child, the Fire
Mountain community nurtures healthy,
happy, lifelong learners.
For more information visit
FireMountainSchool.org or email
firemountainschool@gmail.com.
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