August 10, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 3A
County residents asked to vote on bonds
Four to choose
from in
November
By Jack Heffernan
The Daily Astorian
During a meeting earlier
this month, Clatsop County
Commissioner Sarah Nebeker
argued that a November bond
measure to relocate and ex-
pand the county jail needs to
pass. But she recognized that
voters may be leery of the tax
burden.
“It’s the cheapest bond out
there, though,” Sheriff Tom
Bergin said.
Bergin was referring to
three other bonds — for the
Astoria and Warrenton school
districts and the Sunset Empire
Park and Recreation District
— that will be on the ballot.
Local governments are trying
to address several long-stand-
ing needs while the economy
continues to boom, betting that
voters will not have bond over-
load.
“The bond passage rate
the last three to five years has
really been on an upswing
statewide,” said Mark Jeffery,
the superintendent of the War-
renton-Hammond School Dis-
trict. “It’s pretty incredible for
a county this size. And not just
small projects.”
Officials have not coordi-
nated the timing of the bonds
and say they do not feel a sense
of competition. But the number
of tax hikes has been a topic of
slight concern.
“Obviously bond fatigue, I
guess, is a concern, but I think
that we started this over a year
ago and we can’t, you know,
we don’t have a crystal ball to
know what other cities are go-
ing to do,” said Scott Lee, the
chairman of the county Board
of Commissioners.
Lee and Bergin are correct.
The county’s efforts to move
the 60-bed jail from Astoria
to the shuttered North Coast
Youth Correctional Facility in
Warrenton began last spring.
The $20 million bond would
be the least expensive in terms
of its impact on property tax-
es — an estimated 21 cents
per $1,000 of assessed value.
County and law enforcement
leaders hope a new jail will
solve persistent overcrowding.
Beyond the dollar figure,
The North Coast Youth
Correctional Facility sits
vacant in Warrenton.
Bond bundle
Voters will see several bond requests on the Novem-
ber ballot.
COLIN MURPHEY PHOTOS/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Max Price performs a trick at the skate park in the Sunset Empire Park and Recreation Dis-
trict in Seaside. A bond to expand the recreation center will be on the ballot in November.
those involved in promoting
the bonds will also need to
rely on different voting demo-
graphics. The November elec-
tion is expected to draw larger
turnout than the May primary
due to a number of local, state
and congressional races.
“Voter turnout, I think, is
the key to this bond,” Lee said.
Turnout may be a positive
for some bonds and a negative
for others.
“I think there’s always go-
ing to be a base of regular vot-
ers that are going to support the
jail bond, and I think that it is
problematic because typically
younger people are suspicious,
as I am, of the industrial prison
system in America,” Lee said.
“I think it’s important that the
county, we work on messaging
to reach out to that younger
segment of voters that, you
know, this isn’t a problem of
over-incarceration.”
Should that message fall flat
with younger voters, the coun-
ty may need to rely on people
who would not be directly af-
fected by the rise in property
taxes.
“I really want to see folks
that don’t own property and
that haven’t been here for a
long time to get involved and
register to vote,” Lee said.
On the other hand, young
voters may be pivotal to the
$20 million Sunset Empire
bond to expand its Seaside rec-
reation center — at 70 cents
per $1,000. The recreation dis-
trict hopes the new facility will
generate additional revenue
following a decrease last year.
Some have speculated that
younger voters would be more
likely to utilize the upgraded
facility and, therefore, more
willing to pay for it.
But, “I would hope that all
of our residents — both young
and old — can see the benefit
of this,” said Skyler Archibald,
the executive director of the
recreation district.
Seaside School District vot-
ers overwhelmingly passed a
$99.7 million bond in 2016 to
relocate schools out of the tsu-
nami inundation zone. Though
it’s for a different purpose, the
recreation district hopes for
similar support.
“I guess I’d be lying to say
we weren’t motivated by the
voters’ approval of the school
bond,” Archibald said.
While the entire coun-
ty will vote on the jail bond,
only voters within the recre-
ation district will decide on the
Sunset Empire plan. Although
the bonds would come at an
identical price, more taxpay-
ers would share the burden of
the new jail than the recreation
facility.
“The jail bond affects all
of the county obviously, so it’s
not going to be as easy for us to
market it,” Archibald said. “We
do have to be a little bit insight-
ful with how we message it.”
School bonds
Seaside-area voters will
not, however, be asked to pitch
in as much as those who live
in the Warrenton-Hammond
or Astoria school districts. The
$70 million Astoria bond to
modernize the school district’s
five campuses would cost tax-
payers $2.83 per $1,000 of as-
sessed property value. Those
in
Warrenton-Hammond
would need to pay $2.49 per
$1,000 to buy a master campus
and build a new middle school
outside the tsunami inundation
zone.
At a smaller price but with
a similar goal of moving out-
side the tsunami zone, War-
renton-Hammond
officials
hope their $32.4 million bond
will have as much success as
the 2016 one in Seaside. The
school district did not specif-
ically move forward with the
bond because of the Seaside
example, but it did compare
the upcoming bond to the past
one, Jeffery said.
In Astoria, the motivations
are largely about timing. A
bond from 2000 is set to ex-
pire, and the school district
• COUNTY JAIL — A $20 million bond would help
move the county jail from Astoria to the former North
Coast Youth Correctional Facility in Warrenton.
• ASTORIA SCHOOLS — A $70 million bond would
help improve Astoria Middle School and other cam-
puses.
• WARRENTON SCHOOLS — A $32.4 million bond
would help buy land and build a middle school, the
first phase in moving schools out of the tsunami inun-
dation zone.
• SUNSET EMPIRE RECREATION — A $20 million
bond would expand a recreation center in Seaside.
hopes to modernize its cam-
puses.
“We just want people to
know what kind of shape our
schools are in,” Superintendent
Craig Hoppes said. “It works
best for us to go right now.”
Voters in both school dis-
tricts will also decide on the
jail bond. While maintaining
that the bonds are not compet-
ing, Bergin made a case for the
relative importance of the new
jail.
“If we don’t have the se-
curity with the jail, what good
are the other entities?” Bergin
asked.
Necessary asks
With nagging infrastructure
needs and a steady economy,
officials who will be promot-
ing the bonds over the next
few months believe the asks
are necessary.
“There’s a lot that needs
to be done right now, and we
have the opportunity to do that.
The economy is rolling good
right now. People are making
money,” Lee said. “This is an
opportunity for the commu-
nity to get some things done
that we might not be able to do
in 10 years or couldn’t do 10
years ago.”
But will voters choose one
bond over another after doing
the tax math?
“I think the voters are
smarter than that and, kind of,
can understand what’s going
on here,” Lee said. “It’s a coin-
cidence, but I don’t think it’s a
deal breaker to pass these.”
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