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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2019)
A3 • Friday, January 25, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com Jellyfi sh show up by the hundreds on North Coast By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian An incomplete list of things that have recently washed up on North Coast beaches: a giant octopus, dead whales, pyrosomes, Japanese fi shing boats, hun- dreds of Humboldt squid, so much bull kelp, so much plastic. And now, earlier this week, moon jellyfi sh as far as the eye could see around Haystack Rock. Large numbers of stranded jellyfi sh are not an unusual sight on local beaches, especially after storms or during times of strong waves and seasonal upwelling, the Haystack Rock Awareness Program noted on Facebook. Moon jellyfi sh are just one type of jellyfi sh that shows up frequently. Pacifi c sea nettles, which do sting, are a common fi nd. These jellies are yellow-brown with a sort of frilled edge when nestled in the sand. Tiny comb jellies will dot The Haystack Rock Awareness Program noted that jellies like the Pacifi c sea nettle do wash up and can still sting even after the animal is dead. Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The Haystack Rock Awareness Program recommends avoiding jellyfi sh that wash up on local beaches. the beach, looking like oversized water droplets frozen in place. Most years, rafts of Vel- lela vellela — or by-the- wind sailors that fl oat on the water’s surface and are propelled across the ocean thanks to a triangular sail — blow onto the beach and carpet the sand. They bleach white in the sun, send up a briny stink and are munched upon by fool- hardy dogs. In recent years, the North Coast has hosted unexpected creatures like pyrosomes. The little-stud- ied rubbery, tube-shaped, semitranslucent colonies showed up en masse on beaches across Oregon, and especially around Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park, in 2017. More common in warmer waters, pyrosomes confounded researchers and clogged up commercial fi shing gear. Oregon researchers con- tinue to study the role of jel- lyfi sh in marine food webs and their potential impact on coastal fi shing. Jellyfi sh may drift grace- fully and dreamily when in water, but on land they are gelatinous blobs sometimes spiked with intricate colors. They are always a fascinat- ing fi nd for beachgoers and tempting to poke or even pick up. The Haystack Rock Awareness Program noted that moon jellyfi sh do not sting most people, but jel- lies like the Pacifi c sea net- tle do wash up and can still sting even after the animal is dead. “So that’s why we rec- ommend not handling jel- lies unless you’re 1,000 percent sure what it is,” the organization wrote. Boone behind bill to tighten public records requests By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian In one of her last legisla- tive actions before retiring, state Rep. Deborah Boone recommended a bill that would tighten requirements for public records requests. State Sen. Betsy John- son, D-Scappoose, intro- duced Senate Bill 609 at the session’s open this month on Boone’s behalf. Under state law, pub- lic records requests can be broad, covering an entire topic rather than a specifi c piece of information. The bill Boone supports seeks to tighten the process, requiring people requesting records to specify “with par- ticularity” a description of the records being sought and how they will be used. “It’s to hopefully winnow out the fi shing expeditions and allow the legitimate (requests) to move for- ward,” said Boone, a Dem- ocrat who represented Can- non Beach in the House for 14 years. Boone didn’t point to a specifi c example that made her want to introduce the legislation. There have been multiple public records requests made of public offi cials over the past sev- eral years, and they can take a great deal of time and money, she said. Senate Bill 609 does not specify how much partic- ularity would be needed to describe records or how they will be used. Boone said she will travel to Salem at the end of the month to work on clarifying the language. While she understands that journalists often need to capture a breadth of information, maybe they wouldn’t have to be so broad if they “would just be hon- est and say, ‘This is what I’m trying to get at,’” Boone said. “I get that they want to be vague to capture every- thing, but maybe they don’t have to.” Tiff any Butler/The Daily Astorian Outgoing state Rep. Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, left, was honored by state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, during a Clatsop Economic Development Resources business awards ceremony last year. Ginger McCall, Ore- gon’s public records advo- cate, released a report last year that found governments often unreasonably delay releasing public records or charge too much for access. The public records law has also been criticized for the large number of exemp- tions — more than 500 — that have been carved out over the years. The bill has drawn crit- icism from journalists, including The Oregonian’s Gordon Friedman, who fi rst reported on the legislation and balked at the require- ment of stating with partic- ularity the records he seeks. “As a requester I often can’t do that because I don’t know what records exist — only that I would like to request records pertaining to a topic,” he wrote on Twitter. Boone’s legislation is one of 11 new public records bills this legislative session. Others would reduce pub- lic records fees from state agencies by half, award attorney fees against pub- lic bodies that don’t respond to requests in a timely man- ner, explore creating a chief privacy offi cer position and prohibit using personal email for offi cial business. The state House on Mon- day also passed several new rules related to transparency. The fi rst will require all amendments submit- ted to policy bills bear the name of a member or stake- holder group. The second will require that all com- mittee bills bear the name of a member or stakeholder group that has requested the bill, effective Jan. 22. The third will require at least one hour to pass during the short legislative session before the House can act on a bill returned with changes from the Senate. “This is a positive step to bring greater transparency to the business of the House,” said state Rep. 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