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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2019)
A5 • Friday, January 25, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com A commitment to the people of Clatsop County W e Clatsop County commissioners are here as community leaders, elected by the voters in our district, with an intention to do good. How we develop our definitions of that good is our individual effort. However we choose to use our voice, our vote, and our actions is up to us. We collaborate with our col- leagues to define and accom- plish the work of our collec- tive body, the board. We act to further our work by our liaison assignments. That much, I think, we can agree on. GUEST COLUMN LIANNE THOMPSON After that, we have differ- ences. How we resolve those differences arising as our inten- tions are translated into words and actions determines our effectiveness and results. My commitment is to do good for the benefit of Clat- sop County, the people and the place. When I succeed, let us rejoice together. When I fail, forgive me, and let’s try to do better. I’ll do the same for you. That is the heart of good team- work, and we are a team. I thank my predecessors for their service and hope to honor them and our common cause, good representation and good value to the people and the place, Clatsop County. Sev- eral of them are in the audience tonight. Thanks to them for let- ting me stand on their shoulders. I am humbly grateful to the voters in District 5 for making me their elected county commis- sioner again. Looking at the his- tory of elections since the Home Rule Charter was enacted, I see that I am the only commissioner so far to be elected to more than one successive term. Only one other commissioner has had two terms, but there was a break in service, so those terms weren’t successive. I thank the voters for trusting me to continue serving them so we can all benefit from continu- ity of leadership, here in Clatsop County and beyond. I thank everyone I serve with and for, treasuring the opportu- nity to make a positive differ- ence. Let us now join together to do good by completing the work begun in 2011 to define the mis- sion of county government and the related “ends policies,” so that we can evaluate ourselves and our new county manager. Let us also perform liaisons assignments to best inform our actions by including the impact on our larger world. Most of all, let us perpetuate our own excel- lence, fearlessly examining our strengths and weaknesses so that we can improve our efforts and effectiveness. I pledge to do all that, on behalf of the voters in District 5, and for everyone in Clatsop County and beyond. Try to remember when you could buy a car for under $2,000 T ry to remember the kind of September when the median price for a new home rose more than 1,200 percent from $25,600 in 1968 to $309,700 in 2018 as median household income rose only 800 percent — from $7,700 to $62,175 during those same 50 years. Try to remember when annual per-capita health expenditures exploded more than 3,000 percent, from $355 in 1968 to $10,759 in 2018. Try to remember when in 1968 tuition, fees, and room and board for a year at a private four- year university skyrocketed from $2,673 to $48,510 in 2018 — an 1,800 percent jump in 50 years. Those happy with a four-year pub- lic university saw a year of public higher education grew more than 1,700 percent from $1,245 in 1968 to $21,370 in 2018. Try to remember when a Volk- swagen Bug cost $1,699 in 1968 and between $21,115 and $27,685 in 2018, a 1,600 percent increase. Try to remember when a gallon of regular gas that cost 34 cents in 1968 plateaued in 2018 at $3.29, more than a 960 percent increase. Try to remember when sending a fi rst-class letter was a bargain, rising only 1,000 percent — from 5 to 50 cents — as targets of pro- test shifted from the war in South- east Asia, to the crude behaviors of our current president. AT THE LIBRARY JOE BERNT Try to remember when a McDonald’s Big Mac was intro- duced for 49 cents in 1968 and rose in price to $3.99 in 2018, an increase of more than 800 per- cent — stalking median household income in the United States. Try to remember when the top marginal income tax rate was 75.25 percent in 1968 — when the top 1 percent held 34 percent of U.S. wealth and received 9 per- cent of U.S. income — and then dropped to 37 percent in 2018 — when the top 1 percent held 38 percent of U.S. wealth and 24 per- cent of the nation’s income. These statistics show that the chunks of the U.S. economy have grown for the wealthiest and shrunk for the poorest Americans both in terms of actual dollars and also in terms of what those dollars can purchase. The Occupy move- ment is right; the rich get richer and the poor poorer with assistance from D.C lobbyists, swamp critters and policy makers. Steven Brill, a meticulous investigative and business mag- azine writer, offers context in “Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s 50-Year Fall — and Those Fighting to Reverse It” that, at least in part, explains how Vietnam and an international Cold War waged distracted pol- icy makers from growing eco- nomic distress as weakened labor unions unleashed corporate greed and a drive toward globalism that increasingly sent mills, factories and their middle-class jobs abroad. Shoved into service economy jobs, dislocated workers were whacked by hyper-infl ation, lower earnings, corporate raiders and something called the information economy. As prices accelerated and wages stagnated, workers, ill-prepared for the information economy, felt abandoned by Democratic politi- cians who ignored workers’ eco- nomic plight,while drafting civil rights, poverty and environmen- tal legislation and drafting young men into an expensive, divisive war ten thousand miles away. Dick Nixon rolled out a Southern strat- egy to split off traditional Southern Democrats, George Wallace made inroads in Northern cities, Ronald Reagan built on their efforts and began to undermine both the New Deal and Great Society programs to make America great again. The metaphor of a moat that protects denizens of Wall Street, corporate management, lawyers and information workers trained at elite universities for the new mer- itocracy from unprotected citizens with average incomes is central to Brill’s analysis of the fi fty-year decline of the American Dream. Those who excelled in the mer- itocracy rewarded themselves by undermining restrictive regula- tions, re-engineering the politi- cal landscape, creating new legal rights and exploiting digital tech- nology to create a nation of moats to protect themselves from politi- cians and reformers. These over- achievers ran circles around poli- ticians and eroded institutions that provide government services to average citizens. The protected do not depend on government to pro- vide good public schools, health care, disaster relief, safe work- places, functioning Social Security and IRS offi ces and call centers and fair labor laws and elections. They hire lawyers. And the number of lawyers coming into corporate law fi rms bloomed. They saw opportunities to enter corporate banking, where they assisted in raiding, merging M U N I C I PA L M E M O FEBRUARY 2019 MEETINGS FEBRUARY 2019 5 12 City Council Regular Meeting City Council Special Work Session 13 Preliminary Budget Committee Meeting 5:30 p.m. 21 Design Review Board 6:00 p.m. 28 Planning Commission 6:00 p.m. CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING, December 8, 2019 • • • • Cannon Beach Municipal Court Judge Ron Woltjer swore in the City’s newly elected officials: Sam Steidel,Mayor, Mike Benefield, City Councilor, and Robin Risley, City Councilor; Elected Mike Benefield to serve as the City Council President; this position presides when the Mayor is absent; Appointed Bob Lundy to serve on the Parks & Community Services Committee and appointed Clay Newton and Barb Knop to serve on the Planning Commission; Adopted the FY 2017-18 Audit Report, as presented by Paul Nielson, Isler CPA; City Auditor; CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING - CITY HALL/POLICE STATION, December 9, 2019 Lisa Petterson of SRG Partners, Inc, and Bruce St. Denis, City Manager presented an update of the research and costs associated with building a new City Hall/Police Station. Council discussion ensued. Council will discuss this again at a special work session on January 16, 2019. CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL WORK SESSION & SPECIAL MEETING, December 15, 2019 • • • • • • Is published monthly by the City of Cannon Beach 163 E. Gower Street • P.O. Box 368 • Cannon Beach, OR 97110 (503) 436-1581 • Fax: (503) 436-2050 • TTY (503) 436-8097 Cannon Beach Code Enforcement Officer, Jenny Thompson-Kiefer was introduced to Council; Cannon Beach Farmers Market (CBFM) Manager, Philomena Lloyd presented the 2018 CBFM annual report; Clatsop County Public Health Director, Mike McNickle gave a presentation and led a discussion of the new county ordinance regarding licensing retail sales of tobacco products; Discussed lighting in the City Parks; Discussed the 12 Days of Earth event and its relationship to the City; Discussed the funding agreement for the Promotions Program between the City and the Chamber of Commerce. The contract will be presented for consideration at the February 5, 2019 meeting. 7:00 p.m. 5:30 p.m. CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION, January 16, 2019 Bruce St. Denis presented an update of the research and costs associated with building a new City Hall/Police Station. Lisa Petterson of SRG Partnership, Inc. participated by phone. Council will hold a question and answer meeting Wednesday, January 23rd at 5:30pm in lieu of another work session. CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION AND SPECIAL MEETING, January 23, 2019 Lisa Petterson of SRG Partners, Inc, and Bruce St. Denis, City Manager were available to answer questions in this public Q&A meeting. DESIGN REVIEW BOARD The Design Review Board met JAN. 17, 2019 & discussed: DRB 18-08, SR Lodging, request for modifications to the exterior of an existing commercial building at 632 S. Hemlock. Roof replacement approved as minor. Continued to February 21, 2019 meeting. DRB 18-09, Vito Cerelli request for major modifications to the exterior of a commercial building at 3115 S. Hemlock. Tentatively Denied for architectural reasons. Findings for denial will be presented at the February 21, 2019 meeting. PLANNING COMMISSION - The Planning Commission met December 27, 2018 and discussed: ZO 18-03, City of Cannon Beach request for Zoning Ordinance text amendments to Chapter 17.70 Tree Removal. The proposed amendments address the protection of trees from unintended damage during construction. Continued to January 24th meeting. and piecing out companies, always emphasizing short term prof- its. They developed new fi nancial instruments that would later crash the housing mortgage industry. They also created bigness as a new protective moat for bank man- agement. Bank CEOs were not jailed following the 2008 reces- sion because their lawyers argued they could not be held personally responsible for corporate actions. The bank was too large and com- plex for a single person to manage. Banks were fi ned because it was more effi cient than prosecuting. So, this moat of “too-big-to-man- age” was added to the “too-big-to- fail” and “too-big-to-jail” moats. Brill basically argues that the reason government no lon- ger functions can be blamed on the unintended consequences of merit-based hiring, providing inad- equate training for government employees, developing the concept of corporate free speech, institut- ing fair treatment of government employees and insisting on scrupu- lous due process in developing reg- ulations. The result: government agencies become overwhelmed by lobbyists, corporate lawyers and government employee unions. The library has a copy of “Tail- spin” awaiting anyone question- ing why so many politicians are leaving their offi ces, as well as what drives partisan deadlock in Washington. FOR YOUR INFORMATION MAYOR: Sam Steidel COUNCILORS: Mike Benefield, Nancy McCarthy, Brandon Ogilvie and Robin Risley CITY MANAGER: Bruce St. Denis Of Interest… City Hall will be Closed: Monday February 18, 2019 in observance of Presidents’ Day Beach Volunteers Wanted! Do you enjoy being outside and sharing your love of Haystack Rock? No experience necessary – we train! Families welcome. Please contact: Lisa Habecker Education & Volunteer Coordinator 503.436.8064 habecker@ci.cannon-beach.or.us
