VOL. 43, ISSUE 4
CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM
ICEFIRE
ICE
FIRE
February 22, 2019
Cannon Beach
City Council
and chamber
ink new contract
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
The city will no longer pay for visitor
information center operations under a new
contract with the Chamber of Commerce.
For the past 30 years, the city has paid
for operations at the center through the gen-
eral fund. Now, the city is asking the cham-
ber to pay the $160,000 a year it takes to run
the center from its tourism promotion pro-
gram fund.
The fund, which is anticipated to have
$385,655 next year, is fi nanced by the lodg-
ing tax and is used to promote tourism during
the offseason. To lessen the initial fi nancial
impact, the city will phase in the change by
paying increasingly smaller portions of the
visitor information center tab until 2021.
In exchange, the chamber has an ongo-
ing contract — something the organization
has sought for years — which allows staff to
do long-range planning. Putting the spend-
ing under one contract gives the chamber
more fl exibility on how money should be
divided between marketing and visitor cen-
ter operations.
There is also no cap on how much the
chamber can receive from lodging tax rev-
enue — an idea proposed earlier last year.
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Cannon Beach Gazette
Watching a glass artist at work, it
can be diffi cult to detect the premed-
itation and reasoning behind their
series of actions, which at times come
across curious and confusing. As the
process continues, however, a shape
emerges, colors become visible, and
the fi nesse and precision prompting
the artist’s movements and choices
manifest into a resplendent piece of
glasswork.
“Glassblowers, we work with some
the most common materials in the
crust of the earth,” said artist Jim Kin-
gwell, of Icefi re Glassworks in Can-
non Beach.
In an elegant marriage of artistry
and alchemy, they start with those
rudimentary materials, employ fi re
and air, shaping and transforming liq-
uid glass into beautiful, impermeable
objects.
Creating by hand
See Council, Page A7
As Kingwell pointed out, humans
long have been modifying simple
and abundant elements found within
their environment. Glassblowing, for
example, is not a new practice, nor
Katherine Lacaze/For Cannon Beach Gazette
See Glass, Page A7
Suzanne Kindland practices the art of glass at Icefi re Glassworks.
R.J. Marx
New school board members Sondra Gomez and
Shannon Swedenborg at Tuesday’s meeting.
Swedenborg,
Gomez named
to school board
By R.J. MARX
Cannon Beach Gazette
Jim Kingwell pulls molten glass out the furnace while working on a piece at Icefi re Glassworks.
The Seaside School District fi lled two
vacancies Tuesday night.
Shannon Swedenborg fi lled Zone 1, Posi-
tion 1, after Patrick Nofi eld stepped down
in Cannon Beach. Sondra Gomez replaced
Steve Phillips in Seaside.
Swedenborg now holds, with Brian Tay-
lor, one of two positions representing Can-
non Beach.
Over the past two years she has been a
substitute teacher at the Heights Elementary
School and Broadway Middle School. She
taught high school biology in the Renton
Washington, School District for 10 years.
Gomez fi lls the Zone 5 Position 1 vacancy
left by the resignation of Steve Phillips. She
brings more than 12 years of professional
experience working in public schools and
is a former employee of the Seaside School
District.
Time capsule in Whale Park looks to the future
By R.J. MARX
Cannon Beach Gazette
Attention people of the future:
on this day, the 14th of February,
2019, the city of Cannon Beach,
State of Oregon, United States of
America, Planet Earth, offi cials,
civic leaders and public works
employees came to this site to seal
and store a time capsule not to be
opened before Feb. 14, 2069.
The time capsule follows the
unearthing of a time capsule at
Tolovana Hall in December. That
time capsule, marked Novem-
ber 1968, and included a copy of
the Seaside Signal, a page from
McCall’s magazine about food and
fashion, as well as photos of a Boe-
ing 737, the latest women’s hair-
dos and a view of Tolovana State
Park.
“We are burying the time to
replace the buried time capsule
at the Tolovana Arts Colony in
December,” Public Works Director
Karen La Bonte said. Among items
gathered by the Cannon Beach
History Center and Museum, city
and the Chamber of Commerce are
posters, artwork and a medallion
from the Sandcastle contest.
The hole, dug and prepared by
public works employees, consists
of an approximately 20-inch- deep
water vault sealed with a concrete
lid, identifi ed with a marker. At the
Cannon Beach History Center and
Museum, additional details of the
project will be on display, includ-
ing location, “so they’ll know
where to dig it up in 50 years.”
Mayor Sam Steidel places the time capsule in a vault at Whale Park.