SEASIDESIGNAL.COM • COMPLIMENTARY COPY
OUR 109th YEAR • July 10, 2015
Seaside celebrates
FOURTH OF JULY
in style — and partially in the dark
PHOTO BY KATHERINE LACAZE
Fireworks illuminate the sky above an otherwise dark Seaside during the 2015 Fourth of July fi reworks show.
Olivia and
Lukas Esnard
having fun at
the Gearhart
Independence
Day parade.
laday Drive, Zest on BroadZay, north on Co-
lumbia Street and ended on Necanicum Drive,
near the Seaside Museum.
The parade, Zhich Zas organi]ed by a vol-
unteer group led by Gini Dideum, included 63
entries. Among the entries Zere the Seaside Po-
lice Department, Seaside Fire & Rescue, Medix
Ambulance Service, Providence Seaside Hospi-
tal, Avamere at Seaside, Su]anne Elise and oth-
er agencies and organi]ations. Three drum and
bugle corps, including the Portland-based Ore-
gon Crusaders, Zere spaced among the entries
and provided a soundtrack of patriotic music.
Businesses and individuals of all ages took
part in the parade, vehicles or À oats decked out
Zith American À ags, stars and stripes or other
red, Zhite and blue displays to celebrate the
spirit of Independence Day.
Overall, everything Zent ¿ ne in terms of
preparing for and running the parade, Dideum
said, adding “Ze can alZays use some help.”
“We learned some things this year, some
things Ze can change and Ze can Zork on im-
proving on,” Dideum said. Using that informa-
tion, the group can “go ahead for next year and
see Zhat develops.”
JEFF TER HAR PHOTO
See Fourth, Page 3A
By Katherine Lacaze
Seaside Signal
T
he 2015 Fourth of July celebration for
Seaside brought Zith it the tradition-
al festivities ² a Zell-attended parade,
old-fashioned social and hordes of people — as
Zell as a feZ differences — such as a spectac-
ular ¿ reZorks shoZ Zithout the accompanying
soundtrack and a large poZer outage.
During the mid-morning hours, spectators
started lining the streets of doZntoZn Seaside
in anticipation for the annual parade, Zhich
traveled from Necanicum Drive, south on Hol-
Power outage darkens
Fourth of July celebration
By Katherine Lacaze
Seaside Signal
As the renoZned Seaside Fourth of July ¿ re-
Zorks shoZ crescendoed to its ¿ nale and then
died out, the commencement also marked the end
of a ¿ ve-hour poZer outage that affected the en-
tire city and produced negative effects for some
local businesses, particularly restaurants.
“It Zas a disaster, to put it simply,” said Doug
Wiese, co-oZner of Dooger’s Seafood and Grille.
After shutting doZn the restaurant about 5
p.m., Wiese kept on a creZ for about tZo hours,
hoping the poZer Zould come back. With the
early closure, thousands of dollars of income
Zere lost and people Zeren’t able to Zork. Wiese
estimates the restaurant lost upZards of $10,000.
The total economic impact has yet to be cal-
culated — some businesses Zere affected more
than others.
See Outage, Page 3A
Gearhart councilors
seek to replace city’s
µGecrepit’ ¿ re station
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
PAID
PERMIT NO. 97
ASTORIA, OR
PRSRT STD
US POSTAGE
Despite the failure of a
$3.75 million bond in 2006
to build a neZ ¿ re station,
the Gearhart City Council
took fresh steps toZard the
old station’s replacement.
At the Wednesday, July 1
meeting, councilors said
they hope to involve a Zid-
er range of voices in the
discussion from the start.
“I’m Zondering if it
should be a broader base to
begin Zith,” City Councilor
Sue Lorain said. “I think go
big, Zith lots of input, then
go from there.”
In March, replacing or
renovating the ¿ re station
Zas enumerated as the
council’s top 2015 goal.
Other goals included in-
vestigating system devel-
opment charges, revamping
the city Zebsite and updat-
ing the city’s comprehen-
sive plan.
When the community
voted in 2006 on a $3.75
million general obligation
bond measure to address
the problem, the proposal
included plans for a high-
end building to house the
police department, City
Hall and ¿ re station.
“Several years ago there
Zas a bond issue put togeth-
er by the Fire Department
Zith no citi]en input at all,”
City Manager Chad SZeet
said. “To a lot of people it
seemed to be extremely ex-
pensive Zith a lot of bells
and Zhistles that may not
have been necessary.”
SZeet is a 17-year Gear-
hart ¿ re¿ ghter and current-
ly serves as a lieutenant
Transportation district eyeing new
service options, solutions for future
Agency hopes to
eventually build transit
hub in Seaside
By Katherine Lacaze
Seaside Signal
R.J. MARX PHOTO
Members of the Gearhart
City Council are seeking a
replacement for the city’s
fi rehouse.
Zith the department. “The
decrepit building is the No.
1 concern,” he said. “HoZ
do Ze take care of the com-
munity in the event of a ca-
lamity Zhen a building falls
on top of our ¿ re trucks"
It’s naturally an emergency
center, but it’s Zoefully in-
adequate for that.”
The Sunset Empire
Transportation District’s in-
formation kiosk in Seaside,
Zhich opened May , may
be a prelude to more efforts
by the public transit agency
to increase its presence and
services in the city.
The kiosk is a good
place for people to get tran-
sit information, maps or
tickets and passes, but in
recent years, the district has
recogni]ed the need for a
bigger transportation facili-
ty in Seaside, said Jeff Ha-
]en, the district’s executive
director.
A feZ years ago, the
district received a match-
ing grant from the Oregon
Department of Transpor-
tation’s
ConnectOregon
program to build a facility
in Seaside, but Zhen the
agency couldn’t muster the
necessary matching funds,
it had to decline the grant
and temporarily abandon
the project. At that time,
the project involved a part-
A Seaside transit center ‘is something
I am going to keep my eye on.’
Jeff Hazen, Sunset Empire Transportation District executive director
See Station, Page 9A
nership Zith a daycare and
the South County Commu-
nity Food Bank, Zhich has
since moved. More recent-
ly, the district has consid-
ered other funding options
to build a Seaside transit
center but nothing has ma-
teriali]ed yet, and the proj-
ect is entirely dependent on
funding, Ha]en said.
“It’s something I am go-
ing to keep my eye on,” he
said.
As opposed to the small
Seaside customer service
kiosk, located at the Sea-
side Factory Outlet Center
on North Roosevelt Drive,
the facility Zould be a one-
stop transit hub that Zould
have a lobby, restrooms and
more Zaiting areas, as Zell
as parking options for peo-
ple taking longer trips.
Additionally,
Ha]en
said, the district alZays is
See SETD, Page 6A
Conservancy brings seed bank violets closer to home
Flowers to be used
in prairie habitat
restoration project
By Katherine Lacaze
Seaside Signal
The North Coast Land
Conservancy recently re-
ceived a large delivery at its
Circle Creek Habitat Reserve:
About 16,000 early blue vio-
let plants, tucked safely in
beds until the À oZers are
ready to be planted in the fall.
2n -une 0, 6teZardship
Director Melissa Reich and
the conservancy’s summer
steZardship creZ guided the
violets’ journey from a nurs-
ery in Tillamook to the Circle
Creek property, Zhere they
Zill stay for the time being.
Come fall, the violets, Zhich
Zere groZn using seeds prop-
agated from the seeds of na-
tive Clatsop County plants,
Zill be taken to their perma-
nent homes on the Clatsop
Plains and Long Beach Pen-
insula.
“The plants have had a
long journey, and they have a
long journey ahead of them,”
Reich said.
The journey started Zhen
the conservancy gathered
seeds from À oZers groZing
on its salt spray meadoZ prop-
erties on the Clatsop Plains.
Those seeds Zere sent to the
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service’s Plant Materials
Center in Corvallis, Zhere
they Zere planted to make
a full bed of À oZers. 2nce
the À oZers had matured, the
center gathered a bag of their
seeds and sent them to the
conservancy as part of a pro-
cess knoZn as seed banking,
land conservancy Executive
Director Katie Voelke said.
In January 2014, staff
and volunteers planted about
16,000 seeds into individual
containers at the NorthZest
Oregon Restoration Partner-
ship’s native plant nursery in
Tillamook. Since the coast
seeds Zere groZn in the val-
ley, the group Zanted to re-
adapt them to the coastal cli-
mate. More than a year later,
the conservancy Zent back to
collect thousands of burgeon-
ing shoots.
“There are a feZ genera-
tions involved in these vio-
lets,” Voelke said of the tiny
plants noZ soaking up sun-
shine and rain at Circle Creek.
It Zas important, she said,
KATHERINE LACAZE PHOTO
On June 30, the North Coast Land Conservancy brought nu-
merous beds of early blue violets to the organization’s Circle
Creek property, just south of Seaside.
to maintain the À oZers’ coast
genetics for the sake of the
project.
In the fall, the conservancy
Zill reach out to volunteers to
plant the À oZers at its prop-
erty on the Long Beach Pen-
insula and the Clatsop Plains.
See Violets, Page 11A