July 24, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 5A
Side Rail  JON RAHL
New Seaside smartphone app a perfect tool for all
A little over seven years
have passed (July 11, 2008
to be exact) since the iPhone
3G launched and consumers
started embracing (or ignor-
ing — depending on your
view) a world full of apps
(short for applications). In
2009, Apple’s promotion
of the iPhone included the
phrase, “there’s an app for
that,” when touting how
much its popular device
could handle, and use of the
phrase became standard in
pop culture.
After more than 100 bil-
lion app downloads (accord-
ing to an Apple report in June
of this year) for more than 1.4
million apps, I think we’d be
hard pressed to ¿nd some-
thing that an app hadn’t been
created for. It’s not just Apple
either. Google Play, original-
ly the Android Market, is a
little over six-and-half-years-
old and supports about the
same number of apps.
Four years ago, Seaside
took its ¿rst step into the
world of apps. Led by the
trail development of Seaside
Naturally, at the time a Sea-
side Chamber of Commerce
project, the app was designed
to showcase the abundance
of trails and bird-watching in
the area. The app did pretty
well, but we lost the ability
to update information, and it
slowly faded into the digital
abyss.
Now, after a lot of analysis
and continual thinking about
the best way to get infor-
mation to the public, we’ve
launched a new app designed
to be a quick, go-to source for
both visitors and locals.
JON RAHL
The application is not
meant to be a replacement for
our website or the other ways
we interact with folks. Our
e-newsletters, text offers and
partner programs will contin-
ue to be used. What the app
does is offer our most popular
and engaging content in a con-
densed and very clean format.
Tide tables, upcoming events,
Seaside history and even a
“Deals” section are quickly
accessible using the app.
One of the most exciting
features is our Audio Walking
Tour, packaged nicely into six
stops, with an accompanying
map and in-app access to six
video teasers of the historic
locations. Click on the map
view and you’ll see your cur-
rent location mixed amongst
six red dots. Those dots indi-
cate the location where each
audio tour takes place.
Also included are a list
of all the lodging establish-
ments, places to eat and ways
to “See Seaside” (On the
Ground, On the Water, On
Wheels, From Above and
With a License). A number of
SUBMITTED PHOTO
A new app opens a window
into the world of Seaside.
these categories are still be-
ing populated with content,
but we believe we are well on
our way to a nice companion
piece to our website. I envi-
sion locals being drawn to
it as much as visitors since I
regularly get asked, by locals,
where the best place to get a
list of events is. The app also
features push noti¿cations,
giving us the ability to let
businesses offer something
special and then “push” it
out to those with the app in-
stalled.
You can download your
own copy by visiting the
Apple App or Google Play
stores and searching “Sea-
side, Oregon.”
Have a thought or a ques-
tion about tourism in Seaside,
or maybe an idea for a future
column? Drop me an email at
jon@seasideor.com.
Jon Rahl is the director
of tourism for the Seaside
Visitors Bureau and assis-
tant general manager of the
Seaside Civic & Convention
Center.
Letters to the Editor
A bypass would
help, not hurt
Open letter to the Sea-
side City Council, the Sea-
side Planning Department,
the Seaside Downtown
Business Association, the
Seaside Chamber of Com-
merce, Clatsop County, and
the Oregon Department of
Transportation: Shame on
you. You have consistently
abused the very people who
supply the income for the
city.
The primary source of
money for the city of Seaside
is the tourist, most of whom
travel over U.S. Highways
26 and 101 to bring their
cash to you. I live about
three miles out on Highway
26, or seven miles from the
center of Seaside. On any
given holiday weekend, or
when a special event is hap-
pening in the area, traf¿c
gets backed-up all the way
out past my house. I just
experienced the back-up
¿rst hand, trying to get from
Astoria to my home, it took
over 2.5 hours to get from
the Great Wall restaurant in
Gearhart to my house, a total
of about 10 miles.
To the best of my knowl-
edge, there is currently no
plan, or even discussion, of
building a bypass east of Sea-
side so that the people who
wish to get to Fort Stevens,
Long Beach, Wash., or other
points beyond Seaside, can
avoid the horrendous grid-
lock.
I have heard some local
business people say that they
want the extra traf¿c. Trust
me; people who are stuck in
a lineup, literally for hours,
are not going to stop at you
place of business, unless that
is their primary destination. I
can imagine the family emo-
tional atmosphere, after they
have endured two miles per
hour travel for an hour or
two.
Several years ago they
built a bypass around down-
town Cannon Beach. That
town is Àourishing. Is there
really a logical reason that
there is not at least a design
on the drawing board to build
a new highway, east of Sea-
side, with three to four access
exits to the city?
I do not live within the
city limits of Seaside, so I
have no say in your planning,
but it amazes me how poorly
you continually treat the tour-
ists traveling to and through
your city.
Cleve Rolfe
Seaside
I don’t know what to do to
help this situation but I hope
that some people will read
this and do their part to help
keep this wonderful town
clean!
Thank you for reading
this. Let’s all strive to keep
Seaside clean!
Lisa Lawson
Seaside
Help to keep
beaches clean
We need better
infrastructure
To the editor,
I will start this letter to let
people know I love my small
town of Seaside. We moved
here from the valley two
years ago and we do not re-
gret the decision.
What is bothering me is the
litter that happens in this town.
Cigarette butts everywhere —
dog doo on sidewalks and
garbage on the beach. I am
not going to blame the tour-
ists for all of it. This happens
in the winter months too. I
will see my neighbors throw
their cigarette butts down and
their dogs poop in front of my
house.
Anyone who lives on
the North Coast should
have been embarrassed by
the six-hour Fourth of July
electrical power failure at
the Paci¿c Power substation
in Seaside. Clatsop Coun-
ty is a remote island where
Paci¿c Power (a major pro-
ducer of electricity generat-
ed in Wyoming from coal)
provides electrical service.
The Paci¿c Power Clatsop
service district is surround-
ed by public utility districts
supplying electricity gener-
ated from reliable renewable
sources in Tillamook and
Clatskanie that result not
only in lower consumer cost
but signi¿cant reductions in
greenhouse gas. Evidently
the Seaside substation trans-
former failure was caused
by a brazen red, white and
blue balloon attack. Come
on girls and guys, we need a
better-designed utility infra-
structure.
Millersburg Oregon, a
small town in the Willamette
Valley of 1,500 residents has
— as of May 18 — complet-
ed its ¿nal business plan to
break away from Paci¿c
Power and form a municipal
utility to reduce consumer
costs. They found that there
are currently 12 municipal
utilities operating in Ore-
gon, all of which have elec-
tric rates lower than Paci¿c
Power.
Possibly if the Seaside
City Council or the Clat-
sop County Commissioners
could ¿nd the time, when
they are not too busy reg-
ulating panhandlers and
marijuana store locations,
they might actually be able
to do something to improve
the lives of residents and
visitors as well as the viabil-
ity of businesses. Properly
designed, a local electrical
utility could use renewable
energy and eliminate the
three- to six-month electri-
cal outage that is project-
ed for our area by the state
when the Cascadia Fault
earthquake and tsunami oc-
curs. It might also survive in
the case of a balloon attack.
John Dunzer
Seaside
Time to clean
up downtown
What is going on in Sea-
side this summer? No one
seems to be sweeping the
sidewalks. I have never seen
so many cigarette butts and
so much litter downtown.
I have picked up lots of
litter myself and I sweep in
front of the business where
I work, because I never see
anyone else doing it.
I have never seen Seaside
sidewalks so messy before.
It’s a real shame!
Jorjett Strumme
Seaside
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