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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 2015)
4A • August 7, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com More than a pass-through, Elsie is at crossroads C ounty commissioner Lianne Thompson is an ebullient am- bassador for the South Coun- ty She Zas the ¿ rst one to come into my of¿ ce on my arriYal here this sprinJ and she has since Yisited a couple of times. An Arch Cape resident, she of- fered an unusual proposition, a tour of some of the less-traYeled parts of Clatsop County. Yes, we were quickly becom- ing familiar with the cities along the coast, Cannon Beach, Seaside, Gearhart and northward, as well as the unincorporated areas of Arch Cape, Surf 3ines and ToloYana Park. But newcomers are not always aware of the impressiYe geography and scenic roads in the interior, and Thompson proposed a journey to El- sie, Hamlet and Jewell, unincorpo- rated areas with a Seaside ZIP code and county serYices. We were passingly familiar with the Highway driYe-through with stops at Camp 18, the “dining and logging experience” run by Gordon Smith, (not the U.S. Sena- tor Gordon H. Smith) with authentic logging-style architecture and fea- tures, including an 85-foot ridgepole weighing 25 tons. Down the road a little bit east toward Washington County are the Elderberry Inn and Baker’s General Store, busy pit stops for those head- ing from Portland to the coast. We met with Diane Jette, the principal broker of Summa Real Estate Group Downtown, and the unof¿ cial Yoice of Elsie. Elsie, an unincorporated area at the eastern border of Route 26 in Clatsop, has about 367 house- holds, according to Jette. There is no city goYernment for emergency serYices, residents rely on the Elsie Vinemaple Fire Protection District, with about 2 Yolunteers to coYer 300 square miles of land. “Maybe more, including Jew- ell, and the Grange, which is across from the school,” Jette said. S EEN FROM S EASIDE B Y R.J. MARX Elsie, like so much on the Oregon coast, is endangered. Lying on the edge of urban sprawl from Portland and gaining favor with those priced out of Cannon Beach, the green hills of Elsie may soon be more than a pass- through and secret sanctuary. With EMTs and paramedics on the ¿ re department, responders can monitor Yital statistics and get IVs started while ambulances are dis- patched from Seaside, which is 23 miles away. “From Astoria, add an- other 10 total,” Jette said. It can take 20 minutes to an hour for an ambulance to arriYe, she said. Elsie residents shop in Hills- boro, Forest GroYe, Fred Meyer in Cornelius, and Cornelius Walmart Supercenter. Medical facilities and shopping serYices are about 25 miles away. Elsie was named after Elsie Fos- ter, a relatiYe of the ¿ rst postmaster, George Gragg, in about 1892. Leading issues in Elsie are cable serYice, road safety and housing. El- sie residents made a deal with Cen- turyLink, but as population grew, they crowded the broadband and serYice bottlenecked to a crawl. “I haYe to pay for broadband,” Jette said. “Sometimes I haYe a bene¿ t from it, but usually don’t. They’Ye attached too many people to the existing space. Now as each person is added on, it’s sometimes like dial-up.” At Baker’s General Store, the town’s hub, Jette corralled an ODOT worker and asked her if there was a chance that traf¿ c could be slowed passing through “downtown” El- sie — the intersection of Highway 26 and the Elderberry Inn, which neighbors Baker’s General Store. As it is now, the speed is 55 and driYers can pass, Jette said. “We get rear-end collisions be- cause of the traf¿ c piling up as some- one is taking a left into the store,” she said. “We haYe people pulling out of traf¿ c going 55 entering the parking lot — they try to slow down, but they’re right on your fanny. You come off Highway 26 coming way too fast and hit the brakes like an airplane landing. That’s Yery dan- gerous. The store’s there. There are children.” An earlier near miss led the gen- eral store owners to relocate a pro- pane storage tank, Jette said. “The owners said, ‘Holy moly, this could be disaster!’” According to Jette, attempts to bring speed reduction are stalled. ODOT has “little sliYers” of bureau- cracy. “One takes care of painting the roads, another takes care of signs — they don’t talk to each other,” she said. “As much as we haYe asked, begged and pleaded for a turn lane or a slowdown, they say, ‘The law says you can’t haYe it.’” Jette guided us on a tour to some of the more distant reaches of Elsie, areas where the Humbug Creek runs and streets haYe storybook names like Christmas Tree Lane and Misty Mountain Road. We took a rustic turn to EYer- green Acres, an outpost of trailers and pre-fabs off the main road, where folks of an independent spirit liYe in harmony and without intru- SUBMITTED PHOTO The Elderberry Inn, along with Baker’s General Store, is the hub of Elsie. sion of homeowners associations or condo boards. While perhaps a bit rough for the BeaYerton and Gresh- am crowd, Jette assured us that the residents were liYing their dreams, not quite off the grid but pretty close to the edge. While most of the homes are Yery much liYed in, Jette guided us to a shell of a house hidden behind tall grasses and hulls of old wrecks. “It’s been abandoned for years,” she said. “It’s got garbage heaps, rats and other health Yiolations back there. It needs to be squared away.” Jette said getting the county to clear the way for remoYal of the abandoned structure has taken years. Meanwhile, down by the Ne- halem RiYer, site-built homes nes- tled in the woods offer elegant and expansiYe surroundings. “Houses range from single-wide manufactured from a third acre to half acre, from $60,000 and up, and we haYe large spacious open homes, riYerfront with a few acres for more than half a million,” Jette said. “I loYe the pioneer attitude of the people,” she said. “When a disaster strikes like it did in 2006, we didn’t dial 911. We just checked on our neighbors and helped anybody who needed help.” Another thing she loYes about El- sie is the air. “I always think eYery time I open the windows I’m getting the breeze from the ocean with- out the salt, the sweet. fresh open breeze that come from the sea.” But it’s the people of Elsie who in- trigue her most. “We haYe a huge Yariety of peo- ple, brainiacs, Intel people, adYen- turers, artists, rednecks, and kind of in-between people, just the salt of the earth people, they look after their children, their grandchildren. They haYe deep traditions in supporting the Jewell School. It’s an eclectic mix of interesting people.” Elsie, like so much on the Oregon coast is endangered. Lying on the edge of urban sprawl from Portland and gaining faYor with those priced out of Cannon Beach, the green hills of Elsie may soon be more than a pass-through and secret sanctuary for those who let their own À ags À y. First, though, they need to get ODOT to pay attention. R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Students from Elsie attend the Jewell School, “the gem of the Pacifi c Northwest.” R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Diane Jette and other residents are asking the county to take action on this abandoned eyesore. Scene and Heard CLAIRE LOVELL Why can’t people just cool it a little on our roads? I’Ye written seYeral times about the killdeer at the Sea- side Outlets and the subject is not exhausted. They’re the pretty ring-necked birds that screech and run foot races in the grass near the fountain. They also like a green patch by the theater. Habitat is from there to 9th AYenue, with a lot of low À ying back and forth across the highway to the AdYentist Church. Recently, an adult and two babies took oYer 9th AYenue. The mama did most of the hollering but all three were in our busy road too much, skittering here and there. Of course that worried me and sure enough, in a few minutes a guy came barreling along and though I tried to warn him, his speed ineYita- bly caused him to smash one of the little birds. I retrieYed the dead baby and laid him in the strawberry patch. Why can’t people just cool it a lit- tle? I thought we’d settled it with “In One Ear,” once and for all that Seaside’s Broad- way is not Broadway Street. Further that streets and driYes run north and south while aYenues run east and west. I remind The Daily Astorian of this because a recent paper wrote of 9th Street. I know that one since I liYe on it and CLAIRE LOVELL it’s 9th AYenue! Then they began a new error by writing of Oceanway Street — good grief — another redundancy, Obituaries Joan Veronica Ryan Nov. 24, 1926 — July 23, 2015 After two years of braYely ¿ ghting pancre- atic cancer, Joan V. Ryan passed away in her home, surrounded by her family in Seaside, Ore. She was born in VancouYer, B.C., to Margaret and Herbert Hem- ington. She attended St. Mary’s Academy and Marylhurst College. She married Ernest M. Ryan, who proceeded her in death in 1997. They were married for 50 years. Joan was a social worker for Multnomah and Clatsop counties for 38 years. After retirement, she traYeled the world extensiYely, and she was an aYid quilter, master gardener and Yolunteer. Preceding her in death Joan Ryan are her children Paul, Therese and Peter Ryan. SurYiYors include her broth- er, Herbert Hemington sis- ter, Mary Christman her children, Pat Ryan, Marga- ret Lafrenz, Anne Losing- er, MaryJo Ryan, Eliza- beth Lannigan and Sarah Ahmed 23 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. She was a deYoted wife mother and grandmother. She will be greatly missed by all. A funeral Mass will be held at St. Ignatius Catho- lic Church, at the corner SE 43rd AYenue and Powell BouleYard in Portland, Fri- day, July 31, at 11 a.m. a rosary is at 10:30 a.m. Re- membrances to the ProYi- dence Cancer Center for pancreatic cancer research are welcomed. Mount Scott Funer- al Home in Portland is in charge of the arrangements. An online guest book may be signed at www. mtscottfuneralhome.com. which I hope they’ll forget. I can hear a “there she goes again,” but after all, right is right. On the third of July, I walked to Safeway to ¿ ll up my cupboard. Imagine my chagrin on ¿ nishing shopping to learn that one cab compa- ny had an hour and 45 minute waiting time while the other one had taken two hours off. Holidays are when the home folks are supposed to work extra hard to make money and serYe the tourists. The Fourth is our busiest day. I missed the parade because it always hap- pens when I’m at the beauty shop. After the walk home I didn’t haYe energy for a trek to the museum, though a cou- ple of horses did run by on my street, so I settled down to watch the celebration on TV — concerts and martial music. I looked forward to a long eYening of enjoyment but when the lights went out about 5:45 p.m., I prayed that the restaurateurs wouldn’t haYe to wait foreYer to serYe their hungry customers. My own dinner wasn’t all that exciting so I decided to pam- per myself with a red, white and blue dessert. It was red currants and blueberries in Yanilla ice cream. Afterward, I chose to sing my own con- cert of patriotic songs. Good thing I was alone! We had been warned all week about the possibility of terrorism on the holiday. Little did we know it would be terrorism of our own making — a loose Mylar balloon that À ew into the wiring and blew a trans- former. This has happened at least twice before. Why can’t we haYe a transformer on standby — or perhaps some generators? Laugh line: Now that I’m older, here’s what I’Ye discoYered: If all is not lost, then where the heck is it? Golf tournament benefi ts Camp Kiwanilong SUBMITTED PHOTO Bob Burns, Deborah “Sparky” Vail, Kiwanian Kevin O’Keane, Park Ranger Amy Koch, Carolyn Anderson and Marilyn Dwyer. This year, Kiwanian Kevin O’Keane recruited 18 golf teams as the Kiwanis Club of Seaside held a golf tournament at the Seaside Golf Club. Proceeds of $4,000 were donated to Camp Kiwanilong.