SEASIDESIGNAL.COM • COMPLIMENTARY COPY
OUR 110th YEAR • May 13, 2016
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Memories fl ow at Seaside High School
By SUSAN ROMERSA
For Seaside Signal
M
emories fl owed as alumni from past de-
cades joined students for a centennial
celebration of Seaside High School.
The school began as Seaside
Union High School on the same
property it stands on today.
Steve Phillips, class of ’66, remembers
muscle cars being the “in” thing. “We had
never heard of a tsunami,” Phillips said at
the Saturday afternoon event.
In 1943, there were about 45 students in her class in the Cen-
tral School, Gloria Linkey recalled.
Her grade was the fi rst to play on Broadway
Field — and claimed a number of upset victories
for their football team over rival Astoria High
School.
They didn’t have computers or cell phones in
those days, and some students did not have tele-
phones at home, Linkey said. But they did
have something special — they had friends.
See Centennial, Page 10A
Seaside Union High School in an undated photo.
SEASIDE SIGNAL/SUBMITTED PHOTO
School district eager to launch new bond plan
Superintendent
‘optimistic’ about bond
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
PAID
PERMIT NO. 97
ASTORIA, OR
PRSRT STD
US POSTAGE
When U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden paid a visit to Seaside
last month, his goal was to
help the school district move
schools in the tsunami inunda-
tion zone to safety.
That will require passage of
a new bond, three years after a
$128.8 million plan failed with
voters.
State and federal assistance
will be critical to its passage,
Seaside School District Su-
perintendent Doug Dougherty
said Monday.
“One of the pieces we
heard over and over again was
our community wanted to have
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
Doug Dougherty, Ron Wyden and Don Larson hope to relo-
cate Seaside’s endangered schools.
some type of help from the
state and federal government
to offset local costs,” he said.
Dougherty and the school
board intend to put the bond
on the November ballot to pay
for the relocation of Seaside
High School, Gearhart Ele-
mentary School and Broadway
Middle School. “What we’re
looking at is a school that will
eventually be expanded in one
direction or another, then build
another elementary school or
middle school up the hill to the
east,” Dougherty said. “We’re
still discussing plans and com-
ponents.”
As Dougherty and offi -
cials seek funds from state
and federal sources, they’ll
also ask the community to as-
sess local enthusiasm.
A 2013 poll was conduct-
ed by telephone, Dougherty
said, but components of this
year’s polling have yet to be
determined.
Feedback could determine
the scope of the bond, he
said.
Three community forums
in 2013 were attended by par-
ents, students and community
members who brainstormed
about what should be includ-
ed in the campus, and other
forums, involving district
faculty and staff members
and Seaside High School stu-
dent leaders, also were held.
Dougherty said “there is
no specifi c plan as yet,” but
the most important goal, dis-
cussed in a board subcom-
With roadwork paid for,
Seaside builds reserves
City’s 2016-17 budget proposal
boasts a 20 percent reduction
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
Seaside was slammed by three major inci-
dents in the last year: a power failure on the
Fourth of July, a signifi cant storm in August for
Hood to Coast and the tragic loss of a police
offi cer killed in the line of duty in February.
The city’s preliminary budget recognizes
the impacts of those incidents.
“It wasn’t so much of a fi nancial standpoint,”
City Manager Mark Winstanley said Thursday.
“More it’s the impact on staff and how they
handle things. These are major, major events.
Having any one of them would have been the
kind of challenges that cities have once every
10 years, and we’ve had three in one year.”
Seaside’s
pro-
posed budget calls
for revenues and ex-
penditures of $18.6
million, an almost
20 percent reduction
from this fi scal year’s
budget of almost $23
million.
The reason is
completion of work
on North Holladay
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
Drive.
“Next year we City Manager Mark
don’t have a North Winstanley explains
Holladay project, so the 2016-17 budget.
the amount of expen-
diture is going to go down by $3.4 million.”
Winstanley said.
See Budget, Page 5A
mittee, is to get schools out
of the tsunami zone.
Preliminary plans
Along with a plea for fed-
eral support, Dougherty shared
preliminary plans to relocate at-
risk schools.
The district intends to de-
velop property east of Seaside
Heights Elementary School
owned by Weyerhaeuser , the
same site proposed in 2013.
“We have had many geo-
techs evaluating that hillside,”
Dougherty said. “They strong-
ly believe that is the very best
piece of property to relocate the
school district.”
No new roads would need to
be built, he said.
A major tsunami wave driv-
en by a megathrust quake could
reach 90 to 120 feet. Elevation
at the proposed site rises from
80 feet at the bottom edge to
several hundred feet.
The property would need to
be purchased and placed with-
in the urban growth boundary,
Dougherty said.
Dougherty said the district
is still in process of negotiating
with Weyerhaeuser for the land
and a purchase price has yet to
be determined.
“I signed a nondisclosure
agreement so I can’t say where
we are in the process,” Dough-
erty added.
If the bond is approved by
voters in November, Dougherty
estimates it will take four years
to move all students to safety.
The district has not de-
termined the move would be
phased in or done all at once.
“It will likely take time to
move kids from each school,”
Dougherty said.
Students to serve up
‘Breakfast Club’
By Katherine Lacaze
For Seaside Signal
Three Seaside High School
seniors are using their Pacifi -
ca Project as an opportunity
to produce a stage version of
the iconic 1980s movie, “The
Breakfast Club.”
Under the direction of
siblings Bridgette and Jake
Malone and Chloe Kincaid,
a 10-member cast will put
on John Hughes’s classic
coming-of-age tale, at 7 p.m.
May 19, 20 and 21 at the high
school.
The story follows fi ve
students, each representing a
different stereotypical high
school clique, who fi nd them-
selves thrown together in all-
day detention on a Saturday.
After hours of talking, and
slowly opening up to one an-
other, the students discover
they share important similar-
ities, despite their varying so-
cial status.
“I really like that we chose
‘The Breakfast Club,’ just be-
cause it is about high school,”
Bridgette Malone said. “It’s
about kids from different
walks of life coming together
and realizing that, hey, they
can be friends and it can work
out.”
Jake Malone agreed.
See Play, Page 10A