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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2016)
4A • September 2, 2016 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com SignalViewpoints Plans for new motel on the Prom cut close to home Remembering the glamor days of Jean Harlow and Clark Gable t was fun to see the fi lm on OPB about the Uni- versity of Washington’s rowing team in the 1936 Olympics while I was still reading “The Boys in the Boat.” It’s really a page-turner. What a story, but read- ing is more diffi - cult for me these days. Getting at SCENE & HEARD it, that is. CLAIRE LOVELL The Pearl of Seaside, a hotel in the embry- onic stage, will not be on Beach Avenue, since we don’t have one. That path is called Beach Drive, in harmony with Roosevelt Drive, Holladay Drive and Necanicum Drive. Ah, well — need I reiterate that streets run north and south, and avenues go east and west, while drives are special places one just learns, though they are north and south as well. I spent the evening of Aug. 5 watching the pageant- ry of the Parade of Nations in the Rio Olympics. Gee! How many countries were there? Wasn’t it a little ironic that this year’s theme was the environment? As always, it was a thrill to see our team come onto the fi eld. I think they said over 500 contestants, but every group was colorful and exciting. Some of the countries I’d never heard of and I missed the explanation of the trees carried in by the children. Probably they will be planted to mark this special year. Each of the athletes seemed elated and it’s at such times one has hope for the world. Especially gratifying was the refugee team. The whole production was fabulous, overlooked by Christ of the Andes. One day I actually used the TV Guide to determine my televiewing. I had decided to watch “Red Dust” with Jean Harlow but slept through it and came instead to an oldie called “Reckless.” It was not terrifi c but good enough to keep my attention ’til the end. When I was about 14 years of age, I saw a movie at the Strand Theater entitled “Hold Your Man,” a picture starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. It so moved me that I wrote Jean my fi rst fan letter and she replied. My kids always speculate on the autographed photo she sent me as probably more valuable than it is. Formerly a 9-by- 12 glamour shot, one of those kids tore it so that before framing, I had to do some serious trimming. Still, its value to me is considerable. I was so thrilled to get it and her life was so short. Holladay Drive, hastening toward completion, was known as 7th Street when I was a kid. It may even have been called Main Street, initially. My street, North Lincoln, was once 11th Street because people do like to rearrange the furniture. Outlanders often misspell Holla- day, sometimes omitting one “L” or other times, as if it were Christmas or Easter. It’s a small sin. Ben Holladay for whom it was named might not be so generous. Ben had a hotel and racetrack south of the Putter Room. The “In One Ear” picture of the old Cannon Beach road brought back memories. (Doesn’t everything?) I could almost feel the turns and felt like barfi ng. To add realism, one would have to change a tire about every three to four miles. We’ve come a long way. The old pictures in The Daily Astorian are always fun, too. I like the 1920 view of the turnaround just a year before the promenade was built. It looks so fl at. I R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Front yard of Inn at the Prom. The building would be replaced with the Pearl of Seaside. A ntoine Simmons and his wife Rocio want to build a 48-room hotel on the Prom. The neighbors think it’s too big and intrusive. At the end of the Aug. 22 Seaside City Coun- cil meeting, Councilor Jay Barber made a plea for conciliation. “I’d like to hear everyone come together to fi nd ways to make these plans work,” Barber said. “You are good neigh- bors, clearly. I challenge you to work toward a solution.” From all accounts, the neighbors — Susan and Dan Calef, Avrel Nudelman, Antoine and Rocio Simmons — are good SEEN FROM SEASIDE friends, and spent many a sunset togeth- R.J. MARX er enjoying the bounty of a great view and a beachfront property. They came through for each other in a pinch. “I am friends with my neighbors,” Simmons told council- ors. “We watch each others’ homes.” But neighbors do sometimes go against neighbors, and friends against friends, especially in the world of real estate development. What seems to have started as a cozy corner of Seaside res- idents near the beach and the Prom in now a matter occupying the agendas of the planning commission, which approved a variance for the 48-room Pearl of Seaside, and the city council. Simmons and neighbors laid out their cases at the council’s appeal hearing. For Simmons, it was an opportunity to share his vision for the Pearl of Seaside, a 48-room motel to be built at 341 South Prom. For many in the audience, it was a chance to vent about a process they see as far from a done deal. Hard work pays off Simmons told councilors he and his wife Rocio “followed a dream” in 2000 by moving to Cannon Beach. They pur- chased and managed the Blue Gull Inn on South Hemlock. “We worked there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing everything. It was a labor of love.” Their hard work paid off. In 2003, the Simmonses acquired the neighboring nine-unit Inn at Haystack Rock and the couple formed Haystack Lodging. They acquired the Edgewater Inn in Seaside in 2011, trans- forming it into the 15-room Inn at the Prom, Simmons said. “It was in disrepair,” he said. “We took it apart, put it back together and in six months opened.” In 2014, the Simmonses acquired the neighboring Gilbert Inn. “We were lucky to get it — just an amazing piece of histo- ry,” Simmons said. The former home of Seaside founding father Alexandre Gilbert — built in 1885 and expanded in 1892 — was turned into a romantic getaway, a bed-and-breakfast for adults over 18. Today it is lovingly maintained by the Simmonses. Pearl of Seaside The Pearl of Seaside, as developed by David Vonada of Tolovana Architects, will feature three fl oors of lodging with a penthouse capped by a tower roof and spire. R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Owner Avrel Nudelman fears his home could be enclosed or blocked by a new hotel on the Prom. The need for 51 parking spaces “is really the nut of all of this,” Simmons said. “If I could build the property 8 feet from Avrel’s property, we wouldn’t be here today,” he said. And that’s the problem. “I’m not opposed to a develop- ment,” Nudelman said. “I’m opposed to it being 3 feet from my property line. I don’t know why we have this zoning ordi- nance if we’re going to go against it.” Dan Calef said his grandfather inherited their duplex home in the 1930s from the photographer William Montag, who built the duplex as a companion property to a larger 1912 home. “My sister and I have lived here every summer of our lives,” Calef, 62, said. “We are concerned about the size. It will dwarf our property, completely shade our property, and be much taller than our house and put us in a dark, dank hole.” “I agree, Mr. Simmons does an outstanding job on his mo- tels and his properties,” Eldon Wexler, a builder, said. “But that doesn’t preclude him from doing things under city ordinance to protect the small person.” Several in the audience pointed to an obvious answer: ne- gotiation. “There’s a win here,” Seaside’s Pat Golding said. “It takes a little bit more money. You have to plan a little better. The ex- traordinary circumstances are, there’s not enough property. You either get enough property, or you look for property elsewhere.” “Either scale down the project or pay Mr. Nudelman for the land,” Marc Golding said. Whether they’ll be receptive to negotiations remains to be seen. “I don’t think either Avrel or I are particularly interested in selling,” Dan Calef said after the August meeting. “We realize we are a small residential unit in a resort residential area, and can expect to have expect to have mo- tels around us, but something smaller we can live with, that doesn’t tower over us,” Calef said. Regardless of what happens at the next City Council hear- ing, Sept. 12, “I know we’re going to remain friends,” Sim- mons said of his neighbors. “That’s just the way it is.” Laugh line Old is when you see a pretty girl and your pacemak- er causes the garage door to go up! LETTERS Get government back to ‘we the people’ We need to get the government of this country back into the hands of “we the people.” We need a Consti- tutional Convention now, to get our country back into our hands. Some of the most important issues to address are as follows, in proposed amendments for the U.S. Constitution: No. 28: Elected offi cials shall not serve more than two consecutive terms in the same offi ce. After being out of an offi ce for at least one term, the voters may re- elect a person back into that offi ce. Elected offi ces were never intended to be lifetime careers. No. 29: Appointed offi cials shall not serve in offi ce for longer than one and one half times the length of time that the person making the appointment serves in the offi ce from which the appointment is made. No. 30: Elected offi cials shall not pass any law, rule or tax that does not apply equally to all citizens of the U.S. Congress and the president should not be above the law of the land. No. 31: All laws not specifi cally included in the Con- stitution shall have an expiration date. Laws currently on the books shall be assigned an expiration date by the body which originally passed the law, not to exceed 50 years in the future. Laws approaching expiration, if deemed appropriate to continue, may be assigned a new expiration date, by a simple majority vote of the sponsoring body, unless otherwise challenged. No. 32: Any child born in the U.S. to parents who are not in the country legally shall not be considered a citizen of the U.S. unless proper naturalization process- es are followed (modifi es Amendment XIV). No. 33: No person, who is not in the U.S. legally, shall be entitled to benefi ts derived from public money, including but not limited to, schooling, welfare aide and medical assistance. Cleve Rolfe Seaside PUBLIC MEETINGS p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Tuesday, Sept. 6 Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., 1225 Avenue A. Monday, Sept. 12 Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., 1131 Broadway. Thursday, Sept. 8 Seaside Planning Commission, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside Convention Center Commission, 5 p.m., 1225 Avenue A. Wednesday, Sept. 7 Gearhart Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. Seaside Improvement Commission, 6:30 PUBLISHER EDITOR David F. Pero R.J. Marx Wednesday, Sept. 14 ADVERTISING MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER Betty Smith John D. Bruijn CIRCULATION MANAGER SYSTEMS MANAGER Heather Ramsdell Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Carl Earl ADVERTISING SALES Brandy Stewart Seaside Tree Board, 4 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Thursday, Sept. 15 Seaside Transportation Advisory Com- mission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Katherine Lacaze Claire Lovell Eve Marx Esther Moberg Jon Rahl Susan Romersa Seaside Signal Letter policy The Seaside Signal is published every other week by EO Media Group, 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, OR 97138. 503-738-5561 seasidesignal.com The Seaside Signal welcomes letters to the editor. The deadline is noon Monday prior to publication. Letters must be 400 words or less and must be signed by the author and include a phone number for verifi cation. We also request that submissions be limited to one letter per month. Send to 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive, Seaside, OR 97138, drop them off at 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive or fax to 503-738-9285. Or email rmarx@seasidesignal.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Annually: $40.50 in county • $58.00 in and out of county • e-Edition: only $30.00 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Seaside Signal, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. Postage Paid at Seaside, OR 97138 and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright 2015 © by the Seaside Signal. No portion of this newspaper may be re-produced without written permission. All rights reserved.