4A • February 3, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com
SignalViewpoints
Committee seeks a
more robust fi rehouse
Do they still teach
civics anymore?
hen you get to be as old as I am, it’s OK to
repeat yourself and with this story I may have.
It goes with the syndrome of aging so it’s all
W
right.
They have always told us that two subjects one
doesn’t discuss in mixed company are politics and reli-
gion. I fi nd this hard to accept because each is fascinat-
ing and I’m not politically correct enough to obey the
suggestion.
Being the
voice of one
“crying in the
SCENE & HEARD
wilderness” is
CLAIRE
LOVELL
not too happy
a spot either.
I’m glad the
inauguration is
fi nally over and we can get back to some semblance of
normalcy.
Choosing a cabinet has been interesting. When I was
in school, we had a device to remember the different
departments of government. It was the letters in ST
WAPNIACL, which signifi ed State, Treasury, War,
Army, Post Offi ce, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Com-
merce and Labor. I don’t even know if these are today’s
designations and others have probably been added, but
changes are inevitable.
According to man-on-the-street Q&A sessions by a
well known TV personality, some of today’s “students”
don’t seem to know anything about anything like “who
is buried in Grant’s tomb.” School for me was an adven-
ture. Do they ever teach civics anymore?
Along about the 1930s, I remember a cover of the
Liberty magazine, which sold for 5 cents. Can you
imagine publishing any magazine for a nickel? The
illustration was of two young ladies pulling each other’s
hair. They were “fl appers” so it may have been the late
1920s. Each was wearing a necklace — the blond with
a donkey and the brunette with an elephant. The caption
was “a little political pull.” In my mind’s eye, it’s still
very vivid.
The night of Jan. 10, I watched news from Portland
and the snow was coming down in great chunks. Those
reporting at the scene were dressed like Alaskans and
were certainly having some diffi culties. What a job!
Traffi c in one instance was at a stand still — streams
of cars because one vehicle at the front of the line
had gone launchwise. Eventually they moved again.
We were told there would be snow from Tillamook to
Astoria, so I wasn’t surprised to see one-half to an inch
of white in the a.m., although it was mostly melted by
11:30 a.m. It ain’t summer yet!
MLK, Jr. Day dawned a little springy. It certainly
brought out the birds with a temperature of 40 degrees.
When I got up, ice was still on the puddles but after it
melted, sparrows and starlings all joined in a drink and
a communal splash. Can you imagine that? Drinking
your bath water? It’s for the birds.
A trio of deer, mom and two well-grown fawns, were
back in my yard on Thursday. Saturday there were only
two and one (mom) had an injured hind leg, possibly
broken though she was able to hop around on three. I
hate to think the third creature might have been hurt in
the same incident. I know they rescue birds all the time,
so I called the police, not knowing what to do. “Letting
nature take its course” seemed to be the order of the
day.
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
The Gearhart fi rehouse.
W
hile the Gearhart
Firehouse may look
just fi ne to the casual
observer, for fi refi ghters
and the community, the
building is a disaster waiting to happen:
seismically unable to survive a Cascadia
quake, too small to accommodate mod-
ern equipment and inadequate to provide
shelter or a gathering space after a natural
disaster.
Volunteer fi refi ghter Josh Como was
among others at a January volunteer
appreciation night to voice their support
for a new building.
“Whether it’s for ease and accessi-
bility for people to get in and out or to
store equipment, right now we’re maxed
out on lockers to have people store their
gear,” Como said. “We don’t have space
for any more new people or even to have
drills.”
“Infrastructure is huge for Gearhart
now,” Mayor Matt Brown said. “We have
to make sure we protect our fi refi ghters.”
During his 2016 campaign, Brown
said a new fi rehouse would be a top city
priority.
“It’s pretty dire,” fi re committee
co-chairman Jay Speakman said. “This
station was built in the late 1950s by
local volunteer labor that came and did
most of the work themselves.”
The structure was constructed using
hollow tile and cinder block, long before
the impacts of a Cascadia Subduction
Zone event were known. “It’s been
determined that any reasonably sized
earthquake will possibly collapse the
building,” Speakman said. “We’ve got
many hundreds of thousands of dollars of
equipment in this building and it would
not be prudent to jeopardize that by hav-
ing a building that’s not stable.”
Committee member Gary Gillam
pointed to a cornerstone with a dedication
date of 1958.
“We have to create something for
these guys that addresses the needs of
today,” Gillam said. “It’s sagging about
5 inches and we have a lake every time it
rains hard.”
Brown, former Mayor Dianne
Widdop, along with councilors like
committee co-chairwoman Sue Lorain
and councilor Dan Jesse, have called the
fi rehouse the city’s most pressing issue.
The current building, Lorain said, is
“not only a piece of junk at the present
time, if we get a new building, it would
enhance our city even more.”
The endgame, Lorain said, might
be to locate the new building out of the
tsunami zone.
“When we fi rst started the commit-
tee a year ago, we all had a tour of the
fi re hall,” she said. “We learned about
the cinder blocks that are cracking, we
learned about the walls that are crum-
bling inside. It’s not such a different
scenario from the schools.”
Learning from the
school bond
When Gearhart 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,
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
David F. Pero
R.J. Marx
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
R.J. MARX
City Hall and fi re station.
“Several years ago there was a bond
issue put together by the fi re depart-
ment with no citizen input at all,” City
Administrator Chad Sweet said. “To a
lot of people it seemed to be extremely
expensive with a lot of bells and whistles
that may not have been necessary.”
The vote that year was 327-231, with
58 percent of residents voting against it.
Sweet, the city’s liaison to the fi re-
house committee, said he believes if the
city had asked for a fi re station alone in
2006, voters would have approved it.
“One of the issues we found by adding
the city hall as part of the construction
that it politicized the issue,” he said this
week. “This time we’re exploring an
approach to just replace the fi re station.”
But a second vote has waited more
than 10 years as other pressing econom-
ic and infrastructure needs siphoned
attention.
‘It’s been determined
that any reasonably sized
earthquake will possibly
collapse the building.
We’ve got many hundreds
of thousands of dollars
of equipment in this
building and it would not
be prudent to jeopardize
that by having a building
that’s not stable.’
Jay Speakman,
fi re committee co-chairman
In 2006, Gearhart voters approved a
bond for a $3.75 million water treatment
plant. In 2009, bond votes passed for a
new fi re engine and a fi ve-year levy for a
new fi re station north of the city at West
Lake Lane and Highway 101.
Add to that the $99.7 million bond
to move district schools — including
Gearhart Elementary School — out of the
tsunami zone, and a new fi rehouse again
got pushed to the back burner.
That bond, like the fi rehouse bond,
had been put in front of voters in 2013
when it was proposed on a grander scale.
At $128.8 million, voters said not only
no, but “hell no.”
However offi cials, students and com-
munity members knew that this wasn’t a
matter of if, but when — and fashioned
the new bond to show greater economy
of scale. The summer and fall was spent
raising support for the measure — which
ultimately won convincing approval.
ADVERTISING
MANAGER
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
Betty Smith
Carl Earl
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
ADVERTISING
SALES
John D. Bruijn
Brandy Stewart
Some of the same voices involved
in the school bond are seeking a safer
Gearhart as members of the fi re safety
committee.
“I am on the fi re safety committee,”
said Lori Lum Toyooka, who was also
active in the school district’s “Vote Yes
for Our Local Schools” group. “The
building is old and needs to be updated
to current modern standards.”
During last fall’s campaign, advo-
cates of the new campus took the case
not only to parents but to retirees, fami-
lies without children, vacation property
owners and other stakeholders who may
have been neglected during the 2013
bond campaign.
“Because I worked on the school
bond issue with Lori and others, we
should go to school with what the
school bond people did with a lot of
the grassroots meetings in homes,”
Gillam said. “It really helped this time,
as opposed to when it went down three
years ago.”
Details await
The fi rehouse committee was ap-
pointed in September 2015, tasked to
examine the problem and come up with
solutions.
The committee looked at seven
possible sites, he said, both city and
private property, including the current
location. “We created a matrix to grade
all of these sites,” Speakman said. “We
started with geology and some of them
were eliminated right away, because
they were close to water.”
Sites with low elevation and un-
stable soils were also removed from
consideration.
Locations were prioritized by
distance from the general population,
accessibility for fi re volunteers and
“survivability.”
While the report is not yet public,
Speakman said the group “went wide”
in their search, considering the current
Pacifi c Way location, the Highlands,
east of the highway and on higher
ground within the city.
“The bottom line is we want a build-
ing that is survivable after a good-sized
earthquake that could be followed by a
tsunami,” Speakman said.
In response to the 2006 bond defeat,
committee members this time around
have decided to concentrate on a public
safety building which would include
fi re and police, Speakman said. “We
decided this existing city hall could be
renovated, which could save a lot of
money right up front.”
“Last time the volunteers and the
city worked up a plan, the residents
weren’t very much a part of the discus-
sions,” Sweet said. “This time a group
of residents have come together to
discuss the issue and bring this up as a
grassroots effort.”
As for costs, “We don’t have a
number,” Speakman said. “We’re still in
the exploration phases. We do have an
architect and we do have a grant from
the city.”
The question is: Is there a civic will
for a new construction project?
For fi refi ghters and the community
they protect, it can’t come soon enough.
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
Rebecca Herren
Katherine Lacaze
Claire Lovell
Eve Marx
Esther Moberg
Jon Rahl
Laugh Lines
Q: How should you treat a baby goat?
A: Like a kid.
Q: How do you mount a horse?
A: Take it to a taxidermist.
LETTERS
Winter hunger
The South County Community Food Bank, a food
pantry, has always valued the support of the local com-
munity. Although there are organizations at the national,
state and local level helping us, hungry families, children
and seniors have been fed through the generosity of
locals and businesses for more than 30 years.
Community support in 2016 was remarkable, particu-
larly during the holidays. Thank you. Now winter is here.
This is the hungriest time of the year. Work is scarce
and the holiday contributions are fi nished. Community
support is needed more than ever. Whatever you can do
will help those who cannot help themselves.
At this time we think of the locals who started this
food pantry. The founders, like Harry Miller, are now
gone. They wanted to create an institution to help feed
the neediest in this community. The South County Com-
munity Food Bank, a food pantry and a 501(c)(3) organi-
zation is still here, and the children and their families and
other hungry locals are still here.
Your support is needed the most at this time of the
year. You can contribute by mailing a check to P.O. Box
602, Seaside, OR 97138, or by dropping a contribution of
food or money to our building at 2041 N. Roosevelt Drive
in Seaside. Whatever you can do will help. Thank you.
James C. Casterline
South County Community Food Bank
board member and past president
Gearhart
Use power plant emissions
“Let’s get rid of natural gas.” Since I drove into
Clatsop County 14 years ago, this has been the rallying
cry heard from every side. My Seaside home and my
hot water are heated with natural gas, and my electricity
is generated using natural gas. What to do?
See Letters, Page 5A
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
Copyright 2017 © Seaside Signal.
Nothing can be reprinted or copied
without consent of the owners.
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.