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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (July 7, 2017)
4A • July 7, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com SignalViewpoints Looking for 2 percent ‘to start a commitment’ I f we wanted to start yard debris pickup would that be city or Recology?” Councilor Randy Frank asked at the Monday, June 10, meeting of the Seaside City Council. That was the question I wanted to ask. Among fi rst things we did in our new Sea- side home was to get to work maintaining our beautiful yard. I quickly found out that creeping ivy was an invasive species squeez- ing out ferns and plantings and spreading the length of our fence. It wasn’t hard to pull out — unlike the ubiquitous poison ivy I dealt with in the East. In fact with my fi rst forays into ivy-pulling I was almost certain those tenebrous strands were at some point going to scream, “Gotcha!” But there was no telltale rash and the ivy came up pretty easily. I picked up steam, tearing at the strings like a cat unraveling a ball of yarn. Pretty soon I had a wheelbarrow full. Then I put into a plastic trash bag and fi lled up two of those. By the time I fi nished, the fence was looking great. But what to do with the wheelbarrows full of debris? The city of Seaside doesn’t have a lawn refuse recycling facility. And Recology does not offer lawn refuse pickup — even for a price. This isn’t a new issue. In 2008, Seaside resident Marilyn Loew wrote a letter to the Signal, “Spiffi ng up the town.” “Many people would be happy to trim their hedges, clean up their laws, and dispose of unused large articles in their yards if there were a way to get rid of the stuff,” Loew wrote. Large cans for yard and garden waste, picked up curbside, would provide incen- tive for people to clean their yards, trim the hedges, or prune the trees, Loew pointed out. “There really is no practical way to dispose of garden waste now.” She’s right, and the same holds true nine years later. SEEN FROM SEASIDE R.J. MARX R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL You’ve done the yard work. Now what? Whither the ivy? As a homeowner with overgrown laurels and unwanted English ivy, I was fl ummoxed. My compost bin was already overfl owing. Residents in Gearhart, Warrenton, Cannon Beach and Seaside have options for a yard refuse and glass pickup. The city of Astoria responded to similar calls, with curbside pickups of yard waste and glass recycling for both residents and businesses. Recology advises Seaside residents go to Trails End Recovery or the Astoria Transfer Station for yard refuse or glass removal. Glass bottles and jars can be brought to the Seaside Depot, located at Avenue S and Alder Mill Road. Residents can ask the city for such pickup but they cannot contact Recology directly for home pickup, Fred Stemmler, general manager of Recology Western Oregon, said following Seaside’s City Council meeting. Recology Western Oregon “cannot provide new services or charge for them without the specifi c permission of the city,” Stemmler said. For Seasiders who want home pickup, it doesn’t have to be an across-the-board rate in- R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Seaside’s zoning code includes a provision for recycling. At least 2 percent of the public must be involved in order for Recology to justify sending the truck, Stemmler said, and the city would need about 2 percent of the total population to sign up — about 58 customers. crease for all customers. Those customers who want home yard waste or glass pickup have the option to sign up for a subscription-based ser- vice — about $10 each a month for glass and refuse. At least 2 percent of the public must be involved in order for Recology to justify sending the truck, Stemmler said, and the city would need about 2 percent of the total popula- Antlers fi nd a home on the mantel T he husband was digging around in the front yard. “Look at this,” he said, hold- ing up a large, scabby, bony look- ing object I recognized as an elk antler. “Here’s another one,” he said, brandishing a second. They were not a perfectly matched set; the second specimen was less ar- chitectural, seeing how a couple of the points were broken off it. Still, it was a formidable rack. Yanked from the damp earth where they had quietly lain for a long time, blanketed by weeds, they were, in a word, repulsive. The place where the antler attaches itself to the bull’s head was the worst, wet and spongy and creepy looking. How the antlers got to my yard, I’ll never know. It’s a new house for us. You never know what might turn up. “Ugh,” I said. I was on the front stoop, giving myself a pedicure. I was painting my toenails blue, which is all the rage now. Accord- ing to color symbolists, blue is the color of spirit and devotion. “What should I do with them?” my husband said. I was tempted to say put them back where you found them, but something made me hesitate. “Hand them over,” I said, not entirely graciously. “Let me see what I can do with them.” This might be a good time to VIEW FROM THE PORCH EVE MARX say that about two dozen years ago, driving around Arizona, at a tiny shop set up right on the road not far from Flagstaff, some Native American women were selling their crafts. Mostly they had gorgeous hand wrought silver jewelry, which I could not afford, but they also had small rugs and baskets. I bought a pretty wool rug in red and black. Over the years, dogs have chewed off a good bit of the fringe, but the rug is still attractive. The item I was most drawn to, however, was a pair of bleached antlers arranged on a leather cloth. Just looking at them, I felt their magic. I was working up my nerve to ask the price, one of the women fi rmly said, “Not for sale.” In the laundry room I fi lled the utility sink with bleach and cold water. I dropped the antlers in and let them soak for a day and a night. I wondered if now was my chance to own magic antlers. For two days I set them outside on a table to sunbathe. When they were completely dry, I sanded them PUBLISHER EDITOR David F. Pero R.J. Marx EVE MARX/FOR SEASIDE SIGNAL Antlers as art. lightly. The whole time I worked, I thought if nothing else they’d be terrifi c ornaments lit with white lights on my mantle this Christ- mas. My antlers are more ivory than white. They are lightly veined with hints of cocoa, a shade that could be attributed to residual dirt, or the bull’s natural antler color. While I was bleaching and scrubbing and sanding, I chanted to myself, “Heal the bone.” Around the same time my antlers were discovered, a member of my family broke not just one, but two bones. I invited these bony protuberances that once crowned the head of a large four-legged animal to send spirit healing to a two-legged one. Call me crazy, but I think it worked. ADVERTISING MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER Betty Smith John D. Bruijn CIRCULATION MANAGER SYSTEMS MANAGER Jeremy Feldman Carl Earl ADVERTISING SALES Brandy Stewart STAFF WRITER Brenna Visser CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rebecca Herren Katherine Lacaze Eve Marx Esther Moberg Jon Rahl tion to sign up — about 58 customers. That number is an estimate. “We won’t know for certain until we take a closer look at the data,” Stemmler said. If the number of subscribers is signifi - cantly lower than the target, Recology could eliminate the program or increase the rate s. Results are typically reviewed after one year, Stemmler said. Seaside has requested that Recology Western Oregon submit a proposal, he said, and this could be ready within the next two months. The proposal will be reviewed by city staff, revised if necessary, then brought before the council for a vote. If approved, the program would be promoted to custom- ers, interested residents would sign up, and collection would begin as soon as Recology’s operations staff works out the logistics, builds the route and get carts delivered, Stemmler said. After pickup, yard debris and glass would be kept separate, out of the waste stream.“We transfer it and consolidated to process into a compost product,” he said at the June council meeting. If enough residents sign up, Recology could put a process in place for pickup within 90 days of the city’s approval date, Stemmler said. In the past, councilors and the mayor have not shown an interest in signing up, City Manager Mark Winstanley said. That could change this year. So if you’re interested in becoming one of Seaside’s 2 percent, contact Mayor Jay Bar- ber or councilors Randy Frank, Tom Horning, Tita Montero, Seth Morrisey, Dana Phillips or Steve Wright via email or phone; contact information can be found at the city’s web page, cityofseaside.us. You can also call Recology directly — staff tracks requests for services not currently provided, Stemmler said. LETTERS Gearhart vs. big money With the repeal and replace petition now circulating against the city’s 2016 ordinance regulating and limiting short-term rentals, Gearhart is up against big money. According to the Oregon Secretary of State, the out-of-state sponsor has already invested close to $16,000 (cash and in-kind services) in the petition drive; additional contributions from pollsters, lawyers, and, of course, realtors bring their total war chest up to $20,000 and more. The repeal/replace petitioners now claim to have already acquired the 175 signatures required by law, with little prospect of gullible sign- ers withdrawing their names before the July 8 deadline. So, Gearhart taxpayers are faced with another expenditure of close to $10,000 for a special election in November. This is big money talking, and it won’t stop there. The petitioners are in it for keeps. The question is, will Gearhart be able to stand up once more and fi ght for what amounts to its very survival as a community? Rick Sabol Gearhart speculators offering fi nancial incentives for converting homes in the single-family residential zone into illegal commercial use as short-term vacation rentals. As a recent example, the anon- ymous Vancouver, Washington, entrepreneur “Joseph” fl ooded our mailboxes with a postcard promis- ing “top dollar for your home” be- cause “I need to purchase another rental property in the area.” Last year our city council, after years of deliberation and public input, set up a defense against this onslaught against our quiet per- manent and seasonal community. Passing an ordinance grandfathering existing short-term rentals (a great concession), it regulated them to both minimize their impact on our neighborhoods and gradually reduce them to a manageable number, while making more homes available for long-term rental as a solution to the countywide housing crisis. It is to be fervently hoped that the repeal and replace petition fails. If it succeeds, it will mean the end of Gearhart as we know it. Penny Sabol Gearhart Gearhart as we know it Prepare for Cascadia The Gearhart community has been under siege for over a year now, bombarded with fl yers from vacation rental corporations and Forty-fi ve years ago, no one even knew the Cascadia Subduction See Letters, Page 5A Seaside Signal Letter policy Subscriptions 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. 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