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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2018)
July 6, 2018 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 5A City agencies partner to improve Goodman Park S erving as the chief executive of a public agency means that no two days are ever the same. I love my job and the excitement that it brings with the opportunities of each day. Recently I received a call from a friend who also works as a local contractor. This individual builds and remodels homes throughout the State of Oregon but has done many properties in Clatsop County over the past few years. As soon as we connected he start- ed praising the Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District for our inno- vating work and dedicated staff. I was taken aback. While I get out-of-the- blue phone calls that offer feedback on the district often, this call was pleasantly optimistic and positive! As our conversation continued however, I quickly realized that his praise was misdirected. He had recently built a home in the proximity of Goodman Park and he was calling to offer compliments and appreciation for the renovation of that wonderful space. The line between Sunset Park and Recreation District and the city of Seaside Parks is well defined, at least to those directly involved in those SKY BOX SKYLER ARCHIBALD two government agencies, and both entities operate within their roles to provide facilities and services that enhance the quality of life for our community. The city owns and maintains a plethora of parks, including the Seaside Promenade, Cartwright Park, the Mill Ponds and Goodman Park. Goodman Park, situated on the corner of 12th Avenue and Necanicum Drive on a little less than two-third of an acre, is the northernmost park in Seaside and serves the residents in the adjoining communities. Over the past few years the park has received some focused attention by the city of Seaside Public Works Department. First, the restroom and parking lot were updated, providing more accommodations and a safer experience for park-goers, as well as the many locals and guests alike who use that area for crabbing off the 12th Avenue bridge. SKYLER ARCHIBALD Renovation at Goodman Park. Next city of Seaside invested heavily in completely remaking the park and that project has largely tak- en place over the past few months. That remodel included replacing the play structures, adding curb- ing, planting new grass and adding irrigation. The park now meets ADA standards and is a beautiful transfor- mation for the residents of that area. The city also relocated the Rota- ry Peace Pole which is a monument dedicated to “Peace prevailing on earth” and includes inclusive lan- guage. The Peace Pole at Goodman Park was erected and dedicated in the Spring of 2017. Economic research from our na- tionwide membership group Nation- al Recreation and Park Association indicates that homes and properties near parklands have higher values than those farther away. Further- more, 85 percent of those relocating seek high quality park and recreation amenities when they are choosing a place to live. No wonder that so many individ- uals and families are trying hard to relocate to the North Coast of Ore- gon, what with our moderate climate and abundant park and recreation amenities. After speaking with my friend, I encouraged him to contact the city of Seaside and direct his praise, which he may or may not have done. Often- times, public agencies don’t get the deserved accolades for their vision and effort but in this case that praise was completely warranted, albeit slightly misplaced! I’m thankful for the city of Sea- side, the Public Works Department and this wonderful community to reside in. As summer is fully here with us, I encourage all to get outside and play at Goodman Park or one of the many other wonderful recreation spots along the North Coast. Train your dog to become a savvy travel companion S ummertime, and the getting lost is easy. It’s especially true if you’re a tourist. It’s also true if you’re training challenged, and you happen to be a dog. Imagine you’re a dog who loves to travel and whose parents take you along on their vacations. It’s your first trip to Cannon Beach! So many new dogs to sniff! So many new people! And a lot of shops that keep interrupting your walks. That’s fine because you get plenty of attention while you wait. You even get to jump on some friendly people when your parents aren’t looking. Then your leash breaks, setting you free to peek into windows, follow strangers, even cross the street! It’s very exciting at first, but then scam- per turns to wander and you realize you’re lost. You might have found your way home by scent in your town, but this town is a tangle of unfamiliar smells. You have nothing to go on. Let’s save this dog. How would you do it? Some readers will be thinking prevention — e.g., dog staying with parents rather than out of sight and CANINE CORNER RAIN JORDAN & DAHLIA jumping on strangers may have pre- vented the leash break and escape. That’s one good option, especially in a dog-friendly town like Can- non Beach. It’s wise to have other options as well; not all places are so dog-friendly. Double leashing is another option some may choose. Others might argue that having trained for calm behavior might have prevented the leash break. Because some dogs will escape, it’s important to know how to get them back, by which I mean not only how to find them — once gone, there are professionals who should be consulted for the important task of tracking lost pets — but how to get them to come back to you. In the story above, if the dog’s parents had been right there when the leash broke, would the dog have stopped and returned to the parents when they called? Recall help is a common request of people hiring dog trainers. Some dog owners report that dogs who used to “come” now ignore such instructions. Indeed, it is not surprising for dogs to ignore cues to which they once responded, and there’s a very logical reason: They have learned that responding does not pay. Usually, the reasons for a dog’s diminished recall response are 1. Dog’s name and/or cue overuse (also known as “nagging”), combined with 2. Punishing or ignoring the dog’s response, and 3. Lack of the dog’s preferred primary reinforcer on a sufficient reinforcement schedule. Example: Owner cues unrespon- sive dog as follows. “Rover, come! Come, Rover! Rover?! ROVER, COME! COME- HERE-RIGHT- NOW! ROVER!” If the dog does finally come and is greeted with scolding or further punishment, or if the dog is simply ignored (a form of punishment), the dog is not being positively reinforced for having recalled as instructed. Since increasing and maintaining desired behavior on cue is achieved by high rates of positive reinforcement using the dog’s preferred reinforcer (usually this is small pieces of novel food items but may be something else) while avoiding anything aversive to the dog, the combination of nagging, punishing, and with- holding sufficient positive reinforce- ment can quickly diminish a dog’s responsiveness. To save the lost dog of our story, then — to prevent the dog from being lost — we would teach the dog’s parents how to positively reinforce, train, and cue behavior. We would ensure that they safely practice in increasingly distracting environments until the dog responds to the cue in any environment. That dog would have excellent recall, that dog’s parents would ensure that recall was maintained via positive reinforcement protocols, and that dog would possess a high likelihood of immediately stopping upon hear- ing his name and returning to his parents upon hearing his recall cue. There are those who will say that if you “let the dog get away with it”— ignoring repeated demands to come, calling the dog’s name mul- tiple times — then you are teaching the dog to ignore you, that you must be more “firm” with the dog. Those people are only fractionally correct: What teaches ignoring is nagging. This is an irony that the most pro- ficient tune-out masters of our own species can confirm. When it comes to effective animal training, you do not need the baggage packed up in “firm”; you’ll have a cleaner conscience and a happier, more cooperative dog (who isn’t at risk of developing aversives-related aggression) via positive reinforcement and cueing. Being “firm” and other euphemisms are often excuses to hurt, force, in- timidate, scare, or startle a dog into attention rather than taking the time and patience to train with kindness, which you can do while saying the cue just once — installing a more reliable behavior at the same time. Contact me if you’d like to learn how! Rain Jordan of Elevate Dog Training & Behavior can be reached at ElevateDogTraining@ gmail.com. Authors Haupt, Quinn offer literary insights at Beach Books Authors add personal experiences to their characters’ voices in two new fiction novels By Rebecca Herren Seaside Signal Novelists Jennifer Haupt and Anna Quinn love combin- ing book tours, and their joint readings featured at Beach Books on June 22 was one of many they have collaborated with over the years. Quinn, who is the author of “The Night Child,” and Haupt who penned “In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills,” first met at a Pacific Northwest Booksell- ers event. They hit it off and have been tour buddies ever since. “It was simpatico,” Haupt said. Their book tours have taken them from coast to coast, together and individu- ally. Whenever possible they combine tours, readings and workshops. When schedules align, their husbands accom- pany them for a weekend va- cation. Quinn’s strength within Anna Quinn owns the Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint Bookstore in Port Townsend, Washington. She is a published poet and essay- ist and has led writing work- shops for more than 26 years. “The Night Child” is a story of resilience. The novel explores the impact of trau- matic childhood experiences and the line between the past and the present. Its main voice is Nora, a high school English teacher, who, as a child, told REBECCA HERREN Authors Anna Quinn, standing, and Jennifer Haupt, seated, talk about what influences inspired the characters in their newest novels at the Lunch in the Loft author series at Beach Books. herself stories as a way to survive. It wasn’t until some- thing disrupts her belief that Nora finds out the story she’d been telling herself might not be the true one. Suffering her own child- hood trauma, Quinn learned to tell herself stories; writing herself out of old stories and into new ones. Quinn also found an escape in music and learned to play the accordion. “Music changes you vis- cerally,” she said, and looks for ways to recreate rhythm and passion in her writings. But it wasn’t until she dis- covered fiction that her whole world opened up. “It was my mother who took me to the library every week until I could drive then brought us home with piles of books. She taught me how to write very early on,” Quinn said. “The one huge gift she gave me was to say, ‘learn to write yourself into the stories you want to be in.’” Books shaped her life through observation and at a safe distance, Quinn noted, like Fern who learns to stand up to authority in “Charlotte’s Web,” or Scout who learns to navigate through the adult world in “To Kill a Mock- ingbird,” and like Bone, who finds her inner strength in “Bastard of Carolina.” Like the characters in these stories, Quinn, too, eventually found the language and her voice. Haupt finds connection “In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills” is set against the back- drop of a country grieving 12 ‘The one huge gift (my mother) gave me was to say, “learn to write yourself into the stories you want to be in.” ’ ‘I came back from Rwanda wanting to tell these stories but wanting to tell these stories in fiction.’ Anna Quinn Jennifer Haupt years post Rwandan genocide. It follows the intertwining stories of women who discov- er the connections between forgiveness and grief. Jennifer Haupt is a well-traveled journalist and essayist. She was a journalist for 20 years and never thought she could write a novel, say- ing, “It didn’t seem like some- thing I could make a living at; something that was in the cards for me.” She specialized in writ- ing about women who dealt with their own depression and grief by starting nonprof- its for children and women around the world. She didn’t know how to start a nonprofit or how this would help heal one’s grief, but she kept ask- ing. The answers she received were always the same: by helping people discover their voice and helping them deal with their grief was healing for the women who started the nonprofits. “I was just fascinated with that,” Haupt said. She traveled to Rwanda in 2006, more than a decade after the Rwandan genocide. Her journey into the rural provinces to interview geno- cide survivors, aid workers and people who were starting nonprofits gave her a sense of connection, sharing similar trauma. After a visit to the camps at Dachau, Haupt understood how deep their connection was. In Rwanda, it was the decimation of the Tutsi people at the hands of the Hutu gov- ernment. In Dachau, it was the murder of Haupt’s relatives at the hands of the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. She also felt connected through her own dealings with depression and the unre- solved grief of her sister dying when Haupt was young. “There was a bridge of compassion I felt between me and the people whose sto- ries and experiences that, of course, I couldn’t compare my experiences with, but I found this whole country was still grieving 12 years after the genocide and it was very much under the surface. I came back from Rwanda wanting to tell these stories but wanting to tell these sto- ries in fiction.” The novel is about a white, middle-class, priv- ileged woman who bonds with Rwandans and creates a family who is intercultural and intergenerational. It’s the story of five people who are black, white, American and Rwandan, and come togeth- er in post genocide Rwanda when the reconciliation trials are just beginning in 2000. SUB-BIDS REQUESTED Seaside School District-New Middle/High Schools Seaside, Oregon Bid Package: #2 Concrete Foundation, Underslab Utilities, Waterproofing and Elevators (Includes Structural Concrete Foundation, Underslab Elec/ Tele/AV, Underslab Plumbing, Waterproofing & Elevators) Bids Due: July 18 th 2:00pm Bid Documents: www.hoffmancorp.com/subcontractors 805 SW Broadway, Suite 2100 Portland, OR 97205 Phone (503) 221-8811 Bid Fax (503) 221-8888 BIDS@hoffmancorp.com Hoffman is an equal opportunity employer and requests sub-bids from all interested firms including disadvantaged, minority, women, disabled veterans and emerging small-business enterprises OR CCB#28417/LIC HOFFMCC164NC
