Seaside signal., August 17, 2018, Image 1

Volleyball
on Saturday
afternoon in
Seaside.
Building a sport, one
tournament at a time
Annual event brings
1,640 teams to Seaside
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
JEFF TER HAR PHOTOS
Women compete at Seaside’s beach volleyball tournament.
Emotions were buoyant at Seaside’s
37th annual beach volleyball tourna-
ment. More than 4,300 matches on 173
courts were played over four days played
by 1,640 teams.
On Saturday, as the sun slipped in
and out among the clouds, players kept
their eyes on the ball, with two of the top
refs in the game working the matches,
support of the Association of Volleyball
Professionals and sponsorship by Wilson
sporting goods.
Two of the top refs in volleyball,
John King, director of officials for AVP
and John Rodriguez, a member of AVP’s
board of directors, judged the champion-
ship matches.
Players included pros along with am-
ateurs in AVP Next hoping to accumu-
late points to qualify for the professional
tour. “It’s just like trying to get your PGA
card,” co-organizer Mike Griffin said.
Griffin worked with Seaside Chamber
of Commerce Executive Director Brian
Owen to make this year’s event what
they called the most successful ever.
“We’re focused on making sure the
players have a good experience,” Owen
said. “Making sure the scheduling is
done on time, that they have enough
courts.”
That gave players opportunities to
check out local businesses and restau-
rants, and city streets were filled.
The city’s efforts are paying divi-
dends Griffin said at courtside.
“It’s going great,” Griffin said. “The
players appreciate having the entire play-
ing schedule online, so it makes it easy
for them to know what court assignment
they’re going to have and what they time
they play.”
By late day, the sun won out, not that
it would have mattered to players.
The threat of rain is “just part of
the coast,” Griffin said. “You could
have everything from sun to rain to
clear skies.”
In the aftermath, volunteers
stayed busy, putting up 346
posts to create 173 nets. “It
takes us four days
to set up and
two days to take
down,” Owen said.
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
OUR 112th YEAR • August 17, 2018
For Chisholm Center,
School district turns to Plan B
the pause that refreshes after Army Corps permit delay
Council opts to ‘take losses,’ launch project
By R.J. Marx
Seaside Signal
PAID
PERMIT NO. 97
ASTORIA, OR
PRSRT STD
US POSTAGE
Bids went out in June for the second
time for a building refresh at the Bob
Chisholm Community Center. After
bids came in high the first time around,
City Councilors rejected the proposals
and delayed the renovation of the city-
owned building at 1225 Avenue A.
This time around, numbers came in
high — at $306,000, almost $40,000
more than the low bid amount deliv-
ered in December— but the results
were different. On Monday council
members unanimously endorsed the
project, with the rationale that the proj-
ect was needed and costs would only
increase in months and years to come.
“It’s a unique facility for any town
of this size,” Councilor Steve Wright
said. “I’m willing to say let’s go ahead
with it.”
Darren Gooch, IT and Market-
ing Manager for the Sunset Empire
Park and Recreation District, which
manages the community center, said
project plans and labor costs haven’t
changed since the first bid, but the cost
of materials has ballooned since the
last bid. “The materials on the project
are nearly double,” Gooch said.
See Chisholm, Page 7A
Schools wanted permits by July
By R.J. Marx and Brenna Visser
Seaside Signal
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has found that
the $99.7 million project to relocate Seaside schools
out of the tsunami inundation zone fails to offset im-
pacts to neighboring streams with essential fish habitat.
School district officials hope the Army Corps accepts
a plan to provide an environmental easement on proper-
ty behind the district bus barn on U.S. Highway 101 in-
stead of mitigation at the new campus off Spruce Drive.
“We don’t have enough room on our project site to
do stream mitigation, so we had offered more wetlands
to compensate for that,” Jim Henry, the project manag-
er, said. “So we have had to look off-site for a solution.”
According to the school district’s joint application
to the Army Corps and the Department of State Lands,
the project will result in the permanent placement of al-
most 4,800 cubic yards of soil, concrete and stone within
0.16 acre of wetland and more than 2,000 linear feet of
stream considered essential fish habitat.
The school district had proposed a combination of
stream enhancement, wetland and swale creation to
meet regulatory concerns.
A project timeline presented to the school board in
June anticipated permit approvals from the Army Corps
and the state by July 18.
The Department of State Lands signed off on the per-
mit application July 26.
The Army Corps’ preliminary review, delivered in
April, indicated the project would adversely affect es-
sential fish habitat.
See Campus, Page 7A
CELEBRATING
REGAL MAJESTY
Regal Majesty Pageant made
its Seaside debut
By Rebecca Herren
Seaside Signal
The Regal Majesty Pageant made its Seaside debut
at the Seaside Convention Center in late July where 37
contestants competed for the title.
The organization is in its infancy, having only start-
ed seven years ago, and unlike the Pacific Northwest,
most pageant organizations were established in the
Midwest or southern states. “Pageantry is a foreign
concept compared to the southern states where pag-
eantry is common place, so a pageant starting in the
Northwest is fairly new,” said Monica Berginc, director
of the Washington, Oregon, northern California and In-
ternationals divisions.
See Pageant, Page 7A
REGAL MAJESTY NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER ERIC CHOY
Aurora Kesl competes in the Fun Fashion
category at the 2018 Regal Majesty Pag-
eant in Seaside.
REGAL MAJESTY NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER ERIC CHOY
National high point winners of the first Regal Majesty
Pageant held in Seaside July 29 to 31 are Brooklyn Bend-
er, Juanita Stone and Audrina Campos.