OUR 112th Year
August 23, 2019 $1.00
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
Gearhart delays fi rehouse vote until next year
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
R.J. Marx
Site under consideration for location of a
new fi rehouse in Gearhart.
Not this November, Mayor Matt Brown
told members of the audience at the Wednes-
day, Aug. 7 meeting of Gearhart City Council.
And as the Aug. 17 deadline to place
a bond measure neared, the timeline for a
vote on a new fi rehouse location and build-
ing plan got bumped till next year. “We’ve
only got about a 10-day time frame if we
want to put that on the November ballot,
and we still have a lot of work to do.”
But if the date is unclear, offi cials con-
tinue to pursue negotiations to acquire a
property at 1376 North Marion, considered
the best location to prepare for an “L-1” or
large tsunami, which encompasses 95% of
the possible fl ood scenarios.
Since the early 2000s Gearhart fi refi ght-
ers have asked the city to replace the current
structure, a building constructed in 1958 con-
sidered unsafe in the event of an earthquake
or tsunami. A 2006 bond measure for a new
public safety building failed at the polls.
In 2018, after considering nine locations,
the fi re station committee recommended
three concepts and locations to the public to
help guide the decision-making process.
In April, a city survey showed 82% of
respondents support a new fi rehouse, and
52% preferred the High Point location, over
the current fi rehouse location and the Gear-
hart Park site. The park was withdrawn
from consideration in May due to the sur-
vey results.
See Firehouse, Page A6
Public safety
workers sign
four-year
contract
MEETING THE NEED
Agreement comes with
5% cost of living increase
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Providence Seaside, and Kimberly
Ward, executive director of the Provi-
dence Hospital foundation, welcomed
supporters, staff and community mem-
bers to a “peek behind the curtain” of
project renderings.
“Transforming our emergency ser-
vices is going to be really monumental
here at Providence and the care we are
Public safety employees in Seaside saw
a 5% cost of living as of July 1, as the City
Council approved the Public Safety Associ-
ation’s collective bargaining agreement on
Monday, Aug. 12. The contract began July 1
and extends to June 30, 2023, City Manager
Mark Winstanley and Assistant City Man-
ager Jon Rahl said in a staff report.
Public Safety Association employees will
see a 5% cost of living increase immediately,
with increases between 2% and 4% in subse-
quent years of the contract.
Along with increased compensation, the
contract moves all association positions to a
six-step scale.
For fi re personnel attaining certifi cations,
they will be eligible to receive pay incen-
tives of up to 2%, 3% or 4% in each fi eld.
Police employees who are selected for
assignment to the two-year rotating detec-
tive position and student resource offi cial
will receive a premium of 10% in addition to
the employee’s regular pay rate.
A retention incentive of 1% will be added
to the monthly salary for those with 15 years
of service.
Health and welfare also changed as Sea-
side employees move from a high-deductible
health plan with a health savings account to
a co-pay plan similar to that of the Seaside
Employees’ Association. Monthly premiums
will increase from anywhere to $31 to $87
per month, or $372 to $1,044 annually.
This was the fi rst time the negotiations
encompassed both fi re and police personnel.
“Negotiations on union contracts can take
quite a while,” Winstanley said at the meet-
ing. “There’s a lot of detail that everybody
See Hospital, Page A6
See Workers, Page A6
Kimberly Ward, Patrick Millius, Duane Mullins, Mike Antrim and Julie Jesse in the emergency department as it undergoes phase
one of construction.
‘Really busy,’ hospital builds new emergency department
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Seaside’s Fred Loser remembers
when things were so quiet at Provi-
dence Seaside Hospital that they would
send doctors home for lack of business.
“When I came here in 1990 and ’91,
there were days when there was nobody
here. With a full staff, they’d send peo-
ple home to save expenses. Now look
at it — you can’t even get in the door.”
In the last 30 years — since the hos-
pital’s last emergency room remodel —
those numbers have exploded.
Today, emergency room manager
Cherie Echelbarger said the emergency
room sees about 10,000 patients a year,
or about 25 or 30 a day, much more on
holidays and seasonally.
Don Lemmon, chief executive of
Hood to Coast makes strides with new sustainability goals
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
The organizers of the
Hood to Coast Relay are
making strides during this
year’s race — along with the
concurrent Portland to Coast
Walk Relay and High School
Challenge — to adopt more
sustainable event manage-
ment practices and mitigate
waste.
The roughly 200-mile
relay race annually draws
about 19,000 participants,
along with thousands of
volunteers and spectators,
who travel from Timber-
line Lodge on Aug. 23 to the
Seaside beach Aug. 24.
“We have a responsibility,
but also the ability to reach
a lot of people within the
race community, so we can
help drive social change,”
Hood to Coast spokesperson
Dan Floyd said. “There’s so
much we can do at our own
event.”
Sustainable event
Although
the
orga-
nizers
have
internally
attempted small measures
for improved waste manage-
ment over the past decade or
so, they are undertaking a
more concerted efforts this
year through a partnership
with Elysium Events, a sus-
tainable event management
company out of Portland.
Elysium founder and
owner Lindsey Newkirk
said in this initial year, they
are using “a little bit of a
softer approach to just try to
get people information,” and
bring awareness to the mas-
sive amount of waste cre-
ated at large events, such as
the “Mother of All Relays.”
The main challenges with
Hood to Coast are the num-
ber of people out on the
course and the numerous
exchange points that man-
ifest almost as individual
“mini events along the way,”
Newkirk said.
One step this year is
implementing a strategy to
ensure recycling is done
correctly through build-
ing awareness and dissem-
inating useful information.
Organizers are providing a
sorting guide with tips on
reducing waste and prop-
erly sorting recyclable
items from landfi ll items at
exchange points where ven-
dors are serving food and
beverages. Participants can
access the guide using the
recently introduced race
app — which also provides
safety and course informa-
tion to keep people updated
about weather or last-minute
changes.
Many people may not
be aware, for instance, that
if too many contaminants
get into a recycling stream
— rendering it too diffi -
cult to sort — the entire
load will be sent to a land-
fi ll, Newkirk said. Elysium
has a strategy for helping in
this area by providing back-
of-house sorting to remove
contaminated items. Groups
of students from Glencoe
High School and Roosevelt
High School have volun-
teered to help with sorting
in exchange for bottles and
cans that can be depos-
ited for money at the Ore-
gon Beverage Recycling
Cooperative.
As Newkirk pointed out,
however, “It’s all the more
environmentally preferred
to prevent waste from occur-
ring in the fi rst place.” Par-
ticipants are encouraged to
use a refi llable water jug or
bottle instead of single-use,
disposable plastic bottles,
and buy snacks in bulk or
put together homemade
See Hood to Coast, Page A8
The Hood to Coast Relay, which starts Friday at
Timberline Lodge and ends with a party on the Seaside
beach Saturday, has embraced a new emphasis on
waste prevention and sustainable solutions.