Friday, January 31, 2020 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
New subdivision planned for Gearhart
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
A
new
subdivision
planned for Gearhart has
drawn concern among
neighbors.
The developers of The
Cottages at Gearhart LLC
purchased the property a
couple of years ago. They
expect to have an applica-
tion submitted to Clatsop
County in about a month
to develop a 30-acre parcel
off of Highlands Lane. They
hope to begin developing
the property in late spring.
More than 30 neighbors
attended a meeting with the
developers Jan. 25 at Clat-
sop Community College’s
South County campus in
Seaside and expressed their
concerns about the project.
Developers expect to
build 21 homes between
1,500 and 2,500 square
feet each. The estimated
purchase price would be
$450,000 to $550,000. The
value and quality of the
homes were described as a
“notch down” from neigh-
boring homes, which left
many neighbors in the room
displeased.
Hailey Hoff man
A new subdivision has been proposed for a 30-acre parcel off Highlands Avenue in Gearhart.
Among their concerns
were elk and butterfl y habi-
tat, tsunami evacuation routes,
increased traffi c and the place-
ment of a new access road.
The developers plan to
incorporate the suggestions
and hold another neighbor-
hood meeting before sub-
mitting the application.
“There are challenges, I
think, especially with the elk
habitat and the sensitivity of
the dunes that will all have
to be considered,” said Mike
Weston, the consultant for
the developers.
John Lowe, a neighbor-
ing property owner, believes
he will be the most affected
by the new homes.
Lowe’s property is next
to the potential develop-
ment and will face three lots.
He has a chain-link fence
around his property and
enjoys his privacy, which he
believes he will no longer
have after the new homes
are built.
He made suggestions to
the developers to preserve
his privacy, as well as help
with elk migration.
Lowe said his major con-
cern is the elk. He said he
watches the elk every day
from his home and knows
the property is elk habitat.
“The elk use this 30 acres
for bedding, for calving, for
grazing — they’re not just
simply walking through the
area stopping for 15 to 20
minutes to graze,” Lowe
said. “If you destroy all this
habitat for the elk then they
obviously have to go some-
where else, which puts pres-
sure on other areas.”
Neighbors also expressed
concerns about the but-
terfl y habitat on the prop-
erty, which sits near a but-
terfl y sanctuary protected
by the North Coast Land
Conservancy.
Lowe said he reached
out to the land conservancy
to learn more about wildlife
habitat on the property.
“Hopefully things won’t
go too far before they get an
opportunity to provide some
input into this process,”
Lowe told developers.
Cyberattacks hit local governments
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
Joshua Bessex/The Astorian
Boxes of clothing available at Project Homeless Connect.
Volunteers, agencies
undertake homeless count
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
Boxes of clothing sit on
a table for people to take to
the Seaside Civic and Con-
vention Center for the coun-
ty’s Project Homeless Con-
nect event, held Tuesday.
“I think it’s a way of
instilling hope in peo-
ple who are experienc-
ing homelessness who are
already feeling very, very
hopeless with the situation
that they’re in,” said Susan
Prettyman, Clatsop Com-
munity Action’s housing
manager.
“They come in and
they’re not judged by any
agency that’s in there.
They know those people
are there to help them.”
Volunteers helped peo-
ple identify their needs
through an intake form.
The intake also asked
people where they slept the
night before, and if they
mark that they slept in a
car, street or camper, vol-
unteers will ask them to
complete a point-in-time
survey.
The survey occurs
nationwide every two years
during the last 10 days of
January as part of a joint
effort to count people expe-
riencing homelessness.
Other agencies, includ-
ing the state Department
of Human Services, school
districts, Helping Hands
and The Harbor also par-
ticipate in the count.
However, not everyone
consents to be counted.
The U.S. Census Bureau
describes the homeless as
part of the hard-to-count
population.
“I think there’s still a
stigma about experienc-
ing homelessness and
some people don’t want to
be considered homeless,”
Prettyman said.
Through the event and
the survey, Clatsop Commu-
nity Action and other agen-
cies have identifi ed unmet
needs and have developed
additional services.
The point-in-time count,
for example, has identi-
fi ed domestic violence as
a leading cause of home-
lessness for women and
children.
NEW
LOCATION
Tillamook County was
struggling to get its com-
puter and telephone systems
running again after it was
hit by a cyberattack, a week
after a nearby city lost data
and computer programs in
another apparent attack.
“All computer systems
are offl ine at this time, our
website is down and the
phones are working intermit-
tently,” Tillamook County
offi cials announced at a
meeting Wednesday, Jan. 22.
The next day, county offi -
cials referred to it as a ran-
somware attack, according
to Laura Swanson, a local
reporter who was present.
“The county will be oper-
ating ‘old school’ for a few
days,” County Commis-
sioner Mary Faith Bell told
Swanson, a reporter from
the Tillamook County Pio-
neer online news site. “No
credit cards, and we’ll have
to come up with work-
arounds to take care of
county business.”
Ransomware is malicious
software that encrypts a sys-
tem, effectively locking out
its users. The attacker prom-
ises to decrypt the informa-
tion if paid.
County offi cials said in a
statement there is no indica-
tion that the personal infor-
mation of employees or res-
idents has been accessed or
misused. But experts said it
may be too soon to tell.
St. Helens, in Colum-
bia County, experienced a
disruption in computers,
emails and telephones start-
ing on Jan. 14. The disrup-
tion is still ongoing, though
some of it has been over-
NE
W
Andrew Selsky/AP Photo
The Tillamook County Board of Commissioners heard fi nal testimony in January on the
application by tech giant Facebook to use an oceanfront lot as a landing spot for a submarine
fi ber-optic cable.
come, city spokeswoman
Crystal King said.
The city government
said in a statement that its
phones and some emails
and computers were still
offl ine, affecting all depart-
ments, including City Hall,
the library, public works
and police. Emergency 911
phone number and none-
mergency dispatch lines
were unaffected.
King said in an email that
St. Helens engaged cyberse-
curity experts to help inves-
tigate “the suspicious activ-
ity and to help restore access
to programs and data within
our network.”
Columbia County has
reported no intrusions.
In 2019, 113 state and
municipal governments and
agencies, 764 health care
providers, and 89 univer-
sities, colleges and school
districts in the United States
were hit by ransomware
attacks, said Brett Callow,
threat analyst at Emsisoft,
a company that produces
software to protect com-
puters against attacks. The
numbers came from a com-
pilation of press reports and
help requests the company
received, Callow said.
Among victims of recent
cyberattacks were city gov-
ernments in Las Vegas,
New Orleans and Pensac-
ola, Florida.
Tillamook County began
experiencing
diffi culties
with several computer sys-
tems on Wednesday. The
information
technology
department determined it
was a malware attack.
“Tillamook takes the
security of the informa-
tion entrusted to us very
seriously. We are taking
UN
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event from occurring in the
future, including strength-
ening security measures,”
the statement said.
County offi cials said
they would work with
law enforcement and hire
an independent computer
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experts to help in the inves-
tigation. The FBI offi ce in
Portland, which has a cyber-
crime task force, has offered
to help, spokeswoman Beth
Anne Steele said.
The attack has disrupted
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delaying mailing out notifi -
cations of the county com-
mission’s Jan. 9 decision
to grant Facebook permis-
sion to build a landing spot
for an undersea fi ber-optic
cable connecting America
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residential lot.
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