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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 21, 2020)
A4 • Friday, August 21, 2020 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com SignalViewpoints SCHOOL TOUR SEEN FROM SEASIDE A look inside Seaside’s new campus R.J. MARX Photos by R.J. Marx The Seaside School District Oversight Committee received a tour of the high school and middle school campus last Tuesday. Administrative and teach staff will move into the buildings in late August. Students could begin in-person learning at the campus in late October depending on coronavirus metrics issued by Clatsop County and the state. TOP ROW: School view of the new track and fi eld; cafeteria. SECOND ROW: Entryway; high school basketball court; administrative offi ce. THIRD ROW: Hallway between middle and high school; construction underway; kitchen work. Signal offi ce transition mirrors changing newspaper environment FROM THE PUBLISHER KARI BORGEN The Seaside Signal is moving out of the offi ce building at 1555 N. Roosevelt St. We had planned to look for a smaller offi ce, but once COVID-19 closed the offi ce doors to the public we discovered we actually didn’t need to look for an offi ce at all. Editor R.J. Marx is working from his home and in the fi eld. The adver- tising team is working from home. News page design has been working remotely for years. Our customers pay subscriptions and advertising online, and send us events and news releases by email. Our offi ce has been closed since March, and we’ve dis- covered that we’re managing without it just fi ne. So we quit looking for offi ce space. We are fortunate that our work technol- ogy has been invested toward more robust digital services for the last few years: online ordering of classifi ed, obits, event promotion. We have cloud-based account- ing services for paperless ordering, build- ing and proofi ng of ads. Digital fi rst pub- lishing of news via a cloud-based content management system reverse publishes from web to print production. All of which is to say, we’re closing the offi ce, not the Seaside Signal. Last year we began publishing news on seasidesignal.com and our social media pages daily. Website users grew from about 16,000 in July of 2019 to 43,000 this July. Pageviews grew from 48,000 to 97,000. We’ve gained 103 new digital subscrib- ers since May, readers who pay just $4 a month for professional, local journalism. Our audience reaches far beyond Seaside. We have almost as many readers in Port- land and Beaverton as we do on the coast. Closing the offi ce is both cathartic and bittersweet. So much much has changed in the historic way a newspaper does busi- ness, memorialized by fl at fi les and the light table for paste-up grids. There were desks full of paperwork in fi le folders, stacks of fi le organizers, inboxes and paper records. We ordered an extra recycling bin from Recology to hold everything cleared out. Press releases, letters to the editor and advertising orders are all received elec- tronically now. All of the equipment to contain and organize the paper informa- tion that was once vital to our business is now stored digitally. We don’t need a plas- tic inbox for paperwork, we have an email inbox now. A Rolodex? Business contacts are now stored in our cellphones. The paper archive that can’t be replaced is the bound archives of the Seaside Sig- nal dating back to the fi rst edition in 1905. If we didn’t have an offi ce, how would we preserve the history of Seaside, chronicled week by week in the newspaper since 1905 and make it available to the public? Esther Moberg found room for the archives at the Seaside Library, where they’ll be well cared for, and just as importantly, accessi- ble to Seaside residents looking for family R.J. Marx Awards for the Signal, back in 1991. history, records and milestones. Our mission is the same with or without an offi ce: to be the local news leader, pro- ducing credible news that gains our com- munities’ trust, and distribute local news and information because a well-informed public keeps Seaside strong. Need a desk? Plastic inbox or fi le fold- ers? Email me at kborgen@eomediagroup. com. We’re looking for good homes for surplus offi ce stuff. PUBLIC MEETINGS THURSDAY, SEPT. 10 Board of Directors, 5:15 p.m., 1225 Avenue A. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 2 Convention Center Commission, 5 p.m., Sea- side Civic and Convention Center, 415 First Ave. Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., work session, City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Gearhart Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. Seaside School District, 6 p.m., www.seaside. k12.or.us/meetings. Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., 698 Pacifi c Way. MONDAY, SEPT. 14 WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 16 Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway. THURSDAY, SEPT. 3 TUESDAY, SEPT. 15 Seaside Tourism Advisory Committee, 3 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Contact local agencies for latest meeting infor- mation and attendance guidelines. Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. MONDAY, AUG. 24 Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway. TUESDAY, SEPT. 1 Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Ave- nue A. Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., Seaside Public Library, 1131 Broadway. CIRCULATION MANAGER Jeremy Feldman ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER Sarah Silver- Tecza PUBLISHER EDITOR Kari Borgen R.J. Marx PRODUCTION MANAGER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS John D. Bruijn Skyler Archibald Darren Gooch Joshua Heineman Rain Jordan Katherine Lacaze Esther Moberg SYSTEMS MANAGER Carl Earl Seaside Tree Board, 4 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. 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 © 2020 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. Roosevelt Drive or fax to 503-738-9285, or email rmarx@seasidesignal.com Annually: $40.50 in county • $58.00 in and out of county • e-Edition: only $30.00 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Seaside Signal, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. Postage Paid at Seaside, OR, 97138 and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright © 2020 by the Seaside Signal. No portion of this newspaper may be reproduced without written permission. All rights reserved.
