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.