A4 • Friday, October 23, 2020 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
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Honey, I bought a phone booth
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
R.J. MARX
If you’ve noticed something missing near
the Budget Inn, you’re right.
A phone booth had been stationed at the
corner of Beach Drive and Avenue E for 35
years. With its departure in August, the last
phone booth in the city is gone.
Dale Brechlin, a maintenance worker
at the Comfort Inn, is the new owner. He’s
set up the phone booth, made in 1985, in his
driveway.
His wife, Jane, also fell in love with it.
“She even wanted to bring it in the house
and set it up,” Brechlin said.
Dale Brechlin and his phone booth that
stood for 35 years in front of the Budget Inn
in Seaside.
He and his wife hit the road to travel
the country in their RV until 2007, when
he started managing a KOA campground
in Mount Rushmore and later in Harpers
Ferry, West Virginia. Then they came to
the North Coast to take over the Warrenton
KOA.
The Brechlins bought their home on
Oregon Street in 2012 when it was an
880-square-foot cottage.
“We put a huge addition on and it’s now
3,100 square feet,” Brechlin said.
The fi ve-bedroom house serves as home
to the entire family, including grandchildren.
“We’re on the coast where we can go
down to the beach any time that we want,”
he said. “When I was in Maine, we were liv-
ing on the water. So it was nice to go from
one coast to the other.”
Photos by R.J. Marx
ABOVE: The original Sailor Steve from the Wayfarer in Cannon Beach, now retired at the home
of Dale Brechlin. RIGHT: Brechlin retired in 2005 after a career in the credit card industry.
Brechlin said he tends to collect unique
things.
After reading about the phone booth’s
availability through the “Goonieville” Face-
book group, Brechlin rescued it from the
trash heap, “thinking it would be a good ‘Bill
& Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ for my grand-
children,” he said.
“I was having my lunch, surfi ng the inter-
net, and it just happened to pop up,” Brechlin
said. “It was on there four minutes.”
The GTE phone booth was designed inten-
tionally without doors, Brechlin explained. It
was installed in front of the Budget Inn with a
steel fl oor plate and bolted to a concrete pad.
Eventually, the booth was abandoned
by the phone company. The phone set was
removed, wires cut and the windows became
a magnet for graffi ti.
The phone company didn’t want it back.
The property owner contacted Chris Pounds
to post it on Goonieville.
Pounds moved the phone booth, Brech-
lin said.
“He put it in the back of his pickup and
drove it over. He delivered,” he said.
Brechlin placed cement blocks to steady
the booth in the wind in his driveway.
He cleaned the graffi ti off. Brechlin still
has structural repairs to the booth’s side wall.
He’s not sure if he’ll put in a phone or not, or
where it will ultimately sit.
Another treasure, the original Sailor
Steve from the Wayfarer Restaurant in Can-
non Beach, holds a prominent position in his
backyard. Brechlin came to the rescue when
the wooden statue, rotted at the bottom and
in a dumpster, was going to be hauled off to
the trash heap.
When he was general manager at KOA in
Warrenton, he acquired river buoy number
42, now on display there at the base of the
stairs going to the pool.
“I am told that was the buoy where the bar
pilots and the river pilots would exchange in
the Columbia River,” Brechlin said. “And as
you know, in Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitch-
hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ 42 is a mag-
ical number answer to the meaning of life,
the universe and everything — calculated by
a very big computer over a very, very long
time.”
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reconsider middle
school buy
I appreciate Sunset Empire
Park and Recreation’s nev-
er-ending desire to expand its
services and facilities. I also
believe they are naïve to the
excessive tax burden they
place on the district. Seaside,
as the 68th largest city in Ore-
gon, has the seventh highest
tax rate imposed on residents
(more than $1.75 million) for
a park district in the state.
Our park district is funded
at the same level as Eugene’s
River Road Park and Recre-
ation District ($1.76 million)
and Redmond’s Redmond
Area Park and Recreation
District ($1.65 million), those
districts belonging to the third
and 18th largest cities in the
state. Comparably sized dis-
tricts such as the Greater St.
Helens Park and Recreation
District or Molalla Aquatic
operate on 25% to 31% of the
Sunset Empire Park and Rec-
reation district’s imposed tax.
The Broadway Middle
School acquisition will cost
the taxpayers even more than
the proposed and failed 2018
$20 million bond measure.
Skyler Archibald wrote to The
Astorian in October 2018 that
a $20 million bond would be
less expensive than buying
and refurbishing the school:
“The district explored the
possibility of acquiring the
soon-to-be-vacated Broad-
way Middle School prop-
erty, but the acquisition and
remodel costs of that project
far exceeded the $20 million
project contained in Measure
4-196,” he wrote. “Therefore,
the district is moving forward
with this route, the more eco-
nomical of the options.”
If the failed $20 mil-
lion bond was the econom-
ical alternative, what is the
expected cost for payments on
a $2.25 million property with
renovations, utilities, insur-
ance and payroll for additional
employees? Will existing pro-
grams continue to be cut, to
pay for this endeavor, as they
were this year?
The taxpayers who have
already purchased and main-
tained this property as a
school for the last 71 years,
should not be forced to buy it
again.
I urge SEPRD to recon-
sider its decision to purchase
the school property and can-
cel escrow. They should be
grateful of the funding that
has been bestowed on the dis-
trict instead of increasing the
district’s debt and subsequent
taxpayer burden.
Patrick Duhachek
Seaside
Watch the
election forum
I want to applaud AAUW
and the Seaside Signal for
sponsoring last night’s elec-
tion forum, which can be seen
on the city of Seaside’s You-
Tube channel.
A worthwhile event allow-
ing the community to meet
and hear directly from our
local and state candidates. As
moderator, R.J. Marx, edi-
tor of the Signal, did a mas-
terful job of bringing out the
candidates in a broad range
of areas. Community history,
pertinent civic involvement,
institutional knowledge, rel-
evant small business experi-
ence, humility, and the abil-
ity to “get along” all became
readily identifi able.
These candidates deserve
our collective appreciation for
stepping up and putting them-
selves out there.
I encourage everyone to
watch the above youtube link
prior to casting your vote.
Stephen Malkowski
Seaside
Homelessness not
a ‘lifestyle choice’
I would like to submit
some information for the
workshop on homelessness
Seaside City Council is hav-
ing next month.
I am disabled and unable
to leave my home due to the
high risk of death if I were to
be exposed to or get sick with
COVID-19. Therefore, I am
unable to attend the workshop
in person, but am very inter-
ested in participating, as a res-
ident of Seaside. I am also
interested as someone who
has interacted with homeless
people and attempted to fi nd
help for them.
I have spent hours and
hours contacting organiza-
tions in Seaside regarding
homelessness, including the
Seaside police, every single
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
Jeremy Feldman
ADVERTISING
SALES MANAGER
Sarah Silver-
Tecza
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
church and/or religious orga-
nization, hospital, and Help-
ing Hands. No one was able
to provide any information on
how to obtain any help (most
importantly shelter and hous-
ing) for anyone who is home-
less in Seaside and any avail-
able resources (such as those
at Providence Seaside Hospi-
tal and those in Astoria) oper-
ate only during business hours
and also will not help in any
way anyone who uses alco-
hol or has an addiction of any
kind. I was told there were
no resources here in Seaside,
that nothing can be done to
help the homeless here other
than tell them to go to Asto-
ria (or somewhere else), and
that helping the homeless at
any church or religious orga-
nization was impossible due
to lack of space and insurance.
What was left unsaid was total
lack of interest.
There is no reason for Sea-
side to attempt to reinvent the
wheel when there are plenty
of examples of best practices
on how to help the homeless.
There are truly thousands of
available resources, including
information from locations
that have successfully eradi-
cated homelessness. All of this
information is out there and
free for you to access and use.
Based on the article in the
Seaside Signal, I do not feel
that the mayor, police chief,
city manager, or the city coun-
cil are actually interested in
helping the homeless popu-
lation in Seaside. It seems to
me that the imperative is to
criminalize homelessness, vil-
ify and blame those who are
homeless (since when is being
homeless a lifestyle choice?),
and making sure that Seaside
is as inhospitable and unde-
sirable as possible for people
who are in need of any kind of
help so that they do not come
here in the fi rst place, which
blatantly ignores the fact that
any number of the homeless
population in Seaside could
be from Seaside and have
become homeless due to lack
of affordable housing in the
fi rst place, loss of employ-
ment, fi nancial devastation
— medical bills, foreclo-
sure, unforeseen, unexpected
expenses — physical or men-
tal illness, being kicked out of
their homes, or any other rea-
son, starting right here.
I also hope this issue will
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
John D. Bruijn
Skyler Archibald
Darren Gooch
Joshua Heineman
Rain Jordan
Katherine Lacaze
Esther Moberg
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
Carl Earl
continue to be addressed after
the election, with new city
council members.
Christina R. Buck
Seaside
Suzanne Weber is
the right choice
Suzanne Weber is the right
choice for House District 32.
She has experience as
an educator, small busi-
ness owner and she cur-
rently serves as the mayor of
Tillamook.
What I admire about
Suzanne is she is practical
and nonpartisan. She focuses
on understanding the issues
important to our community
and developing solutions and
results based on a common-
sense approach; not rooted in
a specifi c agenda or political
philosophy.
She wants our rural North
Coast communities to have
a voice in Salem and she
vows not to align herself
with the priorities of Portland
politicians.
We need a representa-
tive who represents the North
Oregon Coast fi rst and fore-
most. Please support Suzanne
Weber for state representative
for House District 32.
Patrick Nofi eld
Cannon Beach
Vote for Adam
Wood
I am writing to you in your
capacity as editor of the Sea-
side Signal and South County
for The Astorian to show
my support for candidate
Adam Wood for Seaside City
Council.
I am confi dent that Adam
will ensure the voices of the
community will be heard as
well as deliver on smart mak-
ing commonsense decisions
for the city.
Kristen Hura
Seaside
Weber is a
pragmatic leader
In Robert Potter’s letter
on Oct. 6, he bemoaned that
Suzanne Weber doesn’t con-
stantly scream her party affi li-
ation from the rooftops, while
Debbie Boothe-Schmidt
announces her partisanship at
every opportunity.
Which affi liation would
Mr. Potter like to know?
The fact that she was nom-
inated by the Independent
Party, a refl ection of her belief
that party doesn’t matter when
it comes to getting work done
for the people, as well as an
acknowledgment of her 18
years as a non-partisan mayor
and city councilor?
Or her nomination by the
Republican party, the party
she’s been affi liated with
for decades, but no one ever
knew because she’s always
cared about results, not party
affi liation?
Or her nomination by the
Libertarian party because
of her dedication to the civil
rights of all Oregonians?
The reality is that Mayor
Weber doesn’t wear her
party affi liation or nomina-
tion on her sleeve because she
believes partisanship is the
problem.
Debbie Boothe-Schmidt
is a partisan activist. She has
been for years. That’s why
partisan extremists in Port-
land who don’t care about us
have dumped hundreds of
thousands of dollars into her
campaign.
Debbie is dedicated to total
partisan politics now and she
would do nothing but follow
her partisan bosses in Salem.
We’ve seen enough partisan-
ship in Salem.
Let’s send a message to
political party bosses that the
North Coast is sick of parti-
san politicians like Debbie
Boothe-Schmidt.
Let’s send a nonpartisan,
pragmatic, experienced leader
to Salem.
Let’s vote for Suzanne
Weber for state representative.
Lisa Lamping
Warrenton
Resiliency plan
has no credibility
Clatsop County’s resil-
iency plan has no credibil-
ity with constituents who
have been studying this proj-
ect extensively, By the time
we learned of the plan for our
area, the county already had
two purchase agreements on
the table.
One, to buy Warrenton
Fiber’s sort yard of 37 acres
on Fort Clatsop Road. This
property lies within a tsu-
nami inundation zone and a
slide zone. It has an existing
storm water catchment sys-
tem indicating the possibility
of requiring costly cleanup. A
fail in fulfi lling goals to relo-
cate out of a tsunami or slide
zone, with complications on
the side.
The other property is 5
miles of logging road parallel-
ing Lewis and Clark Road.
Owned by Greenwood
Resources, it is zoned forest.
Both need zoning exceptions
from the state for this proj-
ect to proceed. The resulting
development that could follow
this zone change is one we are
not ready for!
We do not have roads in
and out of the county to sup-
port more traffi c. Until we do,
this is irresponsible develop-
ment. Access to the Mainline
is now available as is for util-
ity work and emergencies.
The master plan for the
North Coast Business Park
included an industrial zone
for the Public Works and sup-
porting agencies. What’s
changed? This site fulfi lls both
relocation criteria and is a fi s-
cally prudent investment since
the taxpayers own it.
Response to 28 letters to
the county commission by our
representing commissioner:
“change is coming.” Sounds
a lot more like development
than public safety to me.
Linda Brim
Astoria
Vote for Weber
I served as a nonparti-
san county commissioner
in Clatsop County for eight
years. I know how hard
you have to work to fi ght
to make sure your commu-
nity is heard when bigger,
more affl uent communities
try to work their will on the
process.
Partisanship can’t cloud
your judgement. You have
to do what is best for the
people you represent, not
some party boss tells you is
important.
That’s why I’m endors-
ing Mayor Suzanne Weber
for state representative. She
has the experience, the drive
See Letters to the Editor,
Page A5
Seaside Signal
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