OUR 114th Year
January 8, 2021 $1.00
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
Ham to
remain
Seaside
police chief
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
Enterprise rescinds job offer
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Ted Mittelstaedt
Elk off the back deck of a 14th Avenue home driven across the estuary after heavy rains.
Police Chief Dave
Ham will stay in his role
in Seaside after the offer
for the police chief posi-
tion he accepted in Enter-
prise was rescinded.
Ham shared plans to
Dave Ham
take the position in Enter-
prise in November.
Enterprise will restart the selection
process after rescinding Ham’s offer.
Ham was set to be sworn in on Monday.
See Ham, Page A3
Culling rises to top of
elk population control
strategies in Gearhart
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Gearhart moved a step closer on a
plan to reduce the local elk population.
The plan relies on hunting outside city
limits to stem the birth rate of elk calves.
“No doors should be considered
closed, especially when you’re looking
at creative solutions for managing an
urban elk herd,” Manuel Padilla, proj-
ect manager for Oregon Solutions, said
at a Gearhart City Council workshop
last week.
Middle school
inspection
reports alarm
residents
“You’re going to start seeing very
quickly a situation in which you are
going to have very few, if any, options
left to be able to start to bring down the
herd to a manageable level,” Padilla said.
“That’s precisely why culling, although
a tough decision, has been put forward
and is strongly, strongly recommended.”
The elk population in Clatsop
County is exponentially higher than a
decade ago, said Paul Atwood, a biol-
ogist with the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
Joyce Hunt
See Elk, Page A3
Elk scrambling from the estuary into
Seaside after storms.
Leaks, cracks, asbestos hint
at future costs for Broadway
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Van Heusen closes store at Seaside outlet mall
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Santa made his last stop at
Van Heusen on Christmas Eve
as the business attire store at
Seaside Outlets closed its doors.
The store had been in Seaside
since 2001.
“It’s tough out there,” said
Jeff Ter Har, owner of Ter Har’s
in Seaside and Cannon Beach.
“Retailers are having a lot of
problems. Everybody is.”
The Van Heusen store clo-
sure comes after PVH Corp.,
the parent company of Calvin
Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and sev-
eral other brands, announced the
planned closing of its 162 Heri-
tage Brand retailers across North
America because of the corona-
virus pandemic. Heritage Brand
includes IZOD and Van Heusen.
See School, Page A6
Van Heusen, a business attire store at the Seaside Outlets, has closed.
The company’s website
shows only five Van Heusen
retail locations remaining, one
in Ontario, Canada, one in Ver-
mont and the rest in New York
state. All Heritage Brand loca-
tions are expected to close by
late 2021.
“Formalwear is a tough busi-
ness to be in because workplace
dress has gotten so casual,” Ter
Har said. “At this point with the
pandemic, things are even more
casual than they used to be. It’s
sad. We’ve dabbled in it from
time to time, but there’s just not
enough business to sustain it.”
Van Heusen is the third store
to close this year in the outlet
mall, along with Daisy May’s
Sandwich Shop and It’s 5 Dis-
tillery, mall manager Kendra
Lounsbury said.
Tokyo Teriyaki took a break
but they’re back, she said, and
a new restaurant, Legends Pub-
lic House, is coming. Advantage
Dental debuted with a soft open-
SEASIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT
ing in December.
Lounsbury anticipates cloth-
ing retailers will return.
“We had pretty good sales
through the summer to the fall
before we went into the Oregon
freeze,” she said. “People were
coming out to shop. We take pre-
cautions and make sure to have a
clean, safe environment to shop
and the stores were doing that as
well. I absolutely think people
will come out when we get in an
even better position.”
In an electronic setting, Gearhart clarifies council rules of conduct
In-person meetings
delayed indefinitely
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Show your faces and keep it
sober.
Those were among rules dis-
cussed at the Gearhart City Coun-
cil’s last work session of 2020
when City Councilors sought to
clarify rules in a world of long-dis-
tance and livestream meetings.
“The city will use an electronic
The Sunset Empire Park and Recre-
ation District announced a deal for the
Broadway Middle School purchase last
week. Before the deal was authorized by
the board, a Facebook group, Taxpay-
ers for SEPRD Transparency, told board
members that up to $5 million is needed
immediately for repairs and upgrades to
Broadway Middle School in addition to
the purchase price, $2.15 million.
“This is a building that has mold, rot,
asbestos, cracks, sinking, water within
the structure and a roof that inspection
reports show has needed total replace-
ment for quite some years,” said City
Councilor Tita Montero, a member of
the group who is speaking a private
citizen.
meeting format when neces-
sary during any emergency when
meeting in person is not possible
or safe,” reads the proposed lan-
guage. “It is expected if the tech-
nology is available that the cam-
era view will be used, especially
when speaking to the group and
when a vote of the council mem-
bers is taken.”
The rules give staff the abil-
ity to mute a participant during
the meeting if meeting decorum is
disrupted.
Meetings will be timed and the
mayor will ask if a five-minute
break is needed after two hours.
Meetings with interviews will
generally be scheduled one hour
before the regular meeting.
It is expected that the council
will refrain from alcohol intake
or taking drugs that might impair
their ability to make decisions
prior to meetings, according to the
code of conduct revisions.
While approving bringing the
recommendations to a vote at
a future regular meeting, coun-
cil members fell short of pick-
ing up City Councilor Dan Jes-
se’s request to return to in-person
meetings. “I don’t think we’ve
had anybody speak at one of these
meetings since we started this
April,” he said.
Jesse said electronic meetings
failed to provide adequate oppor-
tunity for public comment. While
the meetings are available to the
public to listen or participate elec-
tronically, “listening is not the
same as participating and interact-
ing,” he said.
Mayor Paulina Cockrum said
in-person meetings would likely
be delayed until a a COVID-19
vaccine is readily available.
“Until we have our popula-
tion vaccinated, people don’t
want to go out in public or meet in
groups,” Cockrum said. “I would
say June, myself, unless we could
come up with a really big room.
... I don’t see how we can do that
right now.”
“The point of vaccination is
a good point to start considering
it,” City Councilor Kerry Smith
added.
New district
policy bans
hate symbols
on campus
Policy applies to in-person,
distance learning
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For the Seaside Signal
A new Seaside School District policy
will prohibit the use or display of hate
symbols on school grounds or in any dis-
trict- or school-sponsored program, activ-
ity or event, except as part of educational
curriculum.
The All Students Belong policy,
approved by the district’s board of direc-
tors during a meeting in December, iden-
tifies symbols of hate as a “symbol,
image or object that expresses animus on
the basis of race, color, religion, gender
identity, sexual orientation, disability or
national origin.” This includes the noose,
swastika and Confederate flag.
See Policy, Page A6