OUR 114th Year
March 5, 2021
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
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City looks
at paid
parking
downtown
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Dozens of beach towns have effec-
tively managed parking inventory and
captured revenue with a seasonal paid
parking program, businessman Adam
Israel told the City Council in February.
“I think it would be a great fit, a great
solution for downtown,” he said. “The
long-term goal would be to build a sec-
ond- or third-level parking structure, and
use those funds to help pay for that park-
ing structure.”
The system works with an app, Pass-
port Parking, now used in a 40-space
parking lot on Avenue A next to the Elks
Lodge.
See Parking, Page A6
Four seats up
for election
on Seaside
school board
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Four positions on the Seaside School
District Board of Directors are coming
up for election on May 18. Two of the
board members, Brian Taylor and Brian
Owen, have announced their intention to
run. The seven-position board has vacan-
cies in Cannon Beach, Seaside, Gearhart
and at-large positions.
Taylor, the board vice president,
has represented Cannon Beach’s Zone
2 Position 2 seat since 2013. He is
co-owner of Bruce’s Candy Kitchen in
Cannon Beach.
Owen, a Seaside resident and chief
executive officer for the Seaside Cham-
ber of Commerce, is seeking the Zone 6
Position 2 seat. Owen was named to the
board after Hugh Stelson announced his
retirement in October.
“After some consideration, I will be
Photos by R.J. Marx
Gretchen Darnell, with daughters Lindsey Darnell and Lauren Oxley, at her retirement party last week.
‘Keeper of the keys’ leaves
convention center
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
The banner Gretchen Darnell wore
read “Officially Retired.” A crown
symbolized her role as doyenne of
the Seaside Civic and Convention
Center.
“I am sort of the ‘keeper of the
keys,’” she said. “I hold the key to
book the building.”
Darnell started in July 1997 as
the convention center’s sales direc-
tor. She celebrated her retirement
last week in a meet and greet at the
remodeled convention center.
Not that attendees needed an intro-
duction. Her family, the Fulops, had
a summer home in Gearhart for four
generations that they spent time at
while growing up.
She relocated to the North Coast
when her ex-husband, Rick Darnell,
was hired as a Seaside police offi-
cer. “Rick saw that job and said, ‘You
know Gretchen, this job has your
name on it,’ because I was always
in hotel cruise ships group sales.
My parents owned travel agencies. I
worked for American wine cruises,
Intercontinental Hotels.”
The last job she had before joining
the convention center was regional
sales manager at American Hawaii
Cruises, based in San Francisco.
The Seaside Civic and Convention Center honored sales director Gretchen Darnell
on her retirement.
When Darnell arrived in Sea-
side in 1997, Karen Murray was the
convention center’s general man-
ager. Russ Vandenberg, the conven-
tion center’s general manager today,
joined in 2005.
Darnell attended countless break-
fasts, lunches and community meet-
ings to promote the convention cen-
ter and its value to Seaside. In the
process, she regaled the community
with inside tales of the cat shows,
bridge tournaments, food festivals
and ghostly goings-on at the Oregon
See Darnell, Page A5
See School board, Page A6
Recreation
restrictions
ease in Seaside
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
As Clatsop County
moved into the lower-risk
category for the corona-
virus last week, the Sun-
set Empire Park and Rec-
reation District has lifted
restrictions at the Sun-
set Pool and child care
facilities.
“We’re really hope-
ful and optimistic based
on the daily counts the
county is providing,” Sky-
ler Archibald, the park dis-
trict’s executive director,
said. “We have hopefully
made it through the last of
our forced closures.”
The pool has reopened
and closed six times since
March 2020. “I’m grate-
ful and appreciative to our
staff, the county health
department, which have
A RETURN TO
THE POOL
Temperature checks
and masks will be
required at check-in
and walking through
the facility. Patrons are
asked to maintain a
6-foot distance from
other patrons and staff
while in the building.
Online reservation is
available; to sign up,
visit sunsetempire.com.
Staff are available from
6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday
through Friday at 503-
738-3311.
been great, and our patrons,
which have accepted the
changes and challenges
of being open and still
kept their patronage really
high,” Archibald said.
With first and second
See Restrictions, Page A6
Aquarium, library team
up for ‘Maine Event’
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Only at an aquarium
would visitors be greeted
by the clapping fins of har-
bor seals. And with their
approval,
the
Seaside
Aquarium raised more than
$5,000 Sunday to benefit
the Seaside Public Library
Foundation.
“The Maine Event” cel-
ebrated Neal Maine, a for-
mer Seaside High School
teacher, photographer and
naturalist who stepped down
from the aquarium’s board
of directors after 25 years.
In his honor, the aquarium
donated all admissions from
Sunday’s gate to a nonprofit
of Maine’s choosing.
“Maine’s dedication to
the Seaside Aquarium, the
community and nature is
inspirational,” the aquari-
um’s Tiffany Boothe said.
Maine selected the foun-
dation, which he described
as a public resource that
benefits the community.
“There are two worlds,”
Maine said. “One is the non-
profit public entities and then
there’s the business commu-
nity. Many of them play an
important role in community
success and make contribu-
tions that can’t be made by
any other group.”
Maine’s connection to
the aquarium stretches back
to when he was a 7-year-old
whose family had moved to
Oregon from Nebraska.
Then, as now, he found
Seaside unique as a cross-
roads of the air, water and
people. “It’s kind of a syn-
chronizing
phenomenon
where those three all come
together,” he said. “People
need to recognize that and
try to secure its future. We’re
trashing the beaches, and
trashing the ocean water, the
key resource is lost.”
As a science teacher for
30 years and later as found-
ing executive director of the
North Coast Land Conser-
vancy in 1986, Maine played
a key role in regional land
conservation efforts.
As a member of the aquar-
ium’s board since 1995,
he assisted in starting the
Beach Discovery Program,
R.J. Marx
Neal Maine, Seaside Public Library Foundation board member
Leah Griffith and library director Esther Moberg.
R.J. Marx
See Aquarium, Page A6
Neal Maine and aquarium general manager Keith Chandler.