A4 • Friday, March 4, 2022 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
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Can Gearhart learn lessons from Banks’ Buxton Station?
Scott Adams is the public information
offi cer as well as a fi refi ghter engineer for
Banks Fire District. The Banks fi re station
on U.S. Highway 26, prominent along the
trip to Portland and back, has been cited for
comparison by both proponents and oppo-
nents of Gearhart’s upcoming fi re bond vote.
Is the Banks’ Hornshuh Creek Fire Station
#14 on Highway 26 — also known as Buxton
Station — a viable source of comparison?
Adams spoke to the Signal at a Gearhart
Fire Department open house on Saturday.
Q: A lot of people in Gearhart are com-
menting on the Banks’ facility on U.S.
Highway 26.
Scott Adams: Well, it’s something that’s
pretty visible to your folks as they come
over the hill. A lot of comparisons are get-
ting drawn between the beautiful station that
we’ve been able to build there and the pro-
gram that Gearhart is trying to put together
out here.
Q: Do you think the two sites are an
“apples to apples” comparison?
Adams: It’s apples and oranges in that
they’re both fruit. Out of both stations,
you’re going to be providing fi re services.
So much more is going into the facilities that
they’re putting together here in Gearhart,
with fi re, with police, with the community
resiliency station than we’ve done with our
Station 14 on Highway 26.
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
R.J. MARX
Q: What year was Banks fi re station
built?
Adams: We started in the 2017-2018
time-frame, and predominantly built during
2019 and 2020. The cost of that for just the
construction part of it alone was between
$3.5 and $4 million.
Q: Did the city of Banks own the land?
Adams: The land was completely
donated to us, so that’s not included in that
cost. And what’s also not included in that
cost is a huge amount of upgrades that the
community provided to us with the dona-
tions and in-kind service and labor. We were
able to for that dollar spec out and build a
very bare-bones station. Our contractors,
the community, said, “We’re not going to
allow that, we want something really nice
here, so we’re going to step in and we’re
going to add to it. We’re going to add beau-
tiful siding, we’re going to add timbers,
we’re going to donate all those and put them
in for you.”
A large part of what you see visually
was either donated or from grants, and not
included in our base bond cost of $3.5 mil-
lion. The solar that’s in our roof, which helps
pay our electricity, was grant-provided. Our
training tower, that was provided by a FEMA
fi refi ghter training grant. So a large part of
what you see visually was either donated or
grants, and not included in our base bond
cost of $3.5 million.
Q: Do you know how much it would
have cost without donations or grants?
Adams: We really don’t, because it was
put together bits and pieces here. Three have
been numbers thrown out there that if we
were to rebuild it today, it would be two or
three or four times what it cost us to do if we
actually just paid for everything that’s there.
Q: How does your geographic and pop-
ulation area that you cover compare to
Gearhart?
Adams: It’s a little bit misleading to just
look at pure geography, because we have
such a larger square-mile area, but so much
of it is uninhabited and unused. What’s
probably a more appropriate measure is
the types of calls and the call volume that
we get. Gearhart is pretty close to rivaling
what Banks is right now. We were just under
1,000 calls this last year and Gearhart has
been growing to 500, 600, 700 over the last
few years.
Q: One of the issues that’s arisen is that
some people say that a large majority of
Gearhart fi re calls are mutual aid calls. Is
it the same in Banks?
Adams: It absolutely is. The reality is
that residents and guests in our community
don’t segregate where those county lines
are. They don’t segregate where those dis-
trict lines are. Someone driving off Highway
101 doesn’t care whether they’re in Seaside
or whether they’re in Gearhart or Warrenton.
Likewise, we all have our own home
area that we have to provide services to.
But we’re all one big community fi re watch.
All fi re departments — Gearhart and Banks
included — engage in mutual aid agree-
ments with their neighbors.
In Banks, for example, we spend a lot of
time covering Highway 6, which heads out
to Tillamook. The vast majority of this area
is in the Forest Grove fi rst access area. And
so we mutual aid with Forest Grove on that.
Likewise, Forest Grove helps us a lot on the
south end of our district. It’s a give-and-
take. No one district is able to have enough
resources to cover just their district without
help and without helping others.
Q: Obviously you’re not in a tsunami
inundation zone out there.
Adams: We’re talking apples and oranges
between what you guys are doing with the
station. Heck, that’s not even talking fruit.
We don’t even have the ability to imagine
what it would have added to our system if
we had to deal with the tsunami inundation.
I’m sure that the requirements just purely
because of the building are massive. And
then the need to build there is so much
more important for you guys because you
are building a resiliency station where the
whole community is going to have a place to
gather. You’re building on a safe spot where
the community can come to.
Yes, if we had some local emergency for
us, the community could come gather at our
station. But being a community gathering
point in case of an emergency is not built
into our mission as much as it is into the new
Gearhart station.
Q: At what point did you become
aware of the Gearhart eff ort to build a
new station?
Adams: We started getting lots of ques-
tions recently, over the last six months any-
way, about people comparing Banks and
comparing Gearhart. So as the public infor-
mation offi cer, I started getting some of
these questions.
I’m a longtime guest and visitor of Gear-
hart, so I’m familiar with the station here and
driving by and forever, over 40 years, I’ve
driven by here going, “Wow, that’s really an
old station, I can’t believe they’re still work-
ing out of that.” It was kind of exciting to be
asked to be able to provide some compari-
sons and see the program put together here.
Q: Have you seen the plans?
Adams: I have seen the rough plans. I
have not seen detailed drawings on it.
Q: Do you think it’s a reasonable bond
request?
Adams: I’m not an architect, I’m not a
contractor. I don’t handle the money side of
things. But what I am able to comment on
is as a user of the facilities. And when I’m
looking at the plans here, what they are put-
ting together and doing in a facility smaller
than what we use — my initial reaction is,
wow, I can’t believe how much services
they’re cramming into that smaller space.
What they’re doing with the 2 acres of
land, we’re doing less with our 4 acres. It’s
just amazing to me, how many services they
put into a small space.
I’m very impressed by the plan. Having
walked around the old station here where
we are today and having looked at the plans
for the new station, it’s surprising to me that
they’ve even been able to provide the ser-
vices that they do out of this station. The
ability to have interns, the ability to have
out-of-district people come help you out, all
of that’s contingent on having resources that
this existing old station doesn’t have.
Q: Did social media play a role on the
Banks vote at all?
Adams: I think social media is playing a
role in everything right now.
Q: Do you follow the Gearhart issue
online, pros and cons?
Adams: I have been trying to keep tabs
on it. I can’t say that I wake up every morn-
ing and look at it, fi rst thing, but I have been
watching it. I’m really pleased at how many
of the community members on social media
understand the value that I’m seeing in it.
R.J. Marx
Scott Adams, public information offi cer of the Banks Fire District.
Banks Fire
Banks “Buxton” Station 14 (Hornshuh Creek Station) on U.S. Highway 26 was put into service
in 2020 and is 8,800 square feet. Station 14 has two extra long double bays for four full-size
apparatus or six medium-size apparatus. It has living quarters for six (could be expanded to
12) in six rooms plus full kitchen/day room facilities, a medium sized training room/conference
room, weight room, and offi ces for a front desk person and up to three personnel.
I’m a little shocked at some of the detrac-
tors that I see. In some, people might be
looking at one very small area and not under-
standing the big picture and the overall value
that they are getting for what Gearhart is try-
ing to put together here.
Q: What about the argument that
Gearhart doesn’t need a training facility
because Camp Rilea is already providing
training for the region?
Adams: I have trained at Camp Rilea,
and it’s a wonderful place. It’s a resource
that is great to have. But it’s not a dedicated
fi re training service. It’s not something that
a district can just run to every Monday night
for us in Banks, or whatever it is here, for
training that we can just pop into.
It’s got to be more of a planned and a
specifi c event type training, rather than the
daily weekly ongoing training that fi refi ght-
ers really need to stay on top of things.
Q: Are you saying that’s something they
can only get from the local department?
Adams: It’s the training that you can get
when you have the ability to say “let’s go out
back and work on this for an hour” versus
“I have to spend fi ve hours setting up a pro-
gram with another district.”
Again, back to mutual aid. We all work
together in many diff erent ways. Just because
Seaside has a ladder truck doesn’t mean we
need a ladder truck all the time. But we do
need to train all the time. And to say that we
can only train if we go somewhere else just
doesn’t make a lot of sense in today’s fi re
service.
Q: What brought you out here today?
How did you hear about it?
Adams: I knew that there was an open
house here today. I saw advertisements for
it. And I knew that there were a lot of ques-
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
City is at turning point
The city of Seaside is at a crucial turn-
ing point, as we begin the process of hiring a
new city manager. Mark Winstanley will be
retiring soon, so the recruiting, vetting, and
interviewing needs to move quickly.
As a longtime city employee, recently
retired, I have seen, and personally expe-
rienced the inner workings of the city, and
want to share my opinion.
While I am all for hiring from within, in
this case, it isn’t our best option. The city
deserves a capable leader who has the edu-
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
PUBLIC MEETINGS
cation, experience, a deep history of leader-
ship, and a proven track record who can hit
the ground running. An individual who will
honor our history, while having a vision for
the future. There are many issues needing
to be addressed, ones that have no easy fi x,
and perhaps a fresh eye would be useful. We
need to seek out the best candidate, with a
nationwide search. My hope is that our City
Council will not take the path of least resis-
tance, and truly search out the very best can-
didate for our city. As citizens, we deserve it.
Gretchen Darnell
Seaside
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
Shannon Arlint
ADVERTISING
SALES MANAGER
Sarah Silver-
Tecza
ADVERTISING
REPRESENTATIVE
Haley Werst
tions with regard to the comparison with
Banks Fire.
So I reached out to some of the fi refi ght-
ers here and said, “Do you have any ques-
tions that I can help answer? Anything we
can do to help your community answer those
questions?”
They issued the invitation for me to come
down today. I’ve had wonderful opportuni-
ties to talk with lots of diff erent people today
and it’s something I’m always open to do.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to
add at this point?
Adams: I think you’ve covered it pretty
well. You know, I just want to emphasize
again that I’m impressed with the plans that
I saw. And I’m really proud of what we’ve
done at Banks. And what I’m seeing in the
plans here. Gearhart is even greater.
Q: What does it mean to the volunteers
and the fi refi ghters to get a “yes” vote in a
bond vote like this?
Adams: Well, I think that the value of the
volunteer fi re department is not understood
by a community until they lose those volun-
teers and have to implement a paid fi re pro-
gram costing them many, many times what a
volunteer program does.
When you have a community behind you,
whether that’s fi nancially, emotionally or
otherwise, it’s far easier to build and main-
tain your volunteer program.
I know that morale plays a role in where
our volunteers choose to spend their time
and volunteers have a heart for serving
their community and saving lives in this
community.
And if they don’t feel like the communi-
ties behind them, whether that’s fi nancially
or otherwise, it’s really easy for them to go
somewhere else.
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
John D. Bruijn
Skyler Archibald
Joshua Heineman
Katherine Lacaze
Esther Moberg
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
Carl Earl
CONTRIBUTING
PHOTOGRAPHER
Jeff TerHar
Contact local agencies for latest meeting informa-
tion and attendance guidelines.
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway.
MONDAY, March 7
CERT, 5 p.m., 989 Broadway.
Seaside Housing Task Force, 6 p.m., 989 Broad-
way.
Seaside School District, 6 p.m., https://www.
seaside.k12.or.us/.
WEDNESDAY, March 9
WEDNESDAY, March 16
Seaside Houseless Task Force, 4 p.m., camping
workshop, 989 Broadway.
Tourism Advisory Committee, 4 p.m., 989
Broadway.
THURSDAY, March 10
Seaside Tree Board, 4 p.m., 989 Broadway.
Seaside Convention Center Commission,
5 p.m., 415 First Ave., Seaside.
THURSDAY, March 17
MONDAY, March 14
TUESDAY, March 15
Transportation Advisory Commission, 7 p.m.,
989 Broadway.
Seaside Signal
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