A4 • Friday, March 25, 2022 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
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To Mom, serving our communities for 45 years
orty-fi ve years. That’s an
awfully long time for any-
thing. Longer than 16,000
days and more than 390,000 hours.
Longer than Tom Brady’s life and
270 times longer than his most
recent retirement. Longer than this
author has been alive.
On April 1, Joell England
Archibald will be retiring from a
45-year career as a dedicated health
care professional that served in
numerous roles and communities.
Joell is my mom, and not just
any mom, but the type of mom
F
SKY BOX
SKYLER
ARCHIBALD
that mastered all the responsi-
bilities of raising six kids while
being a working professional with
many job requirements and daily
challenges.
Joell will be retiring from the
Oregon Health Authority where
she has worked the last nine years
as an innovator agent. Her role
was dynamic, involving communi-
ties across the northwest portion of
the state and, as you can imagine,
looks signifi cantly diff erent after
the last two years of dealing with
COVID.
There were days where she
would have meetings in Yamhill,
Tillamook and Clatsop Counties
and this was before the shifting of
Skyler Archibald
Lynn and Joell Archibald. Joell will be retiring from the Oregon Health
Authority where she has worked the last nine years as an innovator agent.
things to an online setting. Joell
has developed in-depth relation-
ships with those communities she
served and gone to great lengths to
elevate the public health voice and
initiatives needed to improve the
lives of those communities.
But the last decade only begins
to tell the story of a lifetime of ser-
vice in a healthcare setting. Joell
worked in Lincoln, Clatsop and
Wahkiakum (across the river)
Counties as the Director of Health
and Human Services and prior to
that, in public health positions for
Clatsop County and Columbia
Memorial Hospital.
Before our family moved here,
we lived in Puyallup, Washington,
and some of my memories from
that part of life were accompany-
ing mom during the fulfi llment of
her career; she owned and operated
a small business start up called
“The Warming Touch” focused on
providing in-home perinatal nurs-
ing services, specifi cally to babies
suff ering from jaundice shortly
after birth.
How comforting it was years
later when one of my own children
was born with jaundice to have
the expertise of Joell to guide us
through that process.
Even before that, Joell served
our country and bettered her
career through enrollment as an
active-duty US Army Nurse and
a reserve offi cer. Shortly after she
married my father (who retired in
2021), they were shipped around
the country from Washington,
D.C., to San Antonio and fi nish-
ing up at Fort Lewis in Washing-
ton state.
Somehow during that time,
she earned a Bachelor of Science
degree in nursing and a Master of
Business Administration degree,
with the timing coinciding with
what was surely the most challeng-
ing part of her professional career
and personal life, six children born
in the span of 10 years includ-
ing a set of twins and an ornery
and picky eating fourth child (this
author).
Your presumption that her
45-year career has been one
defi ned by movement, direction
and purpose would be precisely
accurate.
However impressive as that
professional resume is, it’s impos-
sible, for me at least to note any of
her career accomplishments before
her impact on me as my mother.
Mom never missed anything
that was signifi cant to me: athletic
contests, choir concerts, plays,
speeches. And that goes for my
siblings too. She also never missed
opportunities to ensure that I was
on the right path and believe me,
I gave plenty of opportunities for
corrective feedback.
Somehow, we ate dinner
together as a family every night
it seemed. The clothes and house
were always clean, lunch was
made or provided and I was always
where I needed to be after school,
thanks to her and the juggling
of an average of 14 trips daily to
and from various gyms, fi elds and
schools.
She continues to be a presence
in my life and in the life of her 16
grandchildren.
It sounds hyperbolic and cliché
to say, but she was (and still is) a
superwoman!
April 1 may mark the end of
her professional career but I antic-
ipate that her next endeavors will
continue to be themed by a clear
motive and purpose.
Her impact stretches far beyond
my family as I know she’ll be
missed in those communities that
she served. I’m hopeful that she’ll
fi nd as much value in her future
endeavors — volunteerism, ser-
vice, grandma duties and just
relaxing — as she did in her pro-
fessional career.
Now is the time to come together
Spend tax dollars wisely; vote no
here is widespread agreement among
Gearhart residents that we need a new
fi re station. We may not see eye-to-
eye regarding the station cost and location.
$14.5 million seems like a big number, and if
I had to foot the entire bill myself, I couldn’t.
Fortunately, we live in a community where
citizens band together to accomplish things that
axpayers, registered to vote in Clat-
sop County, have a unique opportu-
nity to encourage its leadership to
prioritize community needs and vote no for
Measure 4-213.
Currently Gearhart City Council seems
to lack vision for what local government
could provide all its citizens.
T
GUEST COLUMN
BRENT WARREN
benefi t all of us and would be impossible on
our own. When $14.5 million is shared among
all property owners and the debt is amortized
over 20 years, the number becomes much more
manageable.
Many in our community are dedicated to
providing our fi refi ghters and police the facil-
ity they need now and into the future. Some
opposed to these eff orts have said, “The city will
add an additional $1.213 per assessed $1,000
of your home’s assessed market value...” and
“The property tax rate per $1,000 of home val-
uation has moved from $1.05 to a new upward
range of $1.15 to $2.28. Wow!”
The Clatsop County tax assessor determines
“real market value” and then applies a percent-
age to calculate an “assessed value.”
Assessed value is the actual number used for
calculating property taxes. Last year, the city
was quoting $1.05 per $1,000 for the fi re/police
station bond.
Due to the unsuccessful legal challenge to
the bond title language last fall (when inter-
est rates were at an all-time low) the process
was delayed by seven months. The city did
the responsible thing and asked our construc-
tion consulting fi rm and bond advisor to pro-
vide updated fi gures. Not surprisingly, both
construction costs and bond interest rates have
gone up. The city is now quoting a range of
$1.15 to $1.21 per $1,000 of assessed value for
the new bond.
Why is there now a range and not a single
bond rate? Because our bond advisor provided
an alternative bond structure which would ease
the impact of the tax increase by evening out
the tax payments.
This would be achieved by having a smaller
initial tax increase for the fi re/police station
bond during the fi rst three years (while the
water bond No. 1 is still in eff ect) and then
increasing the rate to $1.21 in year 4, not in year
1. This scenario would also result in a slightly
smaller tax reduction after both water bonds are
paid off . (A more complete description and a
spreadsheet tax calculator are available on the
city’s website.)
The focus on the total construc-
tion cost distracts us from how the
bond will aff ect us as individual
homeowners and taxpayers. It also
confuses cost with value. For exam-
ple, based on my home’s assessed
value and depending on which bond
scenario the city choses, my annual
taxes will go up by about $250 or
$350 (less than a dollar a day) for the fi rst three
years, then they will go down. The city under-
stands that any tax increase can be diffi cult for
some and is already exploring the possibility
of a tax assistance program for low/moderate
income households.
I am confi dent the majority of Gearhart res-
idents appreciate the dedication of our heroic
fi rst responders and their families. We cannot
aff ord any further delays in providing them
with a modern and safe fi re/police station. The
longer we delay, the more it is going to cost
all of us.
Please join with me in voting “yes” on
Measure 4-213 by May 17.
T
GUEST COLUMN
JOY SIGLER
Someone said, “Without vision, the
people perish.” Perhaps a city that contin-
ually outsources so many amenities that
our elderly and young population
presently need could use some
vision?
Gearhart has an aging pop-
ulation that must travel to Sea-
side for most services. While
caring for a family member Jan-
uary 2017 to November 2019 we
gratefully utilized services pro-
vided at Seaside’s Bob Chisholm
Community Center.
Meals on Wheels off ered nutritious and
socially valuable meals times and skilled
fi tness instructors provided an array of
classes designed for multigenerational
ages to increase and maintain fi tness.
While these services were free or by
donation, there are many other classes and
facilities that demand a fee, higher for res-
idents outside the recreation district. Pres-
ently Gearhart boasts of no community hall
or gathering place, fi tness center or library.
Gearhart has chosen multiple times to opt
out of participating in the Sunset Park and
Recreation district.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Vote yes to support
Gearhart fi refi ghters
I am writing to ask my fellow Gearhart
community members to vote yes on Mea-
sure 4-213. The measure does ask a lot from
us. But in my opinion funding a new fi re and
police station that replaces the present inade-
quate one that is in an inundation zone gives
back to the livability and safety of our com-
munity more than it asks of us in funding.
A new building is expensive but putting it
off will cost more. The return on our invest-
ment is money well spent for our commu-
nity’s present and future. I am thankful our
city leaders are being proactive so as not to
have to be scrambling to provide unprepared
for emergency disaster services.
“Keep Gearhart, Gearhart” is a phrase
often heard in our community. While it
means diff erent things to diff erent people,
I hope you will vote yes on Measure 4-213
to provide our wonderful, selfl ess, and hard-
working safety offi cers and volunteers the
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
PUBLIC MEETINGS
space and equipment they deservedly need
to provide for the everyday lifesaving ser-
vices Gearhart needs to be Gearhart.
Chris Bell
Gearhart
Are county commissioners
working for you?
The Clatsop County Board of Commis-
sioners proposes to revamp the county’s
land use code to bury their violations of
issuing permits for short-term rentals, com-
mercial enterprises, in neighborhoods where
STRs are not a permitted use. This sweep-
ing change aff ects all residential zones in
unincorporated Clatsop County, granting
the county authority to issue unlimited STR
permits in any residential area, whether or
not the neighborhood can accommodate the
ensuing infrastructural strains.
See Letters, Page A5
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
Shannon Arlint
ADVERTISING
SALES MANAGER
Sarah Silver-
Tecza
ADVERTISING
REPRESENTATIVE
Haley Werst
While the Gearhart tax base assets are
enviable to many other cities, donations
were required to fi nish a trail on the famed
Ridge Path and donations again were
required to create a play structure at the
Trail’s End Gallery location, previously the
location of Gearhart’s fi rst grade school. At
this writing that play structure has yet to
materialize.
It is troublesome that this city council
voted to limit all bicycle use on its Ridge
Path, reducing overall recreation use, while
simultaneously demanding its taxpayers to
fund, at the tune of $14.5 million, a fi tness
center, showers, locker rooms for men and
woman, commercial kitchen, and gather-
ing space to be used exclusively 24/7 for
29 individuals, three of whom live in north
Seaside and 10 live in the rural fi re district.
Would these fi rst responders object to
sharing those very valuable assets with the
taxpayers who are funding them and cur-
rently have zero amenities of their own?
I choose to believe they would not mind
sharing and would applaud seeing a mul-
tiuse community space in central Gearhart
for gatherings and recreation where we
could create some sort of commonality.
Can Gearhart ever be known for kind-
ness rather than our very fractured reputa-
tion? Voting No is not a vote against our
fi remen but a plea to spend our tax dollars
wisely and with consideration.
Voting no will alert this council and
city manager that they are squandering an
excellent opportunity to be a self-suffi cient
city. They must do better for its citizens and
we must be deliberate in educating them to
have a vision that creates community for
both sides of the highway while enabling
the Gearhart Volunteer Fire Department
to perform effi ciently. Be an educator and
please vote no.
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
information and attendance guidelines.
MONDAY, March 28
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway.
TUESDAY, March 29
WEDNESDAY, April 6
Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., 989
Broadway.
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., www.cityofgear-
hart.com.
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District
Board of Directors, workshop, 4:30 p.m.; regular
meeting, 5:15 p.m., 1225 Ave. A.
THURSDAY, April 7
Gearhart City Council work session, 6 p.m.,
www.cityofgearhart.com.
MONDAY, April 11
MONDAY, April 4
Seaside Housing Task Force, 6 p.m., 989 Broad-
way.
TUESDAY, April 5
Seaside Community Center Commission,
10 a.m., Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225
Avenue A.
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., 989
Broadway.
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., 989 Broadway.
THURSDAY, April 14
Seaside Convention Center Commission,
5 p.m., 415 First Ave., Seaside.
TUESDAY, April 19
Community Emergency Response Team,
5 p.m., 989 Broadway.
Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m, 1131 Broad-
way.
Seaside Planning Commission, work session,
6 p.m., 989 Broadway.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., 989
Broadway.
Seaside School District, 6 p.m., https://www.
seaside.k12.or.us/.
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