www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
Our Time • 2015 •• 11
Our Time 55+ Fall 2022
Our Time 55+
Our Time Section
Citizen North Coast
Inside
Headlight Herald
Fall 2022
VOL. 46, ISSUE 21
FREE
CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM
Plenty of Halloween fun slated in Cannon Beach Pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, and more
Chelsea Yarnell
T
For The Gazette
his year, the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce has created a chance for kiddos to wear their costume more than once. The first ever Cannon Beach Treat Trail will create a downtown trick-or-treat opportunity for the children in the community. The event will take place on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 1-4 p.m. “We have over 20 stops on the Treat Trail already,” Chamber of Commerce Office Manager Laura Kaim said. Stop by the Chamber of Commerce Information Center (207 N Spruce St) for a photo opportunity,
list of participating locations, and pick up a free reusable bag to collect treats in. For a complete list of stops and to “play along” on the Treat Trail, download the Experience Cannon Beach App. “There’s still time to be an added location on the Treat Trail, just let us know,” Kaim said. To be a stop, contact the Chamber by Friday, Oct. 13. By calling 503436-2623 or emailing chamber@cannonbeach. org.
T
The Cannon Beach Treat Trail will take place on Sunday, Oct. 30 with various downtown businesses participating as stops for trickor-treating.
Dessert with the District Join the Cannon Beach Fire District on Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. for an evening of Halloween safety information. Wear your costume and stop by the firehouse (188 Sunset Blvd) to ask the Chief questions, pick up glow sticks and candy, decorate cupcakes, and enter a coloring contest. All ages
well come. Contact 503-436-2949 for more information. Driftwood Restaurant’s pumpkin carving contest Sharpen your knives and creative skills; it’s time to show off your skills of pumpkin carving. At the Driftwood Restaurant &
Lounge, those who are 21 years or older can use the supplied pumpkins and basic carving materials on the deck at the restaurant to create their Halloween masterpiece. The contest begins Oct. 21 and runs through Oct. 30 Judging will be done on Oct. 31 and winners will be announced on Facebook.
Approves extra paid days off for employees over holidays
T
Staff Writer
he Cannon Beach City Council addressed a short agenda last Tuesday night at City Hall. With Mayor Council President Mike Benefield attending the meeting via Zoom due to a Coronavirus infection, Councilman Brandon Ogilve chaired the meeting. Mayor Sam Steidel was also absent attending an out of town conference. Ogilve decided that due to the Council’s diminished attendance, public comment on the transportation system plan should be left open until the November meeting, with Council discussion and voting postponed until that meeting as well. Several members of the public
made short comments on the plan, but all said they would reserve their full comments for the next meeting. After that, the Council addressed an ordinance to regulate psilocybin activity in the town. With the decision not to put a measure on the November ballot on whether to permit psilocybin business activity in the town, the drug will become legal on January 1, for therapeutic use. The proposed ordinance will limit psilocybin production activity to the area around the RV park,
while distribution will be limited to commercial districts. The ordinance passed the Council by a vote of 3-1, with Councilwoman Robin Risley voting nay. The council then unanimously voted to approve a Heritage Tree program, to help the city preserve important local trees. Council members proceeded to unanimously recognize October as “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” in Cannon Beach. There were several committee appointments, which the Council
then considered. They quickly approved Dorian Farrow to the Budget Committee and Jay Orloff to the Design Review Board. Orloff, a local architect, had also applied for a vacancy on the planning commission. However, concerns over potential conflicts of interest led the Council to delay voting to allow other applicants time to come forward. Finally, the Council unanimously voted an extra day of vacation for city employees around the holidays, giving them four-day weekends for the final two weekends of the year. Please send any comments to headlightreporter@countrymedia. net
Cannnon Beach Academy provides unique, local choice Will Chappell
T
Staff Writer
he Cannon Beach Academy has had a strong start to the school year. The kindergarten through 5th grade public, charter school is now in its sixth year of offering a free educational alternative for families in and around Cannon Beach. “This is a choice; it is not something you have to pay for,” said the Academy’s Director, Ryan Hull. He said that when many in the community hear the words “charter school” they assume it is private but he emphasized, “our families do not pay one penny, we are a free school.” The Cannon Beach Academy offers a direct instruction curriculum to its 44 students, meaning that they focus on skills development for individual students, rather than teaching to a set lesson plan. This approach leads to enthusiasm in the classroom, according to Board Secretary, Alec Holser. “When you walk into the classroom you see the level of engagement the teachers have,” Holser said. “Just the amount of activity and commitment,
Restaurant owners talk food tax after three months of collections Deb Atiyeh
City council deals with short agenda Will Chappell
October 14, 2022
even when the students aren’t there, it’s incredible.” The school was started in 2017 to offer seaside families a local alternative for elementary education after the old school was consolidated into Pacific Ridge Elementary in Seaside. The school has three classrooms for its small student body, with kindergarten has its own, while the first and second grades, and third, fourth and fifth grades are in combined classrooms. Hull said that the small class sizes allowed teachers to successfully implement the direct instruction style and help tailor education to students’ needs. These volunteers spruced up the playground recently at Cannon Beach AcadThe academy emy. Photo courtesy of CBA offers weekly Spanish language instruction from a from school. ings in the kindergarten for people here in our teacher on staff, as well This year, the academy class for this year, while community,” said Hull. as free breakfast and has welcomed a new kin- the other grades have full lunch for all students. It dergarten teacher, Amy rosters. Please send any is open to any student Rider, and a new lunch “The reason we are comments to headlightrewho wishes to attend, but person and recess attenhere is because we have porter@countrymedia.net families are responsible dant, Valeena Campos. a specific, unique choice for transportation to and There are still openthat we wanted to provide
For the Gazette
he Cannon Beach Gazette sat down with seven Cannon Beach restaurant owners and the City Manager and asked about the effect of the new Prepared Food Tax: (some comments have been edited for clarity and brevity) Sea Level Bakery Jason and Liz Menke, Owners While we are supportive of our local fire department, police department, and city government, we have faced many struggles with Cannon Beach’s newly implemented prepared food tax. I can assure you that we did our best to raise our concerns publicly to our city government. We support responsible government. We’ve run into many awkward situations. Very few people are expecting to pay a tax on their items in a state that is famous for having no sales tax. Many times, people hand us the exact change for an item that is taxed. What do we do now as they’re walking out the door while we’re trying to finish their transaction? Nor is it uncommon for us to serve a customer at the window whilst ringing another at the register. They may hand us $3 for a cookie per the pre-tax days and walk away without knowing there’s an additional $0.15 due for the tax! How uncomfortable to put our hardworking staff through that awkward conversation, or worse yet chase them down the sidewalk! What happens when they don’t have enough change to cover the unexpected tax? What happens when they’re mad about the tax? All of these are real situations we’ve encountered in the last 3 month since the launch of the food tax. This is all coming at a time of unprecedented inflation. The timing couldn’t be worse. People are watching their spending more than we’ve ever seen before. Inevitably, the question comes up, “Where does the money go?” I wish we had a good answer for that. We were never given nor presented a budget from any of the agencies that are set to receive a lot of money on a tax that, to the best of our knowledge, is never set to sunset. As far as we understand, the tax revenue raised can be used for working capital! In our experience, any bank would laugh us out of the building with such a vague budget and plan if we asked to borrow money from them. Roughly 20% of our sales are in cash. We’ve always kept our prices on the quarters in order to easily accommodate quick cash transactions and cut down on the amount of time we need to spend counting money at open and close. The food tax has put a serious burden on our cash handling. Not only do we have to spend time explaining the tax to customers, we also have roughly 15 minutes more time per day spent handling cash. We are a “mom and pop” shop operating with far too few staff. This means we’re either requiring our limited staff to spend over an hour per week counting change or we’re doing it ourselves. That’s an hour less family time and that’s a tough pill to swallow. We don’t have a way to measure the lost revenue from not being able to process as many transaction per day due to cash handling slowing our line, but we believe it’s real. And the real stinger is that not a dime goes toward workforce housing or worker benefits. Additionally, this burden of cash handling was an issue that myself and others brought up to our city council before they took up this tax. This was a known issue they decided to let us bear. Not accepting cash is out of the question for us as it is an equity issue.
n See TAX, Page 6