Our Time • 2015 Our Time Spring 2023 •• 11
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VOL. 47, ISSUE 5
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CANNONBEACHGAZETTE.COM
March 3, 2023
Corgis will charm the shores of Seaside, event moved due to growth Deb Atiyeh
A
For the Gazette
fter 10 years in Cannon Beach, the annual Corgi summer event is moving to Seaside on June 24th. The Corgi event in Cannon Beach kept growing over the years, with the numbers of Corgi’s and their people becoming unmanageable for Cannon Beach. More and more people, and more and more Corgi’s filled the beaches and town of Cannon Beach, with about 600 Corgi’s and their 1,200 plus owners that were traveling from all over the United States for this special event. Added to the Corgi crowd were the regular number of visitors that fill the town on summer weekends, which was more than the City of Cannon Beach could safely accommodate. Even if you did not have a Corgi, people would come to experience and be captivated by the Corgi’s excessive charm. There are few things in life cuter than a crowd of Corgi’s wandering the town of Cannon Beach. Many residents and businesses are sad that Cannon Beach will not be hosting
the Corgi event this year. What was not so cute was the traffic and lack of parking in Cannon Beach. Oregon State Parks would give the group a permit for the event on the beach, but the City of Cannon Beach could not issue a permit for enough “Porta Potties” and dumpsters for such a large group. Cannon Beach asked the group if they could move the date to September, but with many children back at school, it was not a feasible date for the Corgi owners, according to Jennifer Robinson of the Portland Corgi Group, who organizes the event and fundraiser for the Oregon Humane Society. The City of Cannon Beach was also concerned about the safety aspect of the large crowds and multitudes of parked cars in the event of an emergency, as emergency vehicles would have a difficult time navigating obstructed streets. The Corgi event had outgrown Cannon Beach, and hopefully Seaside will be able to better accommodate the large number of people with better facilities and more parking. Upon hearing that the event would be moving from Cannon
Beach, three different cities, including Seaside, contacted the Portland Corgi group offering to host the event. Seaside was the obvious choice, as many of the Corgi owners book hotels in Cannon Beach, Astoria, Seaside, and Manzanita, and with Seaside conveniently located within a 90-minute drive of Portland. The Corgi event will be held June 24th, 2023 from 10 AM to
4 PM. Corgi lovers from Cannon Beach can watch the Adorable Corgi Costume Contest, the Corgi Races, and Raffle Drawings that will raise money for the Oregon Humane Society. Last year, the Corgi event raised almost $13,000. Residents and visitors in Cannon Beach will still hope to see many Corgis wandering the streets of Cannon Beach on Corgi weekend this June.
The owner of Cesar MF Plumbing on immigration, apprenticeships, and serving where needed Miska Salemann
B
For the Gazette
efore buying his own plumbing company, Cesar Gonzales grew up working with his hands in Pueblo, Mexico. After the school day, the young man shadowed his father who was carrying on the family’s legacy of working in the truck-driving business. Gonzales was a natural. He understood the responsibilities of the transportation service; from changing oils, to sweeping the bus isles, and wiping down the seats. He might have considered sticking with the family business, but at 16 years-old, life had another plan. The teenager fell in love and wanted to get married. Unfortunately, his parents were not too keen on the doe-eyed romance. “My parents didn’t give me the support for it,” Gonzales recalled. “So that makes me immigrate to the United States, to work and to save some money, and then that way I can get married.” It wasn’t an easy choice, but a brave one. Gonzales packed his bags and set out on a new path, hoping to eventually return home with his earrings. But, things didn’t go according to plan. “It didn’t work that way,” he explained. “I just came over here and I planted my seeds, you have family, you have kids. I have five kids and this became home.” When Gonzeles came to the United States, he thought he would apply some of the manual labor skills he learned helping out with his father’s business. He heard about MF Plumbing, a Seaside-based company founded back in 1979 by Mike Miller and
A bank.
Cesar Gonzales owner of Cesar MF Plumbing with his crew of employees. Photo provided Frank Kemmerer. Gonzales still laughs when he thinks back to the first interaction he had with his boss, Mike Miller. Miller was very direct with him. “Are you a thief? Are you a liar?” he asked Gonzales. Gonzales shook his head no. And just like that, his new boss looked him in the eye, “Well if you’re not, you can work with me. I really need honest people.” Miller took a chance on the young, inexperienced immigrant and offered him an apprenticeship, or on-the-job training. It didn’t take long for him to learn the ins-and-outs of plumbing. He had to memorize the inventory, learn how to use various tools, dig trenches, and make repairs. It
A neighbor.
quickly hit him that the physical requirements of the job were quite taxing. “It’s not easy to be a plumber, going under the crawl space with the dead rats. If you’re claustrophobic, I don’t know how you do it. You have to squeeze down between pipes. Most people realize that they don’t want to do it. That it’s hard,” Gonzalez admitted. Soon after he earned his fulltime position at the company, he decided he had enough of it. “I figured out how plumbing works, I didn’t want anything to do with it,” he confessed. There was something else on his mind. “I wanted to do construction.” His yearning for home-building came just as he learned a
coworker, Steve Winters, was planning to open up a construction company. The timing worked out perfectly. For the next twelve years, Gonzales pursued his next dream of building homes from the ground up. Luckily, many of the skills he learned during his apprenticeship were transferable, which set him up for great success. He had the opportunity to help build over 20 homes. But, construction wasn’t forever. Eventually, the company was sold to a bigger corporation. Gonzales missed the dynamic of being part of a small, close-knit
n See CESAR, Page 2
A friend.
Opening in your neighborhood February 27 www.fsbwa.com Member FDIC
“I love the community atmosphere at 1st Security Bank and how the employees make you feel like family.” —Carol Houston, Keller Williams Realty, Inc.
Elementary School project designs near completion Will Chappell
T
Gazette Reporter
he sixth public engagement event for the Cannon Beach Elementary School project was held on February 21 at Cannon Beach City Hall. At the meeting, representatives from CIDA, the firm leading design work, updated the public on the schematic design phase of the project and City Manager Bruce St. Denis discussed financing. Dustin Johnson, the project architect, kicked off the meeting by discussing the exterior architecture of the building. Johnson started by talking about the roofing on the elementary school, which has already been replaced with thermoplastic polyolefin, a durable roofing material. He said that the plans will see all the flat roofs on the site refinished in the same material. The façade of the elementary school building will also be clad in new material during the project, going from brick to wooden siding. In addition to the cosmetic change, the wall will be increased in size and retrofitted with upgrades to help weather seismic events. The Quonset hut that used to serve as the school’s gymnasium will have windows added on the south end to allow more natural light to enter the event space. Johnson said that the north end will feature upgraded access to NeCus park at the rear of the gym but that the council needed to decide between two different options. One would see a recessed entryway, under an awning with four sets of double doors, while the other would use two garage doors, allowing for a better indoor-outdoor flow. Johnson also briefly touched on several elements of the site’s exterior design that are important to the Clatsop-Nehalem tribe such as a “welcoming woman” statue and a thunderbird shaped garden. The city is partnering with the tribe, whose ancestors lived in a village on the site, on the project, with the goal of educating visitors to the new facility on the native history of the area. Mya Paluch then gave an update on progress on interior design and shared several renderings. The renderings showed an extensive use of wood, with nods to the Clatsop-Nehalem tribe in many design details, such as light fixture design and the use of cobalt blue accent tiling in the floor. Paluch said that it was her aim to use materials that would have been available to the historic residents of the village when designing the project. Cannon Beach City Manager Bruce St. Denis, who is also managing the elementary school project, then gave a brief overview of the project’s financial status and a preview of next steps. With the schematic design phase almost completed, CIDA representatives will now begin working with Bremik construction, the project’s construction manager and general contractor, to deliver an initial cost estimate to the council in March. The city has already borrowed $4.6 million for the project and had preliminarily estimated that the proj-
n See SCHOOL, Page 3