CBG512

The Tale of One Rock and Two Partners

By ANGELA BENTON Friends of Haystack Rock Board Chair

If you have been to Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach at low tide between February and November, you probably noticed a red truck and people with red jackets. Who the red jackets are remains a source of confusion and mystery among locals and visitors alike. Some call them Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP), some call them Friends of Haystack Rock (FOHR), and some call them volunteers.

If you interacted with these folks you know they are Rocky Shore Interpreters. They are part of the Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) and are on the beach to educate visitors about Haystack Rock and the surrounding Marine Gardens. Their focus is to protect, through education, the ecosystem and species inhabiting the area.

It all started way before 1985, when locals who loved the tide pools and Haystack Rock found themselves frequently answering questions from visitors about the marine life, tide pools, geology, and birds. They became concerned that as the area grew in popularity, it was at risk of being over-loved and ruined. In 1985, Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) was formed as a City of Cannon Beach sponsored program. HRAP had one part-time staff member, a shoestring budget, and was dependent on passionate volunteers to educate and protect at Haystack Rock.

As the popularity of Haystack Rock and the Marine Gardens grew, the HRAP program had trouble keeping up with demand. The aging volunteers chose their hours with greater care, younger staff needed to work paying jobs, and coverage at Haystack Rock was a challenge. Again a group of concerned citizens stepped in. They formed a committee to explore the benefits of establishing a non-profit. They determined that a non-profit could raise money through donations and grants to provide equipment and financial support to the city program. In November, 2004 Friends of Haystack Rock (FOHR) was confirmed by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Fast forward to today and what you see on the beach is a robust Haystack Rock Awareness Program with a red truck, staff, and volunteers on the beach during low tides. HRAP is a program sponsored and funded by the City of Cannon Beach. The program is led by a program coordinator, an educational/volunteer coordinator, and a communications coordinator, with a team of part-time staff working on the beach. Trained volunteers assist the program staff during beach shifts.

While the city provides the majority of the funding for the program, Friends of Haystack Rock, the non-profit, partners with HRAP and provides project-specific funding. Examples include funding for binoculars and spotting scopes, purchase of a new canopy system for the HRAP truck, and funding for a pilot program this past winter to provide staff on the beach during low tides.

Friends of Haystack Rock (FOHR) has also evolved since its origin in 2004. FOHR is recognized as a Wildlife Refuge Friends organization, in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, since Haystack Rock is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The focus of FOHR now includes Haystack Rock, the health of the surrounding ecosystem, and

Cannon Beach Arts Association Celebrates “Honorary Artist of Oregon Day!”

at-risk species such as Tufted Puffins.

Guided by a volunteer Board of Directors and funded by donors, FOHR (the non-profit) engages with HRAP and other organizations including other north coast nonprofits, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, The National Audubon Society, and Oregon State University. FOHR leads the “Protect Our Puffins” campaign, and provided funding for the West Coast Project Puffin including a Tufted Puffin Conservation Coordinator, in partnership with The National Audubon Society.

While fundraising is an important part of the work of FOHR, engaging the community and visitors through outreach is also core to what they do. That outreach includes hosting Library Lectures during the winter, providing opportunities to see Tufted Puffins during “Puffin Watches” throughout the summer, participating in Farmers Markets, engaging in beach cleanups, providing educational materials, and engaging in issue based advocacy.

We have concerned citizens to thank for the origin of both HRAP and FOHR, most notably Neal and Karen Maine. It is an outstanding example of the lasting impact passionate, concerned community members can have on the future.

So next time you see the red truck and red jackets on the beach at Haystack Rock, think City of Cannon Beach Haystack Rock Awareness Program. Thanks to the City, HRAP staff, volunteers, and Friends of Haystack Rock who work together to protect this special place. Mystery solved.

Nature Inspires Art in Cannon Beach

By DEB ATIYEH

C annon Beach was shaped by the vision of Maurie Clark, a Patron of the Arts, and his spirit lives on in many of the Galleries in Cannon Beach. Maurie brought his vision to life in Cannon Beach and today the Art community remains.

As an artist, one is inspired by the profound beauty of nature that exists here. Nature connects us to the soul and Art expresses itself through quiet inspiration and reverence, like the feeling of wanting to paint the sky and the sea and write poetry. It is beyond words, and finding expression through Art abundantly manifests itself in Cannon Beach.

Art and Nature attracts people from all over the world to come here to experience Nature, Art, Sea Life, and Haystack Rock; with days that end with the ever changing colors and beauty of the sunsets. It is a sacred place and people feel their inner significance when they spend time here. They leave with a feeling of revival like they have just been at a sanctuary that fulfilled their soul. Many do not want to leave

Cannon Beach, Tom McCall and the 1967 Oregon “Beach Bill”

and liken it to their “happy place” or their “little bit of Heaven”.

Here Art picks up where Nature ends and manifests in all sorts of colors. Art deepens the mystery of your inner world and brings one into the light of being in Cannon Beach...

Walking on the beach, hiking in Ecola State Park, experiencing sea life and the Tufted Puffins at Haystack Rock is magical. Colorful starfish, endangered birds that perch on the rocks, eagles that soar in the sky, and elk that wander our streets awakens the imagination. It is why Cannon Beach is known as one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Art in Cannon Beach is also part of that sacred experience. To walk through the wonderful galleries and contemplate the color, beauty, texture, sculptures, glass art and the light that is part of the Nature that they have just experienced here, makes one want to take it home with them so they remember just how special it was to be here and experience such wonder.

To “Sea Art” in the ocean and sky one experiences infinity...

By BOB ATIYEH

On the sunny Saturday morning of May 13th, 1967, several helicopters flew over Tillamook Head and landed on the beach just north of Haystack Rock. Out stepped Oregon Governor Tom McCall accompanied by an entourage of legislators, OSU oceanographers, surveyors and reporters. Cannon Beach had become the flash point in the debate over public access to the dry sand areas of Oregon’s beaches, and Cannon Beach was the second of his stops along the Oregon coast that day. Oregon House Highway Committee members were in a deadlock over House Bill 1601, known as “The Beach Bill”, and Governor McCall was trying to determine the best place “to draw a line in the sand” concerning the public’s right to use the dry sand areas, as well as alert Oregonians as to what was in danger of being lost.

It all started in front of the Surfsand Motel in mid-town Cannon Beach during the previous summer

Captain Robert Gray and the Columbia River

Spring Unveiled at Dragonfire Gallery in Cannon Beach! Blown Glass Garden Art by Artist Andrew Holmberg with family attending the event this evening…Music, food, smiles, and colorful blossoms of delight…

Captain Robert Gray and the Columbia River

By BOB ATIYEH

In the early evening of May 11th 1792, American sea captain Robert Gray and his crew aboard a ship named the “Columbia Rediviva” became the first nonindigenous people to enter the present-day Columbia River. Earlier European explorers had suspected the existence of a large river in the area. In 1775, Spanish Captain Bruno de Heceta sailed his ship off the mouth the river, noting a strong current between two headlands, but did not attempt to enter because his crew was too sick to risk it. While sailing south along the coast in 1788, British explorer and fur trader John Meares completely dismissed the existence of a large river in that location, sighting and naming Cape Disappointment after sailing past the mouth of the river and mistaking it for a bay. In contrast to the British and Spanish explorers such as James Cook, George Vancouver, John Meares, and Bruno de Heceta; American Robert Gray was a merchant seeking sea otter and beaver pelts to sell in China, and ironically his only interest was financial and not that of exploration or discovery.

In 1787, Robert Gray left Boston on his first voyage to the Pacific Northwest coast, arriving in August of

1788. Gray sailed his ship into Tillamook Bay and while ashore for supplies, his party was attacked by the native inhabitants, who killed one his crew. While most of Gray’s interactions while trading with the indigenous inhabitants were generally peaceful, several resulted in bloodshed. After trading with the Indigenous population along the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, Gray sailed for China, where he sold his cargo of furs and purchased a large amount of tea before returning to Boston in August 1790; becoming the first American to circumnavigate the globe. After just 6 weeks in Boston, Gray and crew again set sail for the Pacific Northwest aboard the ship Columbia Rediviva in September 1790, arriving along the Pacific Northwest coast in the summer of 1791.

After spending the winter in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Gray began sailing south in April of 1792. While waiting for favorable weather, Gray spotted a ship, the HMS Discovery commanded by British explorer Captain George Vancouver. Vancouver sent two men to interview Gray aboard the Columbia Rediviva, with Gray telling them that he had sighted two capes with a strong current as from a great river flowing into the

Position 3 - Cecelia LaBar-Mialon

Warrenton-Hammond School District

Position 5 - Guillermo Romero

Measures - Vote YES

4-221: Referendum repeals ordinance allowing short-term rentals in unincorporated areas

sea between them at 46’10” latitude. Vancouver doubted the existence of a large river in the location described by Gray during his earlier voyage in 1788, dismissing it as the same “opening” that he had observed two weeks earlier, while agreeing with John Meares that no large river existed there because the surf line extended across it from cape to cape.

Convinced of the existence of a large river, and after spending several days waiting for the right conditions, Gray ordered a small sailboat to slowly lead the way for the larger Columbia Rediviva, sounding the depth of the water to find a safe channel while avoiding sand bars. After finding a passage through, Gray and his crew sailed into the estuary of the Columbia River. From Gray’s log “when we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water up which we steered. Many canoes came alongside.” From the Columbia’s 16 year-old fifth officer John Boit’s journal “the beach was lin’d with Natives - who ran along shore following the Ship. Soon after above 20 Canoes came off, & brought a good lot of Furs & Salmon - which last they sold, two for a board nailthe furs we likewise bought cheap, for Copper & Cloth - they appear’d to view the Ship with the greatest

astonishment & no doubt we was the first Civiliz’d people that they ever saw.... The River at this place was about 4 miles over.”

During their nine days on the Columbia, Gray and his crew traded daily with the native inhabitants; reaching their farthest point about 15 miles upriver on May 14th, before turning around and slowly sailing back towards the mouth of the river. On May 15th, accompanied by one of his crew, Gray went ashore on the north side of the river, raising the American flag and planting some coins under a large tree, while claiming possession for the United States. On May 18th, the ship was anchored off the native village “Chinoak, led by Chief Polack”. Boit noted in his journal that “the river abounds with excellent Salmon, & most other River fish, & the Woods with plenty of Moose (elk) & Deer.” This is the same day that Gray officially named the river “Columbia” after his ship. On May 20th, after spending nine days on the Columbia River, and collecting over 450 sea otter and beaver pelts to be traded in China, Gray and his crew headed downriver, crossing the bar in the early afternoon, and sailing north in the open ocean a few hours later.

Gray left news of his discovery, along with a

description of the river and a copy of his chart with Bodega y Quadra, the commander of the Spanish settlement in Nootka Sound, before sailing for China; eventually returning to Boston in July of 1793. Bodega y Quadra later gave the copy of Gray’s map of the Columbia River to Captain George Vancouver.

The fact that an American sea merchant in pursuit of animal pelts had discovered the largest river in western North America, “The Great River of the West”, was an embarrassment to British Captain George Vancouver, who had been sent to explore and map the entire northwestern coast of North America and search for the fabled “Northwest Passage”. In October of 1792, just 5 months after Captain Gray and his crew first entered the river, Vancouver dispatched Lt. William Broughton and the crew of the HMS Chatham to explore the Columbia River; eventually traveling 100 miles upriver as far as the western entrance to the Columbia River Gorge near present-day Troutdale on October 30th. Broughton named the beautiful snowcovered volcano on the western horizon Mt. Hood, and described the area he passed through as “some of the most beautiful country imaginable”.

After his four-year voy-

age of discovery along the coasts of Oregon and Washington, exploring and naming Puget Sound and Whidbey Island, sighting and naming Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, circumnavigating Vancouver Island, exploring the inlets and islands along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska and the west coast of Australia, and visiting Hawaii, Tahiti, and New Zealand, Captain George Vancouver returned to England in 1795, and died less than three years later in relative obscurity at the age of 40.

Robert Gray died at sea in July 1806 at the age of 51, off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, likely from yellow fever. Just three months after Gray’s death, his old ship the Columbia Rediviva was “decommissioned and salvaged”. Gray thought little of his discovery of the Columbia River, failed to publish any account of it, and never grasped the significance of his discovery. Gray’s discovery of the Columbia River later strengthened American claims to the Pacific Northwest against competing British claims to the same territory. The history of the Pacific Northwest could have turned out much differently without Captain Robert Gray’s discovery of “The Great River of the West” in 1792.

Union Health District

Position 4 - Jessie Reed

Cannon Beach Lodging Representatives Meet with City Council

By DEB ATIYEH

Fire Levy Renewals:

4-224: Lewis & Clark RFPD

4-222: City of Warrenton Library Levy Renewal More information available at www.clatsopdems.org

5-292: Clatskanie RFPD 5-294: Mist-Birkenfeld RFPD

4-223: Clatsop Care Heath District Levy Renewal

Paid for by Clatsop County Democratic Central Committee www.clatsopdems.org

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R epresentatives from the Cannon Beach lodging industry met with the Cannon Beach City Council and City Manager on May 3rd for a panel discussion on the Cannon Beach grade school rejuvenation project, and the new City Hall and Police Station projects.

Owners and managers from the Stephanie Inn, Hallmark Resort, Tolovana Inn, Sea Breeze Court, The Waves Oceanfront Lodging and Escape Lodging expressed their views on these projects, along with their concerns about raising the Transient Lodging Tax (TLT) above the current 10.5% charged for overnight guests in Cannon Beach.

During the open and honest two-hour discussion, concerns of the local lodging industry were focused on two main points: raising prices to the point where some long-time repeat visitors would be unable to afford to stay in Cannon Beach, and the State restriction on spending TLT revenue. The State requires that 70% of the revenue from any TLT increase be spent on either “tourism promotion” or “tourismrelated facilities”, and several questioned whether the grade school renovation clearly qualified as a “tourism-related facility.”

Lodging representatives raised their concerns about the lack of a clear vision and solid plan of what the former grade school would become; asking whether it is envisioned as an “event center” or a “community center.” Questions were also raised about the expected level of use, potential revenue generation, and ongoing maintenance costs once the facility is constructed.

Hannah Buschert, coowner of Sea Breeze Court, said she believes the City should look towards addressing the current “needs” and not the “wants”, adding that we should address pressing needs such as the lack of affordable housing, lack of transportation for employees, and parking. She stressed that the school project is a “want” and not a “need.”

Doug Nealeigh, owner of a management company that operates Tolovana Inn, questioned what the renovated grade school will be and how it will benefit tourism, and questioned how TLT money could be used unless it is benefiting tourism.

Scott Cruickshank, Chief Operating Officer for Stephanie Inn, expressed the need to do research on the economic impact, the volume of business the facility will bring in and how to support the debt before construction begins. He believes that any committee members

This big, beautiful boy is only two years old and is so excited to find his forever home. Blue has lots of energy and will do best with an active family. He’s smart and he loves hiking, walking, and playing, with lots of cuddles afterwards. Blue weighs in a little over 80 lbs., so he will need someone who can handle a large breed dog. If you think this big handsome furbaby could be a good fit for you, come meet this black stallion today!

http://clatsopcounty.animalshelternet.com/adoption_animal_details.

cfm?AnimalUID=287154

Pet meet and greets are by appointment, so if you’d like to meet Blue, call the shelter at 503-861-7387 or stop by the lobby to set up a time. The shelter is open 9:30 to 4:00 Tuesday through Saturday, closed 12:30 to 1:30 for lunch. You can also fill out an application at the shelter’s Adopting a Pet page: https://www.co.clatsop.or.us/animalcontrol/page/Adoptingpet

assigned to advise on the grade school renovation need to have experience in this field. He recommended hiring consultants to survey visitors coming to the area and believes that the City needs to do a thorough cost/benefit analysis and perform their due diligence before proceeding with the grade school renovation. He questioned how TLT money can be used for this project unless it is attracting more visitors to this area and helping fill hotel rooms in the slower months.

Greg Swedenborg, owner of The Waves Oceanfront Lodging, said he is hoping for more dialog between the lodging industry, Cannon Beach residents, City Council and City Manager He pointed out how the TLT has been raised multiple times over the past 20 years. He added that he feels the City is putting the cart before the horse without a solid plan, and that the overall plan is rather vague and lacking specifics.

Councilor Brandon Ogilvie acknowledged that there has not been enough communication with the lodging industry and that he would like to see the entire community involved. He expressed how the need for the City Hall and Police Station has been apparent for a long time and that the price will only continue to increase.

Councilor Gary Hayes observed that residents cannot accommodate an increase in taxes with a bond measure when the large number of visitors in Cannon Beach affects their quality of life.

Mayor Barb Knop pointed out that the old grade school is the first thing people see when they enter Cannon Beach, with a resident mentioning the Native American history of the site along with it’s connection to members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1806.

Everyone at the meeting expressed support for constructing a new City Hall and Police station. Half of the 5% Prepared Food Tax revenue is dedicated to constructing these facilities, but revenue projections fall short for fully financ-

Cannon Beach Arts Association Celebrates

“Honorary Artist of Oregon Day!”

T he state of Oregon instituted “Honorary Artists of Oregon Day”, also known as “Oregon Art Day” in 2015, designated to celebrate art and artists, to promote art education in Oregon and to encourage engagement in artistic endeavors. Cannon Beach Arts Association (CBAA) honored the day by providing a variety of art workshops for students at Seaside High school on April 14th and the students at Cannon Beach Academy on April 28th. More than 400 students were able to participate in these Oregon Art Day events sponsored by the Cannon Beach Arts

Association. Summer Peterson, CBAA’s Marketing and Educational Director organized and coordinated the 2-day event. Honorary artists participating at Seaside High School included Sharon Amber, Cynthia Wolf, Monica Hanlin, Betty Gearen, Jakub Kukla, Ben Rosenberg, Marchi Wierson, Olivia Joy Carroll, Anna Hoye, Mary Lyn Gough, Michelle Valigura, Karen Weiss, Lori LaBissoniere O’Neil, Tara Spires-Bell, Jen Hoff and John Hoff.

Workshops offered at Seaside High School ranged from monotypes and print-

making, cyanotypes, graphite drawing, T-shirt design, auditioning techniques, poetry writing, sugar skull collage, pastel ink resist, paper making, and more.

Honorary artists Summer Peterson and Ashley FosterFrench instructed students at Cannon Beach Academy in an ink resist workshop along with a workshop on acrylic color mixing and floral painting.

Seaside High School principal Jeff Roberts said that “Art Day is really a special event that very few students throughout the state will have an opportunity to take part in”.

CBAA’S Arts Educational

Director Summer Peterson added “I believe an event like Oregon Art Day is integral to self-expression and self-discovery, which benefits mental and emotional health, builds confidence, and supports students who are in the process of creating their own futures.”

Students will have another opportunity this summer to participate in amazing art events as Cannon Beach Arts Association celebrates its 21st year hosting the annual Summer Art Camp. Camp is scheduled for July 17-21, 2023 at the Cannon Beach Community Church. Visit the CBAA’s website for detailed infor-

mation on course content and registration for Summer Art Camp at https:// www.cannonbeacharts.org/ artcamp2023. Scholarships will be available.

The community is also encouraged to “Sponsor a Student” for Summer Art Camp, and other donation opportunities are available. This enables the organization to offer more scholarship opportunities, while keeping costs low for parents by allowing CBAA to provide all necessary materials and healthy snacks during the week. Visit the CBAA’s Summer Art Camp link for more information.

Cannon Beach Arts

Association, a 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization, funds and enhances the arts, and supports artists in Cannon Beach and the region through education, events and exhibits, while providing opportunities for over 200 artists each year. For more information, please visit the Cannon Beach Arts Association website https:// www.cannonbeacharts. org/ or call 503-436-0744. CBAA’s Gallery is located at 1064 S. Hemlock St. Cannon Beach, OR 97110, and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 AM to 4 PM.

ABOVE: Summer Peterson and Ashley Foster-French - art instructors at the Cannon Beach Academy for Art Day

Church Services by the Sea

Cannon Beach to Nehalem

Nehalem Nehalem Bay United Methodist Church 36050 10th Street, Nehalem, OR (503) 368-5612

March - October 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. November - February noon to 4 p.m. Nehalem Senior Lunches

Tuesday & Thursday served at noon email: nbumcnsl2020@gmail.com

To feature your spiritual organization on this panel: Contact Katherine at (503) 842-7535, headlightads@countrymedia.net.

North County Recreation District is hiring!

Fitness Director • Fitness Supervisor

Fitness Attendants • Custodian Lifeguards • Aquatics Instructors

Complete details and applications at ncrd.org or stop by 36155 9th Street, Nehalem.

Questions? Contact 855.444.6273

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General Maintenance – Part time position

$25 per hour

Tillamook Family Counseling Center seeks a Handyman to provide services for about 10 hours a month at our Tillamook County agency locations. Duties include basic maintenance and minor repairs. Immediate opening.

TFCC is a drug free workplace.  A Covid-19 Vaccine Required Employer (per Oregon Healthcare statutes).

Send a letter of interest to HR fax (503) 815-1870, mail at address above or email to jobs@tfcc.org

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Bilingual Certified Peer Support/Recovery Mentor (English/Spanish)

F.T. 40-Hours/week Position

Tillamook Family Counseling Center is currently looking to add a bilingual peer specialist to our Prime+ program. The mission of the Prime+ program is to prevent acute life-threatening outcomes of substance use which include reducing overdose morbidity and mortality by providing harm reduction centered overdose prevention education and facilitating access to Naloxone. We also strive to reduce injection-related infections by providing harm reduction centered infection prevention education and facilitating access to safer use supplies. The Prime+ program supports linkage to care, diagnosis and treatment of substance use related conditions and substance us related infections.

This position includes training that leads to state certification according to OAR 410-180-0305 (12) and (13). As a certified Peer Specialist, you will be a living example and role model of recovery life. As a peer you will be a provider of the life wisdom gained through your own lived experience of recovery as well as a change agent for hope.

Benefits:

Dental Vision and Medical-prescription coverage. HSA and FSA plans. 9 paid holidays a year, paid sick leave and vacation time. Vacation starts out at 8 hours a month with increases over time. Generous retirement program: non-contributory 403(b), we put in 9% of your salary and you are vested after 6 months.

To see our complete job description and to apply go to http://tfcc.bamboohr.com/jobs. Be sure to submit an online application and upload your resume. Any questions, please visit us online at http://tfcc.org or contact us at jobs@tfcc.org

Developmental Disabilities

eXPRS Analyst/Foster Care Licensor

Full time position w/excellent benefits.

Compensation: $49,000 - $72,000 annually, DOE

The position manages DD related financial entries into the eXPRS payment system which includes monitoring revenue and expenditures for DD Program, biennial rollover, in-home client services, comprehensive residential programs, foster homes, employment funding for local provider agencies and in-home staff and oversees the recruitment, licensure and certification of adult and child foster homes.

Licensed Practical Nurse [LPN]

Part time position (24 hours weekly) w/excellent benefits.

Compensation: $29 - $39 Hourly, DOE

Tillamook Family Counseling Center (TFCC) seeks a Licensed Practical Nurse [Part Time 24 Hours per Week] as a health provider for its Assertive Community Treatment Team (ACT). The LPN provides health care coordination, client support, and triage in home and community settings to adults presenting with severe and persistent mental illness.

Tillamook Family Counseling Center is a drug free workplace and equal opportunity employer.  A Covid-19 Vaccine

Required Employer (per Oregon Healthcare statutes).

If you are interested in any of these positions, please apply online at http://tfcc.bamboohr.com/jobs. Be sure to submit an online application and upload your resume. Any questions, please visit us online at http://tfcc.org

Bay City Pearl & Oyster Music Festival

Looking for Vendors

If interested contact Patty Watson 503-201-9912 or Beverly Anderson 503-300-9013

Regular vendors $50

Food vendors $150

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in 1966. Owner Bill Hay, a Portland real estate broker and owner of the Surfsand, had fenced off the dry sand area directly in front of his motel; placing signs in the sand stating “Surfsand Guests Only Please!” If anyone but Surfsand guests tried to access the area behind the fence, they were firmly told to leave Hay’s “private beach”. During high tide, the fence prevented anyone from walking the beach north and south of the hotel. On August 16th, 1966, a woman was kicked off the dry sand area in front of the Surfsand. Her nephew, Larry Bitte, confronted employees of the Surfsand about it before writing a letter to then Secretary of State Tom McCall questioning if this was legal. This sparked an investigation by the Oregon Parks Department, which was then part of the State Highway Commission, headed by Glen Jackson. After having lawyers check the wording of the state law, Jackson realized that the problem was beyond his authority, and passed it on to the Oregon legislature, which drafted a measure known as House Bill 1601, modeled on the concept of Common Law and giving the public recreational access to the dry sandy beaches all the way to the “vegetation line.”

Since statehood in 1859, all of Oregon’s “tidelands” had been owned by the state, but beginning in the late 1800’s, the legislature began selling off sections of “tidelands” to the adjoining ocean-front property owners. By 1913, almost 30 miles of “tidelands” had ended up in private hands. In February of that year, Governor Oswald West convinced the Oregon legislature to designate all Oregon beaches, from the Washington border to the California border, from the low tide line to the high tide line, as a “public highway”. In 1947, the Oregon legislature changed the word

“highway” to “recreation area”, and in the ensuing half century since Oswald West’s bill, generations of Oregonians had assumed that all areas of the beaches were public. But the flaw in West’s bill was that it did not mention the “dry sands” above the high tide line, and this was what House Bill 1601 was attempting to address. Surfsand owner Bill Hay may have been violating the spirit and long-held tradition of public access to Oregon’s beaches, but the reality is that fencing off the dry sand area in front of his motel was not technically “illegal”.

One of the iconic pictures taken of Tom McCall during his eight years as Oregon’s Governor is the image of McCall standing in front of the log barrier glaring at the Surfsand Motel on that sunny day in May 1967. United Press International reporter Don Jepsen later said that McCall stood there talking to himself and cursing Bill Hay under his breath, adding that “he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, he was just mad as hell.” Governor McCall had taken office as Oregon’s Governor just four months before his helicopter trip along the Oregon Coast, but he brought with him a fierce determination to defend Oregon’s environment and natural beauty against what he later referred to as “Coastal Condomania” and “Grasping Wastrels of the Land”.

In a nationally televised interview on the CBS evening news in 1971, Governor McCall uttered the famous statement “We want you to visit our State of excitement often. Come again and again. But for heaven’s sake, don’t move here to live. Or if you do have to move in to live, don’t tell any of your neighbors where you are going.” That bold and controversial statement received national and inter

national press coverage.

Born in 1913 on the fam

ily estate in Massachusetts, McCall divided his time between Massachusetts and the family ranch along the Crooked River near Prineville in central Oregon; graduating from Redmond High School in the early 1930’s. During his youth, his mother Dorothy Lawson McCall, read him all of the literary classics, which was the basis of McCall’s exceptional oratory skills and command of the English language.

As a political commentator and reporter for Portland TV station KGW in 1962, McCall co-wrote and narrated the documentary “Pollution in Paradise” that brought attention to the heavily polluted Willamette River, air pollution in Portland and the pesticides that were killing large numbers of birds. The documentary aired just two months after the publication of Rachel Carson’s environmental classic “Silent Spring, and succeeded in raising McCall’s public and environmental profile among the citizens of Oregon. In the documentary, he made the case that Oregonians could enjoy both a robust economy and a healthy environment.

The controversial action taken by Bill Hay at the Surfsand Motel in Cannon Beach sparked the debate and legislation that fully protected Oregon’s public beaches. But when Governor McCall flew into Cannon Beach on that sunny Saturday in May 1967, the fate of the “Beach Bill” remained far from certain. There would be several more weeks of political wrangling, compromise, confrontation and stonewalling, along with an enormous outpouring of public support, before the “Beach Bill” was finally signed into law by Governor McCall two months later on July 6th, 1967. The rest of that story will be told in a future edition of the Cannon Beach Gazette in early July.

ing these projects. Patrick Nofield of Escape Lodg ing expressed a desire to explore win-win solutions, and suggested looking at other potential sources of revenue, including a bond measure, an increase in the TLT and paid parking along with other potential sources of revenue.

All parties agreed the meeting was a positive first step in exploring the challenges in financing the grade school renovation and the new Police station/ City Hall projects. Cannon Beach residents will have the chance to express their views on these projects at a public meeting with City Council members scheduled for May 16th at 6:00 PM.