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Photo by Tim Hirsch
MATT BELL OF KITTELSON & ASSOCIATES presented the details of a draft of the Pacific City/Woods Parking Management Plan to local residents during an Oct. 16 town hall at Kiawanda Community Center.
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Parking Plan concerns raised County Commissioners to consider plan at Oct. 30 meeting By TIM HIRSCH of the Sun
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ommunity members shared their concerns about a draft of the Pacific City/Woods Parking Management Plan during a town hall held at Kiawanda Community Center on Oct. 16. Crafted by Kittelson & Associates, who is employed by Tillamook County, the plan currently features 27 strategies aimed at addressing parking challenges in the area — including the establishment of a pay-to-park program at Cape Kiwanda. The preferred alternative of this proposal is to charge $4 for parking at both the Cape Kiwanda parking lot as well as for vehicular access to the beach via the county-owned beach access ramp. Total estimated annual revenue for this fee would be $1.059 million — $658,800 of which would be from peak season. At the Oct. 16 town hall, community members raised a variety of concerns including the lack of enforcement. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking with the sheriff’s office about how we can (use) funds to create additional enforcement in the area so the parking management plan does include funding for additional enforcement officers through the sheriff’s office,” said presenter Matt Bell, of Kittelson & Associates. The pay-to-park plan also calls for a parking manager, a position that did garner some concern from the public due to the estimated annual price tag of $70,000 that the draft plan attached to it. “This is a plan, a guiding document,” explained Rachel Hagerty, chief of staff for Tillamook County Commissioners. “The commissioners haven’t approved it yet. And everything in here, it’s a whole other process to implement. Is the parking manager going to be $70,000 a year? I don’t know. It could be a part-time person (or) maybe a volunteer person. There’s a lot left to figure out. Nothing is set in stone.” And Tillamook County Sheriff James Horton offered some further clarification on the parking manager, saying the idea would be for that person to be a deputy as well. “The concept would be for this to be a criminal deputy that could respond to not only the parking concerns and the traffic management concerns … but also any other emergency response or any other criminal (activity) in Pacific City-Woods area,” he said. “This plan, if it goes forward how we’d hope, (would) have a dedicated deputy (for) this com-
Page 4 • Pacific City SUN • October 25, 2019
munity at no cost to the taxpayers. This would be funded through the parking fees that’s generated from this management plan. What we’re talking about is kind of organizing visitors that are already here. This is a fishing community, it’s true, but people are coming, people are here and it really does need organization. Right now, it’s…chaos. I think the community needs something to take care of all the issues — traffic, parking and criminal investigations.” In addition to the pay-to-park program, other potential funding sources are the Tillamook County Transient Lodging Tax and the potential establishment of a Local Improvement District or Economic Improvement District. Some voiced skepticism about the financial projections of the proposed payto-park system and others were reticent of the idea of charging to access the beach via the ramp. Voicing the steering committee’s support of not charging dorymen to access the beach ramp was Hagerty, who said that maintaining free access for dory boats has been at the top of the list. But, because of recent legal advice, there’s now a cloud over that hope. In his presentation of the plan, Bell said that the county has learned that giving locals a free pass could be considered discrimination under the Oregon Constitution. Though some expressed worry that additional parking capacity could mean additional visitors and the congestion they would bring, Commissioner David Yamamoto said that he felt that the plan was more about managing the problem — and that the influx of visitors is unavoidable. “There is no panacea,” he said. “There’s nothing that’s going to make people quit coming to Pacific City. We have to try to manage the people that we’re getting. It scares me half to death to drive Cape Kiwanda Drive in the summertime. You’ve got pregnant women pushing baby strollers in the road (and) kids riding bikes beside them. We have to try to alleviate these pressure points. And, again, when commissioners at this point are able and willing to spend a lot of money to help alleviate some of these problems, I think that’s a good thing. “What I see happening here with these parking fees is that we’re able to provide the Sheriff’s Office at least two additional full-time deputies that are going to be really concentrating right here in Pacific City.” There was also some discussion at