Why I'm Running for City Council
We moved to Astoria three years ago, in time for the 2005-2006 school year, from Seattle. Why Astoria? (There were so many people that asked us that that we started a web site to explain it!)
Well, the idea originated from our vacation trips to Cannon Beach, where a good portion of Seattleites go to see the nearest ocean. Astoria was a pit stop, and I was intrigued by the Victorian houses and main street (Commercial) shops in town. On the second of these trips, I offhandedly mentioned to my wife, "Let's move to Astoria", to which her reply was, "We're not moving". But a declining school district, troubles with neighbors, and the proliferation of condos and townhouses wore on my wife, and after an extensive, year-long research period, we made the jump, much to the chagrin of our son and two cats.
That "research" included several trips to Astoria, checking out the institutions and housing market. My son was slated to go to Lewis & Clark Elementary School, so I was sent on a fact-finding tour of the school, where then-principal Craig Hoppes showed me around the almost-new school and grounds. I even took a walk in the woods in back of the school, owned by the school district, now a mess after the Great Gale of 2007. I talked to the teachers, and asked around about the school. All good.
Another good sign about Astoria was the community radio station, KMUN. We found their wavelength by mistake on one of our trips to Cannon Beach, and we listened in amazement as the music went from folk to blues to rock to jazz to Scandinavian! Seemed like regular people were hosting, and we stopped in to the station (in a wonderful Victorian house a block from downtown) soon after we arrived, and joined.
Astoria seemed to have all the essentials. It had a food co-op, which amazingly carried almost all the ingredients for my immune breakfast muesli. The one ingredient the co-op didn't have, Gypsy's Whimsy, a funky shop on Commercial, did (milk thistle seeds, if you're curious). For those things that the co-op didn't stock, there was a Safeway. There was a Thai restaurant, and other ethnic restaurants in town. Hardware store, check (three, actually). Movie theater, check. Pool, check. Toyota dealer, check. Even a community college! One of our criteria was that we wouldn't have to go to the big city for much, and Astoria seemed to fit the bill.
Moreover, unlike Cannon Beach, for instance, Astoria seemed to have that working town feel, with a run-down look that was somehow charming. Lots of forest around, undeveloped land and houses in all stages of disrepair. Very refreshing after the recent boom in Seattle gave it that overbuilt and squeaky clean feel.
After being unable to work a real estate deal from Seattle, we settled on Emerald Heights Apartments, against the advice of our real estate agent. What a find! It was incredibly cheap, and the place was quite similar to my boyhood neighborhoods in New York and Philadelphia. Kids everywhere. And trees, and vistas (OK, less vistas in the big cities of my youth). And there was a bus stop to town right across the street from our apartment, and the school bus stopped there too.
I was content to stay at Emerald Heights for a while, but we quickly found a house that was a great deal, in the Uppertown area, close to forests, with great neighbors, and things were still looking good (even though we moved twice in three months). By then, my wife had a job at Columbia Memorial Hospital, and I was involved with RiverVision and ENCORE, the retired education group out of Clatsop Community College. The weather was pretty good, my kid was liking school, and he had just landed a lead role in "A Christmas Story" at the now-defunct River Theater, which changed his attitude about the move to general acceptance. Maybe we did make the right choice. Funny that I, at least, didn't miss Seattle much.
Let's fast forward to the present.
Some things have persevered in Astoria, like ENCORE, the radio station, the co-op (though it was shaky for a while), and Safeway. And the cultural scene has blossomed, with the opening of several new venues where music and other performance art can happen. Currently, there is a boomlet of renovation of old buildings going on, and thanks to the winter storms we've been having lately, some of those houses ("in various stages of disrepair") are getting some new wood and a fresh coat of paint.
But much of the initial charm that we saw when we first came here has worn off, especially for me. The controversy over LNG has taken a big chunk of my time, especially at the beginning of our life here. Though there have been changes in the lineup of the Astoria Port Commission and the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, their decisions to allow plants in Warrenton and Bradwood to go ahead certainly makes life here a little less desirable. In each of those cases, I was tempted to run, but (fortunately) someone more qualified and better able to garner votes was running.
Meanwhile, the North Coast area was booming. Real estate prices were going through the roof, and construction was going right with them. The area seemed to be going through the same stages as Seattle, with construction of new houses, condos, apartment complexes, and whole neighborhoods, accompanied by a general gentrification and big-box sprawl.
There was a bit of a push-back as some new developments sprung up on the Columbia River waterfront. The battle got ugly when a local business owner and developer, Jon Englund, and a bunch of his friends got the city to approve a condo project on the waterfront here. Many local people saw the residential development along the waterfront as too much of a change, too fast, and some moved away as a result. On a positive note, the controversy certainly got people more involved in their local government.
But the city council decision, unanimous and quick, to give the nod to the Englund Condos was a turning point. Many residents were so deflated and demoralized after that hearing that they dropped out of politics altogether. Most went on to other things, most notably LNG. Since then, planning commission and city council meetings have been a lot quieter. Development has gone on. The heat has been off. There's still no Englund condos, and may never be, but it's hard to find out just what's happening. At the height of the battle, everyone knew what was going on all the time. Small town, you know.
I was one of those that became disillusioned by the whole process. A promised waterfront planning exercise has finally materialized, but not before most of the developments that were so divisive were approved, with some now being built. Only the economic slowdown has prevented some of the slated developments from construction at this time.
Meanwhile, development in Clatsop County on the whole is moving ahead. My trips to Cannon Beach to act at the Coaster Theatre have become more stressful, as I watch both commercial and residential development along the 101 corridor from Warrenton to Seaside go on at a steady pace. In addition to the new Home Depot and Lum's, there are whole neighborhoods being built along the east side of the highway, and the windstorms we've had the past two Decembers have taken down many of the biggest trees in the area. Construction and fear have taken down even more.
I used to volunteer at the Clatsop County Animal Shelter, at the end of 19th St., along the business 101 corridor. At the time, the shelter was one of two buildings in the so-called business park (the other a juvenile offender facility), and the drive there was very pleasant. But now there's a huge development of trophy homes right next to the animal shelter, and the talk is of much more development in the area, including a huge Costco store across from the Home Depot. Though I'm a huge fan of the shelter, I don't think it's good for the animals to be in a housing development and business park, and I certainly don't feel any pull to go there anymore. Too bad.
Development is everywhere. The hills east of 101 in the Seaside area are starting to sprout housing developments. This sort of pattern of development I've seen in Spokane (where my wife is from), in the Bay Area of California (where I lived before Seattle), and in many other places I've lived over the years. Even taking the Lewis & Clark Road to Seaside has become less wonderful since the For Sale signs have started appearing on many properties along that road, ending in the developments in the hills as you enter Seaside. Measure 37 and 49 claims threaten to turn the whole Lewis & Clark area into one big development, with the local councils literally paving the way.
The Great Gale of 2007 was definitely a turning point for me. Though our house was mostly spared, as were most of the trees around it, the devastation it caused in the region really spurred on the culture of fear that has made our city and the surrounds more urbanized, and more likely to suffer even greater damage in the next gale. Though I've been assured that replanting of our local government-owned forests will take place, so far I've seen nothing but tree cutting, with chainsaws disturbing my sleep and waking hours almost every day. One of my reasons for running is to try to save the remaining big trees (dwindling every day), and to reforest the area right, starting with each of us on our properties, and ending with us all together in our city forests and our streets, plazas and parks. Policies made by the city council can definitely help with this.
Though there was a period of calm, the great exodus of Astoria businesses has recently picked up speed. Lum's was huge. Besides my personal loss of a maintenance place in town for my Prius, the move to Warrenton has produced three vacant properties of considerable size. As with many other similar moves, our city council has done nothing to prevent or mitigate the loss, or plan for appropriate development in its place. This kind of non-planning has gotten us to the hodge-podge situation that I found charming when I first moved here, but now, with major services going out of walking or biking range, I find just plain bad.
It remains to be seen if the Wal-Mart effect will close down our hardware and related small businesses in Astoria, as Home Depot gets going. If promised stores such as Staples, Big Five, and others materialize, the effect could get even worse. But the larger effect of this sort of development is sprawl, bringing with it greater traffic, pollution, congestion and stress.
So, it appears that, once again, partly by my own fault (from moving here), my new home is becoming like the one I left. This happened to me in moving from Berkeley, California to Seattle, and I even saw it when I lived in Adelaide, Australia, while getting my Master's degree. I doubt there is anywhere that is immune to this trend, at least not in the U.S. But I've never seen it happen this fast. And I feel that if it can't be at least somewhat slowed down, then Astoria will become just another place to live, nothing special, or unique.
I'm running to get the message out, and to try to do something about it.
That's the long answer. The short answer is that no one else stepped up. After the Englund condo hearing last September, many opposed to the development were convinced that the only way to prevent these things from happening was a change in the top local decision-making body -- in this case, the Astoria city council. Given the experience of the recent changes in the Astoria Port Commission, where two commissioners were replaced in elections, and many changes at the port were instituted, largely due to the efforts of a dedicated group of activists, some of us started thinking about upcoming elections for the Astoria City Council, those now directly ahead of us. Two positions were up for election, and with the controversy still fresh in people's minds, there was some chance of a change occurring on the council. Though some time has passed and blunted the edge of the waterfront development controversy, there were still people who wanted to see a change. But translating that into a viable candidate in the two wards up for election proved difficult. Much of the reason, I suspect, is that much political capital was spent in the last few months, first with the recall of Richard Lee from the county commission, next in the county commission elections, and in the hearings that ended in the county commission approving land use changes that would allow the Bradwood Landing LNG project to proceed. This decision has required much effort to stop the project at many other levels, including an appeal. Many of the people most suited to running for city council are heavily involved in a referendum to overturn one of the land use changes the commission made, as well as related anti-LNG work. So, after the call went out for candidates, unfortunately none were found for the Ward 2 position, and only myself for Ward 4.
This situation is one of the things I would strive to correct if elected. There are many inducements to running for public office that would make it more palatable for those of us somewhat inclined in that direction. A modest salary could be offered. Shorter terms might enable more of us to make the commitment. A proportional representation system, where a full slate of councilors would be elected by the whole city, with the top vote getters, up to the total amount of positions available, getting the nod, would allow for a broader range of views being represented on the council, while making it significantly easier for those interested in serving to actually get to do so. In a city as small as Astoria, eliminating the ward residency requirement wouldn't significantly hinder the chances for a councilor to get the views of all constituents. Since most decisions by individual councilors involve the whole city, this system would be much more fair than the current ward-based system. Electronic communication systems could make it easier to get the business of the council done outside of regular meetings, and help those that have work and play schedules that are more inflexible. And finally, the council could become more amenable to public participation, perhaps by changing the timing and place of the council meetings, holding more fun events, and soliciting more public input.
Another focus of mine as city councilor would be the environment. When I arrived in Astoria in 2005, the area was in the midst of a recovery from many years of economic recession due to the collapse of the resource-based industries of fishing, canning and logging that dominated the area for much of its European settlement. Tourism and real estate were becoming the dominant industries in the area, but because of the lull in economic activity since the 1980s, much of the forest in the area was left alone, and the edge plants like blackberries were everywhere. Many lots were unpaved, muddy and bumpy, and many buildings were in disrepair (see above). Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and the vacuum was filled with people. The result has been a tremendous paving project in the area, consisting of new parking lots, houses, commercial developments and roads. Combined with our geography and geology, this has meant many more slides than was the case in the previous decades, as well as environmental problems with runoff, sewer systems and air pollution. The huge windstorms of the past two winters have further decimated the trees in the area, making the above problems even worse. Combined with climate change, these issues have taken center stage at many council meetings. Unfortunately, much of the action taken seems to take the form of "putting out fires", and little is done to work on the underlying infrastructural and environmental problems. Given my education, leaning and experience in environmental and technical issues, I would work to make our environment a top consideration in all decisions, and to start to make the investments that will keep our area environmentally sound for the future. We can certainly start with ordinances that require much less paving in any project, and the planting of native trees, shrubs and groundcovers in all city-owned areas, and encouraging citizens to do the same with their properties. Using our local Living Machine natural water treatment system, expanding it to serve the whole city, would be another logical step that would have us in compliance with EPA standards, at much less cost than the current systems. Besides tree planting, we could reduce our carbon emissions with city-inspired programs of mass transit, bicycles, carpools, and energy efficiency measures.
Related to environmental problems discussed above is the regional pattern of development, currently in free-fall sprawl. As the local town boundaries become less and less obvious, it is more obvious that we need to work together to prevent the associated problems of sprawl -- congestion, traffic, air pollution, stress, and pure aesthetic problems. This would be another focus of mine as councilor. Obviously, zoning is the main tool that governments have to control sprawl, and we have a mish-mash of zoning regulations in the county, that generally supports development. This is a result of the economic situation discussed above, as well as traditional rural development patterns that are less structured than their urban counterparts. The variances and zoning changes granted recently to developers are examples of the piecemeal approach that can backfire when looking at development on a regional basis. Decisions made in Warrenton, for example, influence development and the environment (both economic and physical) in Astoria, and visa versa. Therefore, I would work with local city and county councils to develop a plan for development in the region that takes into consideration our environment and the political and economic realities on the ground. And zoning that keeps our area as pristine and environmentally sound as possible is good business if tourism and real estate are really going to be our main industries.
I would endeavor to set aside much more land to parks and natural areas in the city, enhance the trail system, and put much more resources into maintaining and enhancing our natural areas. This will probably require a program of property purchase by the city, and would stress the theme of a pro-active government that I hope to foster. Though there is a healthy anti-government attitude in our area, I think that a pro-active government that enlists citizen participation every step of the way has a chance to succeed in solving many of the everyday problems we have.
The pro-active government I envision would be more responsive to us all than to individuals or businesses. Our government would also ask more of us all. We already have an incredible volunteer community, and asking everyone to be involved in the activities of government may seem a lot, but I believe that the results of this participation would be good in both tangible and intangible ways. We already have an awesome environment -- the Columbia River estuary -- to live in, so let's help to keep it that way, and improve it. I have a lot of experience with organizations and people that have helped to enhance the environment in their living space; I would work to achieve that here.
Well, the idea originated from our vacation trips to Cannon Beach, where a good portion of Seattleites go to see the nearest ocean. Astoria was a pit stop, and I was intrigued by the Victorian houses and main street (Commercial) shops in town. On the second of these trips, I offhandedly mentioned to my wife, "Let's move to Astoria", to which her reply was, "We're not moving". But a declining school district, troubles with neighbors, and the proliferation of condos and townhouses wore on my wife, and after an extensive, year-long research period, we made the jump, much to the chagrin of our son and two cats.
That "research" included several trips to Astoria, checking out the institutions and housing market. My son was slated to go to Lewis & Clark Elementary School, so I was sent on a fact-finding tour of the school, where then-principal Craig Hoppes showed me around the almost-new school and grounds. I even took a walk in the woods in back of the school, owned by the school district, now a mess after the Great Gale of 2007. I talked to the teachers, and asked around about the school. All good.
Another good sign about Astoria was the community radio station, KMUN. We found their wavelength by mistake on one of our trips to Cannon Beach, and we listened in amazement as the music went from folk to blues to rock to jazz to Scandinavian! Seemed like regular people were hosting, and we stopped in to the station (in a wonderful Victorian house a block from downtown) soon after we arrived, and joined.
Astoria seemed to have all the essentials. It had a food co-op, which amazingly carried almost all the ingredients for my immune breakfast muesli. The one ingredient the co-op didn't have, Gypsy's Whimsy, a funky shop on Commercial, did (milk thistle seeds, if you're curious). For those things that the co-op didn't stock, there was a Safeway. There was a Thai restaurant, and other ethnic restaurants in town. Hardware store, check (three, actually). Movie theater, check. Pool, check. Toyota dealer, check. Even a community college! One of our criteria was that we wouldn't have to go to the big city for much, and Astoria seemed to fit the bill.
Moreover, unlike Cannon Beach, for instance, Astoria seemed to have that working town feel, with a run-down look that was somehow charming. Lots of forest around, undeveloped land and houses in all stages of disrepair. Very refreshing after the recent boom in Seattle gave it that overbuilt and squeaky clean feel.
After being unable to work a real estate deal from Seattle, we settled on Emerald Heights Apartments, against the advice of our real estate agent. What a find! It was incredibly cheap, and the place was quite similar to my boyhood neighborhoods in New York and Philadelphia. Kids everywhere. And trees, and vistas (OK, less vistas in the big cities of my youth). And there was a bus stop to town right across the street from our apartment, and the school bus stopped there too.
I was content to stay at Emerald Heights for a while, but we quickly found a house that was a great deal, in the Uppertown area, close to forests, with great neighbors, and things were still looking good (even though we moved twice in three months). By then, my wife had a job at Columbia Memorial Hospital, and I was involved with RiverVision and ENCORE, the retired education group out of Clatsop Community College. The weather was pretty good, my kid was liking school, and he had just landed a lead role in "A Christmas Story" at the now-defunct River Theater, which changed his attitude about the move to general acceptance. Maybe we did make the right choice. Funny that I, at least, didn't miss Seattle much.
Let's fast forward to the present.
Some things have persevered in Astoria, like ENCORE, the radio station, the co-op (though it was shaky for a while), and Safeway. And the cultural scene has blossomed, with the opening of several new venues where music and other performance art can happen. Currently, there is a boomlet of renovation of old buildings going on, and thanks to the winter storms we've been having lately, some of those houses ("in various stages of disrepair") are getting some new wood and a fresh coat of paint.
But much of the initial charm that we saw when we first came here has worn off, especially for me. The controversy over LNG has taken a big chunk of my time, especially at the beginning of our life here. Though there have been changes in the lineup of the Astoria Port Commission and the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, their decisions to allow plants in Warrenton and Bradwood to go ahead certainly makes life here a little less desirable. In each of those cases, I was tempted to run, but (fortunately) someone more qualified and better able to garner votes was running.
Meanwhile, the North Coast area was booming. Real estate prices were going through the roof, and construction was going right with them. The area seemed to be going through the same stages as Seattle, with construction of new houses, condos, apartment complexes, and whole neighborhoods, accompanied by a general gentrification and big-box sprawl.
There was a bit of a push-back as some new developments sprung up on the Columbia River waterfront. The battle got ugly when a local business owner and developer, Jon Englund, and a bunch of his friends got the city to approve a condo project on the waterfront here. Many local people saw the residential development along the waterfront as too much of a change, too fast, and some moved away as a result. On a positive note, the controversy certainly got people more involved in their local government.
But the city council decision, unanimous and quick, to give the nod to the Englund Condos was a turning point. Many residents were so deflated and demoralized after that hearing that they dropped out of politics altogether. Most went on to other things, most notably LNG. Since then, planning commission and city council meetings have been a lot quieter. Development has gone on. The heat has been off. There's still no Englund condos, and may never be, but it's hard to find out just what's happening. At the height of the battle, everyone knew what was going on all the time. Small town, you know.
I was one of those that became disillusioned by the whole process. A promised waterfront planning exercise has finally materialized, but not before most of the developments that were so divisive were approved, with some now being built. Only the economic slowdown has prevented some of the slated developments from construction at this time.
Meanwhile, development in Clatsop County on the whole is moving ahead. My trips to Cannon Beach to act at the Coaster Theatre have become more stressful, as I watch both commercial and residential development along the 101 corridor from Warrenton to Seaside go on at a steady pace. In addition to the new Home Depot and Lum's, there are whole neighborhoods being built along the east side of the highway, and the windstorms we've had the past two Decembers have taken down many of the biggest trees in the area. Construction and fear have taken down even more.
I used to volunteer at the Clatsop County Animal Shelter, at the end of 19th St., along the business 101 corridor. At the time, the shelter was one of two buildings in the so-called business park (the other a juvenile offender facility), and the drive there was very pleasant. But now there's a huge development of trophy homes right next to the animal shelter, and the talk is of much more development in the area, including a huge Costco store across from the Home Depot. Though I'm a huge fan of the shelter, I don't think it's good for the animals to be in a housing development and business park, and I certainly don't feel any pull to go there anymore. Too bad.
Development is everywhere. The hills east of 101 in the Seaside area are starting to sprout housing developments. This sort of pattern of development I've seen in Spokane (where my wife is from), in the Bay Area of California (where I lived before Seattle), and in many other places I've lived over the years. Even taking the Lewis & Clark Road to Seaside has become less wonderful since the For Sale signs have started appearing on many properties along that road, ending in the developments in the hills as you enter Seaside. Measure 37 and 49 claims threaten to turn the whole Lewis & Clark area into one big development, with the local councils literally paving the way.
The Great Gale of 2007 was definitely a turning point for me. Though our house was mostly spared, as were most of the trees around it, the devastation it caused in the region really spurred on the culture of fear that has made our city and the surrounds more urbanized, and more likely to suffer even greater damage in the next gale. Though I've been assured that replanting of our local government-owned forests will take place, so far I've seen nothing but tree cutting, with chainsaws disturbing my sleep and waking hours almost every day. One of my reasons for running is to try to save the remaining big trees (dwindling every day), and to reforest the area right, starting with each of us on our properties, and ending with us all together in our city forests and our streets, plazas and parks. Policies made by the city council can definitely help with this.
Though there was a period of calm, the great exodus of Astoria businesses has recently picked up speed. Lum's was huge. Besides my personal loss of a maintenance place in town for my Prius, the move to Warrenton has produced three vacant properties of considerable size. As with many other similar moves, our city council has done nothing to prevent or mitigate the loss, or plan for appropriate development in its place. This kind of non-planning has gotten us to the hodge-podge situation that I found charming when I first moved here, but now, with major services going out of walking or biking range, I find just plain bad.
It remains to be seen if the Wal-Mart effect will close down our hardware and related small businesses in Astoria, as Home Depot gets going. If promised stores such as Staples, Big Five, and others materialize, the effect could get even worse. But the larger effect of this sort of development is sprawl, bringing with it greater traffic, pollution, congestion and stress.
So, it appears that, once again, partly by my own fault (from moving here), my new home is becoming like the one I left. This happened to me in moving from Berkeley, California to Seattle, and I even saw it when I lived in Adelaide, Australia, while getting my Master's degree. I doubt there is anywhere that is immune to this trend, at least not in the U.S. But I've never seen it happen this fast. And I feel that if it can't be at least somewhat slowed down, then Astoria will become just another place to live, nothing special, or unique.
I'm running to get the message out, and to try to do something about it.
That's the long answer. The short answer is that no one else stepped up. After the Englund condo hearing last September, many opposed to the development were convinced that the only way to prevent these things from happening was a change in the top local decision-making body -- in this case, the Astoria city council. Given the experience of the recent changes in the Astoria Port Commission, where two commissioners were replaced in elections, and many changes at the port were instituted, largely due to the efforts of a dedicated group of activists, some of us started thinking about upcoming elections for the Astoria City Council, those now directly ahead of us. Two positions were up for election, and with the controversy still fresh in people's minds, there was some chance of a change occurring on the council. Though some time has passed and blunted the edge of the waterfront development controversy, there were still people who wanted to see a change. But translating that into a viable candidate in the two wards up for election proved difficult. Much of the reason, I suspect, is that much political capital was spent in the last few months, first with the recall of Richard Lee from the county commission, next in the county commission elections, and in the hearings that ended in the county commission approving land use changes that would allow the Bradwood Landing LNG project to proceed. This decision has required much effort to stop the project at many other levels, including an appeal. Many of the people most suited to running for city council are heavily involved in a referendum to overturn one of the land use changes the commission made, as well as related anti-LNG work. So, after the call went out for candidates, unfortunately none were found for the Ward 2 position, and only myself for Ward 4.
This situation is one of the things I would strive to correct if elected. There are many inducements to running for public office that would make it more palatable for those of us somewhat inclined in that direction. A modest salary could be offered. Shorter terms might enable more of us to make the commitment. A proportional representation system, where a full slate of councilors would be elected by the whole city, with the top vote getters, up to the total amount of positions available, getting the nod, would allow for a broader range of views being represented on the council, while making it significantly easier for those interested in serving to actually get to do so. In a city as small as Astoria, eliminating the ward residency requirement wouldn't significantly hinder the chances for a councilor to get the views of all constituents. Since most decisions by individual councilors involve the whole city, this system would be much more fair than the current ward-based system. Electronic communication systems could make it easier to get the business of the council done outside of regular meetings, and help those that have work and play schedules that are more inflexible. And finally, the council could become more amenable to public participation, perhaps by changing the timing and place of the council meetings, holding more fun events, and soliciting more public input.
Another focus of mine as city councilor would be the environment. When I arrived in Astoria in 2005, the area was in the midst of a recovery from many years of economic recession due to the collapse of the resource-based industries of fishing, canning and logging that dominated the area for much of its European settlement. Tourism and real estate were becoming the dominant industries in the area, but because of the lull in economic activity since the 1980s, much of the forest in the area was left alone, and the edge plants like blackberries were everywhere. Many lots were unpaved, muddy and bumpy, and many buildings were in disrepair (see above). Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and the vacuum was filled with people. The result has been a tremendous paving project in the area, consisting of new parking lots, houses, commercial developments and roads. Combined with our geography and geology, this has meant many more slides than was the case in the previous decades, as well as environmental problems with runoff, sewer systems and air pollution. The huge windstorms of the past two winters have further decimated the trees in the area, making the above problems even worse. Combined with climate change, these issues have taken center stage at many council meetings. Unfortunately, much of the action taken seems to take the form of "putting out fires", and little is done to work on the underlying infrastructural and environmental problems. Given my education, leaning and experience in environmental and technical issues, I would work to make our environment a top consideration in all decisions, and to start to make the investments that will keep our area environmentally sound for the future. We can certainly start with ordinances that require much less paving in any project, and the planting of native trees, shrubs and groundcovers in all city-owned areas, and encouraging citizens to do the same with their properties. Using our local Living Machine natural water treatment system, expanding it to serve the whole city, would be another logical step that would have us in compliance with EPA standards, at much less cost than the current systems. Besides tree planting, we could reduce our carbon emissions with city-inspired programs of mass transit, bicycles, carpools, and energy efficiency measures.
Related to environmental problems discussed above is the regional pattern of development, currently in free-fall sprawl. As the local town boundaries become less and less obvious, it is more obvious that we need to work together to prevent the associated problems of sprawl -- congestion, traffic, air pollution, stress, and pure aesthetic problems. This would be another focus of mine as councilor. Obviously, zoning is the main tool that governments have to control sprawl, and we have a mish-mash of zoning regulations in the county, that generally supports development. This is a result of the economic situation discussed above, as well as traditional rural development patterns that are less structured than their urban counterparts. The variances and zoning changes granted recently to developers are examples of the piecemeal approach that can backfire when looking at development on a regional basis. Decisions made in Warrenton, for example, influence development and the environment (both economic and physical) in Astoria, and visa versa. Therefore, I would work with local city and county councils to develop a plan for development in the region that takes into consideration our environment and the political and economic realities on the ground. And zoning that keeps our area as pristine and environmentally sound as possible is good business if tourism and real estate are really going to be our main industries.
I would endeavor to set aside much more land to parks and natural areas in the city, enhance the trail system, and put much more resources into maintaining and enhancing our natural areas. This will probably require a program of property purchase by the city, and would stress the theme of a pro-active government that I hope to foster. Though there is a healthy anti-government attitude in our area, I think that a pro-active government that enlists citizen participation every step of the way has a chance to succeed in solving many of the everyday problems we have.
The pro-active government I envision would be more responsive to us all than to individuals or businesses. Our government would also ask more of us all. We already have an incredible volunteer community, and asking everyone to be involved in the activities of government may seem a lot, but I believe that the results of this participation would be good in both tangible and intangible ways. We already have an awesome environment -- the Columbia River estuary -- to live in, so let's help to keep it that way, and improve it. I have a lot of experience with organizations and people that have helped to enhance the environment in their living space; I would work to achieve that here.
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