Tax-and-Spend Tourism Devours our Coast

“Small as this Stock is I prise it highly; and thank providence for directing the whale to us…” – William Clark (January 8, 1806)

Multitudes have feasted on the bounty of Oregon’s seaboard, ever since the first travel writers explored these shores. What adventurer wouldn’t want to savor the same feeling of discovery experienced by Lewis and Clark?

Imagine hiking over Tillamook Head to see ancient forests hugging the long squeaky beach, that luscious cluster of sea-stacks rising up from psychedelic tide-pools. Picture what it was like to behold that exquisite skeleton of a blue whale laid out near the village now known as NeCus’, her bones picked clean by local workers.

Follow today’s hunger to Cannon Beach, you’ll find deluxe constructions amid the scattered remains of a funky arts community. Appetites have hugely altered this place first recorded by explorers as No-cost, an ironic name for the spendy spot where residents and visitors haggled over blubber.

More costly change is on the way, if ravenous herds heed the words of travel writers. Cannon Beach is one of three North American destinations to make Fodor’s GoList for 2024. Such promotions up the ante for a community that has tried to integrate hospitality with livability and the carrying capacity of nature. This aim is clearly conveyed in our local Comprehensive Plan that emphasizes appropriateness of scale and ecological stewardship.

Balance has not been easy for humans, anywhere on earth, since we’re prone to over-consume without considering the consequences. Love of home counters that habit, cultivates care for creation by mixing local knowledge with new ideas. I’ve tasted this ambrosial mix during decades behind the counter in my little bookshop. Conversations with residents and visitors add to the storied flow, on good days making magic, medicine, and sometimes even wisdom.

This homegrown blended balance has been tested in recent months by three proposed capital projects. Urban boosters are pushing hard for an expanded city hall, a new police station, and a refashioned school campus that was vacated ten years ago because it sits in the tsunami target zone.

Officials raised lodging taxes to pay for these projects, without much apparent focus on propriety of scale, cost control, or resource conservation. The city manager who moved here from the Florida coast was appointed by officials to also serve as project manager, meaning he’ll receive a cash bonus if these projects are completed. He has emphasized that Oregon state law requires a 70/30 split in spending for this tax hike, with the lion’s share going toward tourism.

City Hall is poised to earmark all of that larger portion for the school campus overhaul that has dramatically grown in size, though the scope seems ambiguous and redundant to many local people. Government math has thus transformed a $4.5 million community/cultural center that enjoyed broad public support into a deeply divisive $12 million venture. This spending calculus has been advanced by ranking municipal officials, not community groups or local businesses that lodge visitors. In fact the tax-subsidized venture is likely to compete with both private and not-for-profit stakeholders.

Not every arm of government supports this project as currently designed. The site plan was rejected unanimously by the Cannon Beach Design Review Board. But that decision was appealed by the City Council to the City Council, with project architects representing them. Members of the Design Review Board were instructed not to participate in this quasi-judicial process, not even as individual citizens. The appellant (architects, on behalf of City Council) were given abundant time to inform and color the proceedings, while the appellee (Design Review Board) was handed what amounted to a blanket gag order.

Surely no private landowner would ever be subjected to this extremely tilted process. Neither should a public agency comprised of volunteers appointed to represent our civic interests.

This case study makes Cannon Beach an excellent destination for anyone who wants to discuss the future of tourism. One upside of recent government actions is that businesses and not-for-profit groups are cultivating common ground. The time is ripe for building coalitions to refine lodging tax practices so that communities like ours can avoid more pitfalls.

If the vacated school becomes a costly monument to tourism, I suspect many villagers who were ignored in this decision will revive the old name of “No-cost.” If so, it will be no more sardonic than the name “NeCus’,” which some suggest means “place of the low tide.” Coastal lore associates Oregon’s squeaky beaches with locals who were told to collect provender when the tide rushed out. Some say the squeaks come from those workers who were eaten by a tsunami.

Cannon Beach has become a polarized place where citizens fire broadsides at one another, in part because of these controversial projects. This insults the creative force that inspired locals to first engage in the art of community. I believe material gifts can be shared in ways that help heal and care for all creatures, human and otherwise. Would any wise ancestor want us to take more money from visitors in order to fund costly construction in high-risk zones?