Friday, May 2, 2025 | Vol. 49, Issue 5
www.cannonbeachgazette.com
HRAP welcomes puffins
WILL CHAPPELL Gazette Editor
Two bald eagles played spoiler to the Haystack Rock Awareness Program’s Puffin Welcome Celebration on April 13, keeping the Tufted Puffins secreted away in their burrows throughout the event. However, staff and volunteers from the program still welcomed hundreds of visitors, educating them about the birds and helping try to spot them. During the event, Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) Director Kelli Ennis and a volunteer, Michelle, did a Facebook live presentation to answer some commonly asked questions about the birds. The puffins that come to Haystack Rock each year are tufted puffins, which have a range from the Channel Islands in California to Alaska and a total population just under three million birds, with most residing in Alaska. Around 500 tufted puffins nest in Oregon annually, with around 100 at Cannon Beach’s Haystack Rock. Puffins are pelagic birds, meaning that they spend most of the year at sea, floating in rafts between 50 and several hundred miles from shore fishing, before returning to islands and rocks near the coast to nest between April and August. Subsisting solely on fish, tufted puffins have a large beak able to catch up to 20 fish at a time and can dive up to 200 feet below the ocean’s surface in pursuit of prey. Tufted Puffins have nest
PIERCE BAUGH V for the Gazette
Reclining in a rocking chair, Peter Dueber says he can still hear Bill Steidel and his son, Sam arguing about how to run things at the Steidel Art gallery as they did when they were alive. “Their voices and their spirits just ring in that building,” says Dueber, who takes comfort and delight in sensing the classic father-son disagreements that took place in the storied building on Hemlock Street that has housed Stediel Art, formerly Staircase Gallery, for decades. In October of 2024, community pillars Bill Steidel and his wife, Sally, died, leaving Sam to care for the business and continue what his parents had created. But two months later, on the evening before their celebration of life on December 27, Sam suffered a heart attack, succumbing to it on January 12. Within the span of a few months, a family that had been so central to Cannon Beach was almost gone, with only Sam’s widow, Deborah Laws-Steidel still in the city. In a sense, when the Steidels passed, Dueber lost part of his family. Sam and Dueber’s families latched onto each other when the Steidels moved to Cannon Beach in 1962. The Steidels and the Duebers became inseparable. “Sam has always been a Dueber, and the Duebers have always been Steidels,” as
Visitors explored the intertidal area around the rock during the puffin welcome celebration.
fidelity and return to the same location where they were born each year, using their beaks and clawed feet to clean out a previously used burrow or dig a new one. Burrows are six to eight feet deep and some at Haystack Rock have been used by successive generations for decades. Each pair of puffins will only lay one egg annually, leading to around 50 pufflings each year at Haystack Rock. Cannon Beach is one of the few locations in the continental United States where tufted puffins can be seen from the shore and the first returner was See HRAP, Page A6
Volunteers from HRAP helped members of the public try to spot tufted puffins on Haystack Rock, using scopes and binoculars provided by the group.
Ground broken on new city hall WILL CHAPPELL Gazette Editor
City leaders gathered on April 21, in the parking lot of the Cannon Beach city hall to officially break ground on the replacement facility. Construction of the new $15.3-million facility is expected to take 15 months and marks the culmination of a yearslong process to replace the outdated current facility. “I can do a speech in two words,” said Mayor Barb Knop, “at last.” At the groundbreaking, Knop kicked off the event, thanking the project team from CIDA Architects and P&C Construction, the community and city staff. Knop asked the public to be patient with city staff during construction while they are located in two portable office units on Second Street by the recycling center. Former City Councilor Brandon Ogilve thanked the same groups as knop and said that he was very excited to finally see the project beginning. The new city hall will be 10,600 square feet and funding for the construction is coming from the city’s food and transient lodging taxes. Voters approved the food tax to support the project and the construction of a new police station, a project which also broke ground in April at the south end of the city, in 2022, while
Friend carries on Steidel legacy
See STEIDEL, Page A3
Cannon Beach prepares for 61st sandcastle contest PIERCE BAUGH V for the Gazette
(Left to right) Mayor Barb Knop, former City Councilor Mike Benefield, City Manager Bruce St. Denis, former City Councilor Brandon Ogilve, City Councilor Erik Ostrander and former City Councilor Nancy McCarthy turn shovelfuls of dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony.
councilors raised the city’s transient lodging tax from 8% to 9.5% to fully fund the project in 2023. Doran Spenst, the city hall project’s superintendent from P&C Construction, said that demolition on the existing city hall is expected to start on May 7, and take about ten days
including abatement of hazardous materials and salvaging other materials for repurposing in the new city hall. The next step will be sinking pilings for the building’s foundation, which Spenst said is scheduled for June 10, before the building’s concrete slab is poured, expected in late
August. Spenst said that aside from the current area of Gower Street and the current city hall’s parking lot that are fenced off, there should not be additional public impacts in midtown. City Manager Bruce St. Denis said that the city’s public facing employees
and police department were still operating with the same hours at the second street location, while city council and other public meetings will be held at the chamber of commerce at 207 North Spruce. The police station project is expected to be complete in 14 months.
On June 21st, Cannon Beach will be holding its 61st annual sandcastle competition, one of the year’s biggest events, with sand sculptors of all skill levels assembling to create masterful works of whimsy on the beach. In 1964, a tsunami generated in Alaska hit Cannon Beach, washing away the Elk Creek Bridge and isolating residents. To keep the children entertained and attract visitors, families gathered for a sandcastle competition and 61 years later, the Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest has become one of the biggest competitions on the West Coast. That profile has led to the contest attracting sand sculptors from all over, like William Rose — known as Bill, by some, Billy, by others, and Will, by a few. But when it comes to sand sculpting, the art elicits the use of his full name A former construction superintendent, Rose See SANDCASTLE, Page A3