During a candidates’ forum held at City Hall on Oct. 8, contenders for the Seaside City Council in the November election answered questions on vacation rentals, infrastructure and what they view as issues that are not being effectively addressed.

Hosted by the Seaside branch of the American Association of University Women, the forum, which was livestreamed on the city’s YouTube channel, offered voters a chance to contrast the candidates for three seats on the City Council.

City Councilor Randy Frank is facing Heidi Hoffman, a former police officer, for at large Ward 1 and Ward 2. City Councilor David Posalski is up against Meagan Hughes, a real estate broker, in Ward 4. Mark Hopman, who manages a hotel, and Seamus McVey, an advocate for the homeless, are competing to succeed City Councilor Tom Horning in Ward 3. Hughes did not attend the forum.

Virginia Dideum, a Gearhart planning commissioner who moderated the forum, asked the candidates whether they would consider changing the city’s approach to vacation rentals.

Frank said short-term rentals had cut into housing availability. While he looked forward to progress on the city’s efforts to limit vacation rentals, he also sees the importance of property rights and the fact that some people earn their income off rental property.

City Councilor David Posalski said the city’s limits prevent large corporations from making a profit on short-term rentals.

“Most of these short-term rentals were owned by people that had or were handed down homes,” Posalski said. “And they use the short-term rental income to pay the expenses of taxes and utilities and maintenance.”

McVey and Hoffman are interested in reexamining the city’s ordinance, expressing concern with houses that remain vacant much of the year and businesses that cannot keep employees due to a shortage of affordable housing.

Hopman described it as a complex issue. While he believes the city has done a good job regulating vacation rentals, he said a balance must be struck to ensure livability.

Dideum asked the candidates how they would mitigate increased traffic at the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and 24th Avenue, where several housing developments are planned.

Posalski said that housing is worth the expense of a few extra minutes of traffic, but that most of the decisions made regarding transportation planning fell to the Oregon Department of Transportation and the city’s Planning Commission and Transportation Advisory Commission.

McVey, Hopman and Frank agreed that they would defer to ODOT and the local commissions on how to best ease traffic in the area.

“We put a lot of stock into what these people advise us to do, and it’s one of those things that sometimes you have an opinion, and you listen to what they have to say,” Frank said. “The experts speak, they throw out an idea, and your mind has changed. And I think this is going to be one of those instances where we rely on the state and transportation commission to give us ideas on how to handle that.”

Hoffman also would defer to the state and local commissions, but suggested additional traffic lanes.

Candidates were given the opportunity to describe what they believe are the biggest issues not being effectively addressed.

Posalski, Frank and Hopman said the city has been proactive on issues such as homelessness and the shortage of affordable housing.

“It might look like nothing is being done, but that’s because it’s happening at a snail’s pace because of all the bureaucracy,” Hopman said.

McVey said the city had not taken enough of a hands-on approach regarding fireworks, which he said negatively affect veterans, animals and people who are homeless.

In the past, he believes, the city’s approach to homelessness involved making things more difficult for homeless people, though he said he was happy that there are city councilors serving now who do not take that approach.

Hoffman echoed McVey’s concerns about homelessness.

While she applauded the progress the city has made, she said more needs to be done to engage with people experiencing homelessness and offer mental health support, employment help and drug counseling.

“You cannot just keep moving them around and pretending that they are the ills of society,” Hoffman said. “They are a symptom of other ills in society, most importantly, the unavailability of affordable housing. There are many people in this city who are two paychecks away from ending up in that camp themselves, and I think we need to do more about that.”