CANNON BEACH — Infrastructure spending, housing and environmental protection dominate the campaign platforms of the three candidates vying for two open seats on the City Council in the November election.

City Councilor Nancy McCarthy and City Councilor Brandon Ogilvie have reached the city’s limit of two four-year terms, creating the open seats.

Erik Ostrander, who helps manage a motel, Deanna Hammond, who operates a bakery, and Mike Bates, an author who worked as a corporate attorney, are competing for the two slots.

The debate over the City Council’s unanimous approval of $33.6 million in bond financing for a new City Hall and police station and the redevelopment of the former elementary school is a subtext in the election. As part of a settlement of a lawsuit against the bond financing by Hannah Buschert, Ostrander’s wife, the city agreed to place an advisory vote on the November ballot on $7.8 million in financing for the elementary school project.

Ostrander

Ostrander, who manages Sea Breeze Court with Buschert, lost a close campaign for mayor to Barb Knop in 2022. He said the narrow margin showed there was a significant portion of the community that feels he represents their interests.

“Currently, there’s not a lot of representation across a broad spectrum of constituents on the council,” said Ostrander, who serves on the Planning Commission, is the president of the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce and is a volunteer firefighter. “It’s kind of not a very diverse group of people. I’m 35, I’m science educated, I’m education-minded. I’m really interested in what the visitors to town need and want, and what the people that are working to support those people coming to town need and want.

“And I think that’s a voice that would be very beneficial to have represented on the council, in addition to just listening to those voices in general. I’ve heard from a number of people that they don’t feel like they’re heard by the council, and they come to me to say that. So I’m hoping I can provide that ear and provide that voice for them up on the council.”

Ostrander intends to prioritize affordable and workforce housing while balancing environmental needs. While he wants to encourage more affordable units, he is mindful of wetlands and tree protections.

Ostrander has been outspoken against the price tag and scope of the city’s three infrastructure projects, particularly the elementary school redevelopment into a tourist-related cultural and community center.

Though Ostrander supports a new police station, he believes the community has been duped by the budgets for the projects. He believes there was public support for converting the elementary school into a community center, but the project turned into a tourism-related facility to justify the use of lodging tax money to help with the financing.

“Things kind of escalated and shifted, and suddenly the project is significantly larger, they’re increasing lodging tax locally to pay for it, and it kind of feels like a bait and switch,” he said. “So you got the community really invested in something that was going to be a community center, and then suddenly isn’t.”

Ostrander hopes to give a voice to people who feel they have not been heard at City Council.

“I anticipate living here for decades to come,” he said. “And any decisions that get made, anything that happens, I’m going to have to live with.”

Hammond

Deanna Hammond, who owns Cannon Beach Bakery with her husband, lost a campaign for City Council in 2022. She is part of Cannon Beach Together, a political action committee that has fought the bond financing for the infrastructure projects.

Hammond emphasized that she is not against the projects, but feels the price tag attached to the former elementary school redevelopment is too high.

Before moving to Cannon Beach to start the bakery, Hammond worked for over two decades in finance in Vancouver, Washington.

“With over 25 years of experience, I have successfully overseen the management of mid-level housing and multimillion-dollar projects,” she said. “This experience equips me with the expertise to ensure responsible oversight of city operations, including the construction of our new City Hall and police station.

“At the heart of my campaign for City Council is the belief that our small town must come together again so we can move forward and continue thriving. I am confident that I can help bridge this divide and would be honored to earn the trust and support of our community.”

Hammond, who hopes to represent local business owners on the City Council, said the community needs balance.

“We are the backbone of the community, and we’re what keeps the community alive,” she said. “Property taxes from homeowners and things are definitely helpful, but tourism is the main thing that keeps this town thriving.

“And in order to continue to thrive, our small businesses need to feel like they have a voice when they need to speak out about something, and they need to feel like they have someone on the council that will not only listen to them, but also hear what they have to say and at least try to come up with a happy medium.”

Hammond said her main policy focuses are the lack of middle-income housing and transportation concerns.

“We need to look at those two things, and we need to do something about those things, instead of having circular conversations for decades,” she said.

“Even though I am running a business, I am very much seeded in this community. I care about the people who live here, all of the people who live here, whether I see eye to eye with them or not.”

Bates

Mike Bates, an author with an emphasis on social justice and the environment, previously worked as a corporate attorney with a practice in transactions and antitrust issues. He moved to the city eight years ago with his wife.

The forefront of Bates’ campaign is his desire to protect the environment, followed closely by a need for affordable and workforce housing.

“We’re sitting on this environmental treasure, and I’d like to protect it without getting to the point where we’re foreclosing development,” he said. “That’s my goal, to make sure that this gold mine is here for generations.”

Bates, who serves on the Planning Commission, said increasing density in residential areas, especially with middle housing and duplexes, is an important part of the equation.

“But beyond that, we’ve got opportunities in other areas to incentivize mixed use, for example, downtown, which could open up, if targeted properly and managed properly, could open up a lot of nontraditional units,” he said. “ … We’ve got an interest in developing low-cost housing, and we just need to have that come together in one spot where we can have infrastructure and can set something up like a land trust to make houses available for citizens who are having a tough time living here.”

Bates supports the redevelopment of the former elementary school, though he said it took him a while to come to that conclusion.

“I tried to defer it for a while, but realized that I had to come up with a position,” he said. “And it’s really one of support. You know, when I look at our comprehensive plan, a community center like the one that’s going up is called out as a future possibility in this community.

“So to me, that’s an indication that something like the school project should be undertaken. And then when I look at how it’s coming together, and the influence of the Native American community and the way it’s been designed, I think it actually not only is called out by or supported by our comprehensive plan, it in turn supports our efforts to find the balance between development and environment that’s been missing for the last 10 to 15 years.”