Sea Fog Threatens Livelihood of Coastal Community Once Again

Over 2,000 ships lie scattered at the mouth of the Columbia River. Each holding crews between 10 to 300, their people dead, or if lucky merely their livelihoods destroyed as they pulled themselves out of the raging surf, many remaining on the shores shipwrecked, struggling to stay alive. The Pacific Graveyard is littered with the bones of many a nautical old timer, sage captains and novice deck boys alike, blinking lights luring the desperate to what appeared to be safe shore; sea fog shrouding shifting sands, sharp rocks, and crashing waves. Too late, the desperate found the false lights belonging to Wreckers, far worse than pirates, using the fog and lights for the Wreckers’ devices. In the end the Wreckers’ pockets full, the desperates’ pockets as empty as their eyes.

Long gone are the days when fog would ground the fleets and leave this community dependent on its capricious whims for its economic survival. We no longer need to worry about fog, our economy diversified and growing. No false lights of Wreckers luring us astray. A storm blowing means we depend on our neighbor for a borrowed hammer, a shared generator, a pot of coffee and a game of gin rummy. But now, once again, a forecast of an unnatural event has come in and it isn't the winds we have to worry about, nor the frozen pipes.

While the weather man is predicting icy blasts of Nordic frost for the area this weekend we heard a blanket of fog, its tendrils weaving up from the blinking lights of the Cannery Pier Hotel, quietly blanketing the nooks and crannies of the city, filling some heads with doubt and others with visions of undeserved grandeur. The fog seems to have entered the minds of many, and, like the psychedelic mushrooms that grow so well in many areas of the damp rain forest, causing them to believe they are the center of the universe and all must bend to their will or suffer the dire consequences.

The Son of Sam’s 4-123 has begun its labor pains. It is hoped that it is premature, coming much too early to be saved. In attendance, ripping it from its womb, are the wet nurses of the Columbia Pacific Alliance for Social Justice. Justice, to their mind, can best be served, by depriving the constituents of their right to allow their duly elected commissioner from serving out his term. They want him recalled and to have someone appointed in his place, their plan enforced, their agenda addressed, or consequences must be suffered, by all.

That’s right, appointed. Those living in district three won’t be allowed to vote for someone to replace their commissioner; they merely get to vote to toss him. Then this Group (they have designated themselves a group with a capital “G”), who have already threatened the remaining commissioners with similar retaliation if crossed, will continue their goal of dominating the board -and our county- with their will, their say, their vision. This they have avowed on their website.

Is their vision good? Is it bad? Who is to say? We won’t get a chance to VOTE on it to know, ever. In the back of our minds will be the knowledge if we don’t vote as the Group tells us in their daily paper, they will recall the person we voted for, and they will appoint the person they intended to win.

Clatsop Citizens For Open Government, CCFOG, are rolling the fog over our heads. This is their vision of open government. Telling us ahead of time, tongue in cheek, that the fog is coming. Blowing their horn, waving their lanterns, laughing at us. They have no intention of opening up the government process, their intention is to close it down. They have ninety days to do it. Friday and Saturday, January 25^th & 26^th are their target dates but they can drag it out until April 22nd. It is no mistake their acronym can be pronounced sea fog. Their intent is death for our community (our consequence for an earlier defiance?), left to fend for ourselves as the shipwrecked once did, and profitable only for their chosen few.