MEET OUR NEW ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

Monday marked the first day for our new administrative assistant, Shirley Powell.

Shirley's previous employment was with the Confluence Project in Vancouver, Washington where she served as administrative assistant for the executive director and board of directors since early 2003. The Confluence Project is a $25 million art project by Vietnam Memorial artist Maya Lin located at several locations along the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon. She also spent 11 years at the Port of Portland as an administrative assistant to the executive director and the directors of engineering and public affairs.

Shirley's duties here at city hall will include a variety of detailed and specialized secretarial, liaison and administrative work for yours truly, the city planner, the city council and plan commission. We are confident that she will do a great job for the city and that her personality will fit in well at city hall and in Cannon Beach.

Shirley and husband, John have a home in the Tolovana section of Cannon Beach. I'm sure she would encourage local citizens to stop by city hall and welcome her to our city.

MERITORIOUS SERVICE AWARDS

One of the most enjoyable activities in the life of a city manager is when you get to recognize city employees for a job well done. I got to do this today when I assisted Chief Halliburton in honoring 2 city employees for their part in helping contain the recent fire at Ecola State Park.

The 2 employees are Assistant Head Lifeguard Brian Habecker and Police Officer Joe Bowman. Brian and Joe distinguished themselves by transporting critically needed fire suppression equipment from a staging area at the Indian Beach parking lot to the 1st-line firefighters at the base of the fire. They accomplished this by driving an ATV with several thousand feet of hose and other firefighting necessities up and down precarious, steep, winding and rugged terrain over a two hour period of time. Brian and Joe had to adapt quickly to the ATV's limitations which wasn't equipped for such hauling activities.

Brian, Joe and the rest of the emergency personnel prevented a bad situation from becoming much worse. And our local environment benefitted from all of their actions.