By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
WALDPORT – Seashore Family Literacy, which has been operating in a former school cafeteria and gymnasium in downtown Waldport for eight years without any city, county or state permits, has stopped using it and is preparing to return the property to the Lincoln County School District.
A formal notice by Seashore to the school district that it plans to relinquish the property prompted Waldport City Manager Dann Cutter to ask Superintendent Karen Gray if there is a way for the city to “take on the burden” of fixing the building’s issues and make it available for Seashore and other community programs.
Seashore stopped operating regularly in the building at 265 N. Bay Street last fall after a spat with the city over portable toilets it had been improperly using. But like many other volunteer-run community service programs, it had drastically cut back operations since mid-2019 because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
But the decision to stop using the building came after follow-up questions from the city, the state fire marshal’s office, Lincoln County health and planning officials, and the state agency that licenses before- and after-school youth programs. They all discovered that Seashore had been operating in the building without permits since it acquired the former Waldport grade school cafeteria and middle school gym in 2014 for $2.
The various agencies said Seashore:
- Needed a business permit from the city of Waldport and an occupancy permit from Lincoln County – a standard practice when a building changes use. But getting an occupancy permit would require inspections for fire and structural safety. Despite repairs years ago, officials believe the roof of the gym is sagging and it may need a sprinkler system;
- Needed an inspection and certification by the Lincoln County Health Department of its large commercial kitchen, which has been used to prepare hot and cold meals, and of a deteriorating or damaged restroom inside;
- Needed certification by the Oregon Department of Education to run youth programs at both the Bay Street building and its DaNoble House, a newer office building it owns adjacent to Waldport City Hall;
- Needed a conditional use permit to operate in the DaNoble House, which the city of Waldport said it could easily do.
Faced with months of work and untold amount of money to fix problems, Seashore executive director Senitila McKinley informed the school district in a Feb. 1 letter that it would use stop using the property by March 31 and return it to the district. McKinley asked that Seashore be allowed to use the large garden area on the property until it “has been sold or another agreement has been put into place.”
It is unclear – and McKinley declined to tell YachatsNews – if some of its programs would end or move to the DaNoble House. However, others indicated the nonprofit would re-focus on its literacy programs and move them there.
The 2014 purchase agreement says the property – cafeteria, gym and gardens — would revert to the school district should Seashore lose its nonprofit status or stop using it. McKinley was elected to the LCSD school board last year.
In response to an email inquiry from YachatsNews, McKinley declined further specifics, saying she “will talk when I have something to talk about.”
Seashore board treasurer Ruth McDonald said Tuesday that Seashore’s youth programs only requires a filing with the Oregon Department of Education as a “recorded program,” which it did last summer after pausing the program during 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Became nonprofit in 2000
Seashore was formed as a nonprofit in 1995 under the umbrella organization, Oregon Literacy. It received its own federal, nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service in 2000 and was incorporated with the state in 2004 as a public benefit nonprofit. McKinley is its founder and leader, but there is also a 10-member board to oversee policies and operations.
Its mission statement says with the help of volunteers it runs programs ranging from child and after-school programs, a summer lunch program, a community garden for children and adults, reading programs, a ukulele group and open music performance night, in addition to sponsoring the Green Bike program which operates out of a separate building along U.S. Highway 101.
Internal Revenue Service reports available online and through Seashore dating back to 2016 show donations and grants declined from $126,000 that year to $59,000 in 2020.
City says it had to act
Cutter said issues with the buildings got the city’s attention during a routine code enforcement discussion last fall between the city, the state fire marshal and the county planning department. That triggered a search for permits – which found none.
That next led to a series of discussions between the three agencies over which would initiate the permit request to Seashore. The county and state advised the city to start the process under its code enforcement ordinances. Cutter said he waited until after the Christmas and New Years holidays to send McKinley and board chair Mike Smith a letter about permits for the Bay Street building.
Before detailing five permit issues in the city’s Jan. 10 letter, Cutter wrote “It is in everyone’s interests these issues are fixed. The city will assist readily in every way it can to facilitate this.” The letter said the Bay Street building “cannot be used or occupied for any purpose” other than inspection and correction of any problems. It also said programs at DaNoble House also needed to pause until it got a city business license and a conditional use permit to operate there.
“I wish to express my sincere hope we can assist and facilitate a swift resolution to these issues in order to get you back to full operations for the good of the community,” Cutter’s letter said.
The letters from Waldport to Seashore and from Seashore to the school district were released in response to public records requests by YachatsNews.
Now working together
According to emails released by the city of Waldport, McKinley initially reacted angrily to the city’s letter asking her to get permits and stop using the building. Cutter told YachatsNews, however, that “Once we were made aware of safety concerns, we had to do something.”
But this week McKinley and Cutter began communicating about ways the city can help get permits for Seashore to legally use the DaNoble House and about the city’s offer to undertake the challenge of fixing issues with the Bay Street building.
In his email to Gray, Cutter said the building, garden, programs there and their location adjacent to the soon-to-be developed Southworth Park “represent a significant asset to the community.”
“While it became a bit overwhelming for Senitila to address the issues for the building, it is not something we want to see go away. The usefulness to the local kid’s programs and our park is immense,” Cutter said in his email. “I would like to suggest that the city take on this burden. While the building needs some substantial work, this is the exact type of challenge I would embrace — to spend the dollars to return it to safe functionality. And then frankly, have the library work with Seashore to return some of the critical programming to the facility it has hosted. We could also then rezone the property to Public Facility (it is C1 zoning now), to eliminate the zoning concerns and preserve the education and community functionality as part of the Southworth Park …”
The school district’s position on the property is not clear. Cutter hopes to meet with Gray and district facilities director Rich Belloni soon to discuss ideas and whether the district is willing to transfer the property again or wants to put it all up for sale.
On Monday, Cutter asked for “people to be patient while Seashore, the city and the school district” as they try to figure out the best ways to use the buildings and adjacent property.
Kristin Bigler, a spokeswoman for the district, said last week that school officials “don’t have anything formally agreeing to take back the remaining portion of the former WMS building at this time.”
“Should that change, we will let the public know,” she said.
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
To read the January city of Waldport’s enforcement letter to Seashore Family Literacy, go here
To read the 2014 agreement between Seashore Family Literacy and the Lincoln County School District, go here
To read the February letter from Seashore to the Lincoln County School District, go here
What? They had no permits or certifications in their kitchen since 2014 when they opened? How did this go unnoticed for so long? How did the board and Ms. McKinley not know all these permits were required? Was there never any inspections done? The pandemic and lock downs did not start in mid 2019. It was at the beginning of 2020. Why is Ms McKinley not talking to the media? She should be answering questions like “How did you not know you needed permits to run a kitchen?” Especially if you are a non profit working in education? There are a lot of grants that require certain things like oh… permits to operate safely.
How can I help as a Waldport community member?