For Rockaway City Council Position #3

Stephanie and her husband Dane originally purchased their beach house in 2014 and fell in love with Rockaway.  They moved here full time in moved to their beach house in Rockaway Beach full-time in 2020. Since then, she has been involved in Rockaway Beach as a member of the Budget Committee since 2022 and Planning Commission since 2023. Stephanie graduated from the University of Oregon with a Master’s degree in Recreation Management, and has spent the past 22 years working at OHSU in many different roles. When not working, she is taking advantage of beautiful coast fishing on her boat Game Changer.

Why I’m Running for city council?  What are my priorities?

• Community – We need to continue to have engaging open houses to promote community-based decision making.  Each time I have had an opportunity to participate in an open house I have been inspired and engaged.  We are all better when our combined ideas melded together to make a better outcome.  Engaging in these opportunities also reminds us how much we have in common and promotes communication which will break down divisions and promote unity.  We also need to ensure that there is always time for true citizen input in each ordinance and decision made by the city council.  Having a first and second reading on the same meeting an ordinance goes into place limits our citizen’s ability to impact the council’s decision making and should be avoided.
• Emergency Preparedness – We live in the most amazing place, however in any type of emergency situation we could be cut off from services and need to be able to rely on ourselves. We have some amazing volunteers along with our Fire Department that have been reinvigorating our readiness during the past year and I am in awe of their work.  I am so excited to participate in our CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and our Emergency radio net and get to meet so many of you.  This is an opportunity for each of us to participate, volunteer, be educated and reach out to our neighbors.  Let’s continue this work to build community and ensure we can take care of ourselves should an emergency strike.
• Enhancing our city’s resources – As a planning commissioner one of my favorite projects was our open house to gain community input on the Lake Lytle project.  We need to do more of these to look at the parks, and other resources (for example our community center) and prioritize together how to utilize these to come together as a community.  We need to look both at what our full-time residents can use to engage together during all seasons.  What activities can we have during the winter when it might a bit icky outside?  What can we do to ensure our resources are also ready for when our occupancy is high in the summer?  It is about balance and gathering input from our entire community.  If elected as a city counselor I will no longer be able to hold my position on the planning commission.  I would however, ensure that the planning commission has the support to hold these open houses and be the forum for gathering community based decision making.  I would do this by encouraging our citizens to participate in each opportunity for input be it a survey, attending an open house, a planning commission meeting and of course a city council meeting.