Welcome to my Mayor Talk about the recent meeting between City Manager Shepard and Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad about OCSR’s plans for downtown Rockaway Beach. Rockaway Beach has a tourist driven economy. Simply said … the more visitors that stop in town, the better our tourist driven economy is. By far, those visitors come to Rockaway Beach by car. Our restaurants and merchants in the Rockaway Beach downtown core now face an existential threat from the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad. The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad plans to build an unsightly runaround in the middle of our beautiful town from just south of Nehalem to North 3rd which will remove parking for about 56 cars from our downtown core. One thing we consistently hear from merchants is that they want more, certainly not less, parking. Removing one parking space is bad but removing 56 is catastrophic.
This represents 72% of all available parking on the west side of 101 in this area. We would get substantially fewer visitors stopping in town due to lack of parking … with fewer meals served at our restaurants and fewer sales at our merchants. Our business owners would experience a devastating drop in revenue which could put many at risk of closing. Additionally, this would also affect our 500 STR owners adversely as they rely on the restaurants and merchants to serve their renters. As Mayor of this magical town, I will do everything I can to stop Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad from stealing our parking. I call on the Rockaway Beach Business Association, and the Rockaway Beach Chamber of Commerce, to fight for your members and stop the steal. I also ask our individual business owners, STR owners, and residents to help me stop the steal. Please email the Port of Tillamook Bay General Manager Michelle Bradley at mbradley@potb.org to let the Port of Tillamook Bay know that it is not acceptable for the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad to remove 56 parking spaces from our city.
Mayor Charles McNeilly
City of Rockaway Beach
https://youtu.be/zJCQkpxDTVA