Also alleges years of homeless camp mismanagement
SEASIDE — Alleging nearly two years of mismanagement of the Avenue S homeless encampment site, a local Seaside business owner has filed a complaint against the city.
On Monday, Aug. 11, the city public works crew began to clean up the Avenue S site in the aftermath of its relocation. During the process, city employees were exposed to dead rats, human waste and hazardous materials, including drugs and needles.
Three days later on Thursday, Aug. 14, Randy Anderson, owner of Anderson Painting which, according to Anderson, is located on Avenue S, filed an employment complaint to the Oregon Occupational and Safety and Health Division, an agency that regulates workplace safety and health.
According to records obtained by The Astorian, Anderson alleged that the city did not provide public works crews with the necessary protective equipment, including poke-resistant gloves, grabbers and face shields, when exposed to vermin and “buckets of excrement (feces) and needles.”
The records also stated that the city did not ensure proper training to the crew.
As of Friday, Aug. 22, the city hadn’t been notified about a possible investigation, according to Spencer Kyle, Seaside’s city manager.
Oregon OSHA officials confirmed to The Astorian there is currently an “open complaint.” They did not disclose further details about it.
According to Anderson, the conditions of the site, prior to the clean up, had been an existing issue for the neighboring community since 2023. Anderson and other neighboring residents cited troubling issues and shared experiences from a rat infestation to exposure to drug paraphernalia and trespassing onto private property.
From Mill Ponds to Avenue S
In 2022, Seaside opened its first sanctioned homeless encampment, located at the Mill Ponds Park. But in the winter of 2023, the city decided to relocate the camp to Avenue S due to flooding.
Since November 2023, neighboring residents and business owners have been grappling with the unexpected relocation of Seaside’s homeless camp.
“The second winter, we just decided we needed to move the whole camp out ,” Kyle said. “It was more under urgent circumstances where we just needed a camp spot.”
Because of the urgency, the city did not seek public input. This resulted in frustration from the neighboring community.
“We were given no notification. Nothing,” Jorjett Strumme, a neighboring resident, said. “The way I found out was one morning … I opened my kitchen shade and my kitchen window is facing right into a homeless camp. I immediately emailed the city council, the city manager, (and) didn’t get any information telling me why, how, or what was going on.”
Kyle said he regrets not communicating with the community, but that it likely would not have changed the overall decision.
“The better thing would’ve been to inform them,” Kyle said. “The tricky thing is, I don’t think it would’ve changed the decision. So sometimes it’s tricky asking for feedback or comments when you (have) already made a decision.”
‘This has been so traumatic’ — Years of rats, drugs, and more
Residents said their lives were turned upside down shortly after the relocation.
“Next thing I know, because I had no idea how having this camp would be, (or) how it would affect my life, everything under the sun was stolen,” Strumme said. “My lawn furniture was stolen, my wheel barrels were stolen, hoses were stolen. I mean you name it. I had to turn off all my outside water because they were coming and running my water and not even turning it off. I had people on my back step charging their phone and nothing was being done about it.”
Anderson described a similar situation.
“I’ve had nothing but issues with vandalism, theft, defecating on my property, graffiti on my property and vehicles,” Anderson said. “I had one guy come on my property and do drugs and OD’ed and died. It took police and paramedics to bring him back and haul him away.”
Kyle said he could not help the residents with the vandalism and trespassing issues, so he referred them to the police.
According to records obtained by The Astorian, the Seaside Police Department received 314 calls relating to the Avenue S site between Nov. 15, 2023 and Aug. 12, 2025.
The community also encountered a rodent infestation.
“We all of a sudden (were) battling rats and we’re talking cat-size rats in our building … we’re catching three (to) four a day,” Doc Shaw, owner of Doc’s Auto Repair, said.
Community members called for an exterminator and according to Kyle, the city also set up rat traps and bait stations.
Business owners Shaw, Brian Olson, owner of Beachcomber Vacation Homes, and Dave Koller, who owns a self-storage facility on Avenue S, said the camp affected their businesses because customers and staff viewed Avenue S as unsafe.
“It just made running a business there not viable,” Koller said. “We (Seaside Self-Storage) had people move out because they didn’t like coming to their storage.”
Shaw agreed.
“They’re afraid that their car is going to get broken into,” Shaw said. “We did have a couple of them (campers) come up and beat a couple of the cars … they threw some golf balls at them one day … I called the police on (them).”
Mismanagement and complaints
From the time the Avenue S site opened to when it closed, community members said they have been outspoken about the alleged mismanagement and unlivable conditions of the camp.
“Just from the very beginning of that camp being there, it was absolutely filthy … there was no management of the camp,” Koller said. “It just quickly became a fentanyl, mental health crisis camp that nobody was managing.”
Kyle said the city would receive complaints about the Avenue S camp on a daily basis.
“There were times when I would say, daily or multiple times a day, and sometimes where we (the city) might go a few weeks,” Kyle said. “But it was constant and it really depended on the circumstances at the time.”
According to Anderson, the city used to clean out the campsite weekly. However, that stopped about three months prior to the site’s closure, which resulted in piles of garbage inside the site.
Kyle said he was shocked by “the amount of hoarding that was going on” inside the camp.
While the city did initiate clean ups of the site, Kyle said it was not as frequent as the city would have liked.
“But it was just an intensive process that we just didn’t have the resources to do it (as) often as we would’ve liked,” Kyle said.
The community members alleged the mismanagement of the site was because camp rules were not enforced — which Kyle confirmed.
Some of the camp rules included having one bicycle, one tent and one cart, according to Shaw.
“Pretty much they (camp rules) were just not adhered to at all,” Kyle said.
Koller said because of the mismanagement, Avenue S became an area people wanted to avoid.
“Avenue S became very, people walking in the street all the time, garbage around, I mean we had several fires in the camp. (It) just became an area you wanted to avoid.”
One person died from one of the fires. A male camper, 53-year-old Rocky Alan Guerrero, died on Jan. 22. According to records obtained by The Astorian, Guerrero was known for lighting candles underneath his blanket to keep warm.
Kevin Matthew Bachtel, 40, also died inside the camp on Nov. 27. 2024. Bachtel died of an apparent drug overdose, according to records.
While Kyle agrees there are things that might have been handled differently, he said he disagrees with all statements alleging mismanagement of the camp.
“I wouldn’t say we mismanaged the camp,” Kyle said. “We did the best we could with the site we had, the constraints that we had within the law, and the tendencies, practices, and conditions of the campers themselves.”
The city has since relocated the campsite to a few blocks down from Avenue S to Avenue V.
The city also chose to hand over the management of the Avenue S site to Clatsop Community Action, a nonprofit agency that services low-income residents in the county.
Following the OSHA complaint, Kyle confirmed that public works crew members were told not to touch anything with their bare hands but instead to gather items with a front-end loader — a heavy piece of machinery.
“When I went by, it was just one individual working, and they were inside their cab (glass enclosed area of the machinery) the whole time,” Kyle said.