SUMMER FUN IN NEHALEM & WHEELER JULY 21 & 22
north coast
Nehalem Celebration of Crafts and Wheeler Summerfest on the waterfront See events calendar on page 7 for more details.
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Serving North Tillamook County Since 1996
HOLIDAY CELEBRATION GOES OFFWITHOUT A GLITCH Manzanita’s annual Fourth of July celebration was for the most part trouble-free, according to City Manager Jerry Taylor. “The crowd seemed a little lighter this year, probably because the holiday fell on a Wednesday,” said Taylor. That said, the town was full, as was nearby Nehalem Bay Sate Park for the festivities. Laneda Avenue was, once again, lined with spectators for the parade, which was followed by a spectacular fireworks display on the beach later in the evening. The Manzanita City Council critiqued the annual celebration at its July 11 meeting. For additional details on what city councilors thought, visit the North Coast citizen website at www.northcoastcitizen.com.
For more Fourth of July event photos, see page 10
NORTHCOASTCITIZEN . COM
J ULY 12, 2012
Always a crowd-pleaser, the evening’s fireworks display culminated a day of celebration and family fun under sunny skies in Manzanita this Fourth of July. Photo by Stewart Martin
John Cline of Manzanita drove his 1929 Ford Model A in the parade. In the front passenger seat is Craig Lowenberg from Damascus, Oregon and in the rumble seat Brian and Henry Pekar from Girdwood, Alaska. Photo by Debbie Gardiner
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CARTM’s solidserviceislocal goldevenwithnew$3minimum By Lorraine Ortiz
Many in the Nehalem Bay Community pride themselves on the tiny amount of household trash they generate each week – and most have been recycling for 25 years or more. These people are called “Zero Heroes” by the staff at CARTM because they practice principles that help further their mission of leading the community to zero waste. “Our Zero Heroes arrive at CARTM with tiny bags of trash,” said CARTM director Jan Hamilton. “We love knowing those households are generating less and less trash. We even created a special measuring device just for them that would assess trash fees down to twenty-five cents.” CARTM’s effort has been to reward people for doing the right thing – that is by making recycling free and charging for trash. CARTM relies on revenue from trash to help offset the costs associated with recycling. This model is literally putting CARTM out of business. By encouraging the community to do the right thing for the environment, people are bringing in less and less trash and more and more recycling resulting in overhead and expenses remaining steady to
Jan Hamilton, CARTM executive director, at left, hands Abby Spotskey, Nehalem Zero Hero, a biodegradable bag which will hold $3 worth of trash. Photo by Lorraine Ortiz keep the service alive, as the income continues to decrease. Historically, CARTM has prided itself on operating without imposing a minimum fee for trash, (the other two transfer stations in Tillamook County charge a $17 minimum) but driven by the steep downward trend in trash revenues, beginning June 1, CARTM instituted the first
ever $3 minimum fee for dumping trash. “We are so proud of our Zero Heroes, and their tiny bags of trash,” said Hamilton. “It is the norm for transfer stations to charge a minimum but the idea of a minimum at CARTM is taking some getting used to by our community.”
See CARTM, page 5
Approved legislation good news for Tillamook County Congress recently passed a transportation bill that includes a one-year, $346 million extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act – commonly known as the county payments law. Thirty-three of Oregon’s 36 counties, one of which is Tillamook County, will receive a total of $102 million from the legislation to help fund county roads, law enforcement and schools. The extension represents a 5-percent decrease over funds distributed last fiscal year. Tillamook County will receive about $600,000 of previously un-budgeted funding: nearly all of that will go to the county road department. Eric Schmidt, spokesperson for the Oregon Association of Counties, said the payments will likely arrive in December. The legislation passed the U.S. Senate on March 14, by a vote of 82 to 16 and on June 29, the House passed it, 373 to 52. “This is the fourth time since I wrote the original county payments law in 2000 that Congress has come down on the side of schools, roads and law enforcement in rural, natural-resource dependent counties,” Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden stated. “Maintaining the federal govern-
ment’s historic obligation to rural Oregon and to rural America has always been my top legislative priority. The conference committee decision to include this extension means that this vital program will continue $100 million to help stem the tide of layoffs, cutbacks and reductions in vital services in hard-hit rural communities could simply not have come at a better time.” In 2000, Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act to make up for the shared revenue that timber counties lost when logging in federally-owned forests was curtailed due to new environmental considerations. "I applaud the House for passing a bipartisan, fully paid-for transportation conference agreement negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell," said U.S. Rep Kurt Schrader. "While not perfect, this extension gives Oregon's struggling timber counties, transit and construction companies and undergraduates the security they need to plan for their long-term success. Most importantly, these investments serve as a boost of confidence for Oregon companies to invest, expand and create quality Oregon jobs now and later on down the road."
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“She really lit a fire.” That is how Kathryn Harmon, Nehalem resident and librarian for both Neah-Kah-Nie Middle School and Neah-Kah-Nie High School, sums up her recent experience with Erin Gruwell while attending the Freedom Writers Institute in Long Beach, California. Harmon, who has been with the Neah-Kah-Nie School District seven years, was awarded a scholarship supported by Our Brothers Keepers (OBK), a group of 1963 alumni from Oregon State University, to attend the five-day training exercise. “This opportunity will allow me to bring the teachings of the Freedom Writers Foundation back to both schools,” said Harmon. “I believe this training will support student success in this district, and I was honored to be chosen to participate.” The focus of the Freedom Writers Foundation and its institute is to decrease dropout rates and help at-risk students reach their full potential. The institute trains and supports language arts teachers of at-risk middle and high school students by using the Freedom Writers method. The story of Erin Gruwell and the
Kathryn Harmon, a teacher/librarian at Neah-Kah-Nie middle and high schools, was one of 25 teachers nationwide selected to attend the Freedom Writer Institute in Long Beach, California this summer. Photo by Dave Fisher Freedom Writers has received worldwide attention with the release in 2007 of the feature film “The Freedom Writers,” and the sale of nearly a million
copies of the Freedom Writers Diary, which is now published in eight languages. “I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Harmon, when advised she had been selected. “I read the book before I went and became interested in Gruwell’s philosophy and how it could be applied to our rural district. She (Gruwell) is all we endeavor to be as teachers.” Harmon was selected from a group of many qualified applicants. She received both a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and in Chinese language from the University of Oregon, along with a master’s in education from Portland State University. Additionally, she has been a member of the Oregon Association of School Libraries since 2005 and served on its board since 2011. As a teacher/librarian, she team-teaches in all content areas and library science within the Language Arts Department in both the middle school and high school. “Working in both buildings made me a good candidate to attend, and others had summer scheduling conflicts that eliminated them, but when it came to me, I said, ‘Heck, yeah, I’d love to go.’” Harmon is now part of an exclusive
club. In the eleven years the institute has been held, 237 teachers have attended the annual event. Harmon, who was one of just 25 who attended this summer, is the first ever teacher/librarian to become a Freedom Writer Teacher, a designation that allows her to teach the principles set forth by Gruwell. With only five days to teach what took Gruwell four years to accomplish at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, from 1994 to 1998, Harmon’s days were jam-packed, lasting from 7 a.m. to between 10 p.m. and midnight. “We even had four working meals so we could eat while we listened. They really tried to pack in as much as they could,” Harmon noted. This fall, Harmon will take what she has learned and concentrate on staff development, providing short lessons to improve how teachers teach. Her experience at the institute dovetails nicely with the school district’s focus on literacy, in particular writing. In the end, says Harmon, it’s about the students, not teachers standing in front of the classroom. A unique aspect of this scholarship is
See SCHOLARSHIP, page 6