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Residents and leaders from Manzanita and across north Tillamook County gathered on April 6, at Underhill Plaza to break ground on a new city hall and police station facility. The long-awaited facility is expected to take 14 months to complete and will be built by local contractors, Cove Built LLC. “We’ve had fits and starts but finally we’re here,” said Council President Linda Kozlowski, “and it really is thanks to our wonderful city manager and staff, it’s thanks to our great team and it’s thanks to a very brave and strong city council who said, ‘by god, we’re going to get this thing done.’”

The ceremony took place on a rainy Saturday morning but more than 150 residents braved the inclement weather to witness the groundbreaking. For almost 30 years, successive city governments and administrations have discussed building a new city hall, but time and again efforts were stymied for various reasons. After the failure of a ballot question asking voters to approve a tax increase to fund a new facility in 2019, the council began exploring different options.

Eventually, the Underhill Plaza site was identified and a design was developed that will house both the police station and city

A longtime Tillamook County tradition, the Tillamook Headlight Herald Home & Garden Show, will take place on Saturday and Sunday at the Tillamook County Fairgrounds. The show, held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, is once again co-sponsored by Tillamook County Solid

Merkley focuses on healthcare in Tillamook town hall

WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor United States Senator Jeff Merkley hosted a town hall at Tillamook Bay Community College on April 6, as part of his ongoing commitment to visiting every county in Oregon each year to hear from constituents.

At the town hall and a preceding press availability, Merkley spent much of his time discussing healthcare issues in the country while also touching on hedge fund ownership of single-family homes, infrastructure and Gaza.

Questions about the medical system came up repeatedly as patients from the recently closed U.S. Renal dialysis clinic were at the meeting to seek Merkley’s help in their quest for care. Like Senator Ron Wyden in March, Merkley pledged to lend his office’s help to the ongoing search for an alternate provider or solution to keep the center open and said that forcing patients to move to receive care was unacceptable.

More generally, Merkley identified two factors as the primary drivers of high healthcare costs and difficult-to-access care, prescription drug prices and an aging population, respectively.

“We need more healthcare and yet many of us were healthcare providers that are retiring,” Merkley said of the baby boom generation. “So, therefore you have fewer providers and you have more patients and that disparity is putting enormous pressure on the healthcare system and enormous pressure on nurses.” Merkley noted that the issue was especially pressing in rural areas and pointed to his work in helping establish the Office of Rural Health at the Centers

for Disease Control in 2023 as helping to address that disparity.

As for the larger problem, Merkley said that the dearth of trained nurses and other healthcare providers needed to be addressed by bolstering investments in their training, including upping trainers pay.

In response to a question from the Headlight Herald about high costs, Merkley said that the powerful prescription drug lobby in America had consistently stymied attempts to rein in drug prices, driv -

ing healthcare costs higher than in any other developed nation.

However, Merkley said that last year’s move to allow Medicare to negotiate prices on the most expensive drugs on the market represented a “toe in the door” and that the government should negotiate prices on all drugs. “Toe is in the door but my feeling is it shouldn’t be a few drugs for Medicare, it should be all drugs for all Americans,” Merkley said, noting that he has introduced legislation

that would achieve that goal. Merkley allowed that it would be difficult to overcome the drug lobbies’ opposition but “if everyone would take the same approach I have, which is work for the people instead of the powerful, we would pass the bill.” Merkley sounded a similar tone when discussing the affordable housing crisis facing the nation, which he ascribed to the recent growth in hedge fund purchases of single-family homes. Merkley discussed a bill he has introduced that

would restrict hedge funds to owning 100 houses and include penalties to incentivize a gradual sell-off of properties above that limit to first-time home buyers. “It’s a long journey to get members of congress to start joining me in this because they’re afraid of the political power that hedge funds have and I say let’s depend on the political power of the people and take on the powerful,” Merkley said.

Constituents asked questions about the future of Hangar B at the Port of Tillamook Bay as well as challenges faced by rural communities in accessing federal infrastructure dollars due to matching-fund requirements.

Merkley said that he would take the issue of the hangar to colleagues in Washington to discuss potential solutions. He acknowledged the difficulties of finding funds and mentioned the waiving of requirements for lowincome communities for broadband infrastructure funding.

Merkley took the opportunity to express his opposition to the continuing Israeli military operations in Gaza and the United States’ support of them when a resident asked about the conflict. Merkley noted that he had visited the Rafah border crossing during the war and consistently pushed the Biden administration to increase aid deliveries to Gaza and stop sending munitions to Israel.

Merkley said.

From left to right: Manzanita City Councilors Jerry Spegman and Tom Campbell, Mayor Kathryn Stock, Councilors Brad Har and Linda Kozlowski, and City Manager Leila Aman break ground on the a new police station and city hall on

PHOTO BY JOHN GARCIA

Senator Jeff Merkley addresses assembled constituents at Tillamook Bay Community College on April 6, as Tillamook Bay Community College Foundation Executive Director Britta Lawrence (left) and Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell (right) help to moderate.

Candidates in primary elections participate in forum

April 2.

the forum hosted at the Kiawanda Community Center, candidates briefly introduced themselves to the assembled crowd before fielding questions. The event started with the introduction of candidates who are running unopposed in their primaries. Incumbent Tillamook Sheriff Josh Brown and County Clerk Christy Nyseth, both introduced themselves to the crowd and discussed their commitment to their positions.

“I still very much believe that I have to work to earn your guys’ vote this year,” Brown said.

The two candidates for Tillamook County Tax Assessor, KaSandra Larson and Kari Fleisher, then took the stage. Larson has worked in the assessor’s office for 21 years and is currently the office’s chief deputy assessor. Fleisher also works in the assessor’s office, serving as commercial appraiser, and is a member of the Neah-KahNie School District’s board of directors. Candidates for state representative spoke next. Incumbent Cyrus Javadi was joined by Republican primary challenger Glen Gaither and Democrat Logan Laity, who is running unopposed in the May primary election. Javadi, a practicing dentist in Tillamook, touted his membership on the housing, healthcare, and economic and small business committees in Salem and voiced his strong opposition for the habitat conservation plan (HCP) for state forests recently passed by the board of forestry. Gaither is a retired corrections officer from Seaside, who also voiced his opposition to the HCP and said that he did not believe legislation recently passed to address the shortcomings of drug decriminalization went far enough. Gaither said that he favored going after gang members for dealing drugs and that there was not enough money for treatment in the state.

erybody who wants to live in the district is able to.

Laity, who ran against Javadi in 2022, runs a company that consults with government entities and is currently doing work with the Netarts Water District. Laity said that housing was the number one issue on the coast and that if he was elected, he would work to make sure that ev-

In response to a question, Javadi and Gaither both voiced their support for increasing school choice in Oregon, while Laity said that he had reserves about its impact on public schools.

Finally, the five candidates for the two open positions on Tillamook’s board of county commissioners spoke. Incumbent Erin Skaar, Jeff Spink and Bruce Lovelin are competing in the race

for position one, while Paul Fournier and Darcy Jones are facing off for the open position two.

Skaar touted her more than two decades in nonprofit jobs in Tillamook County as well as accomplishments in her time on the board of commissioners. She said that was proud of her work addressing the county’s housing crisis and would continue to focus on that work, if reelected.

Spink briefly described

his history in the automotive industry and said that he felt his lack of experience on government boards would allow him to bring a new perspective to the board.

Lovelin said that as the owner of Happy Camp Hideaway in Netarts he was sensitive to the types of issues that members of the chamber of commerce and voters in tourist-dependent Pacific City cared about. Jones discussed his perspective as a business owner

in south county and said that he would favor rezoning property in south county to promote housing development. Fournier said that he had gained experience across the county during his career, which included a long tenure with the sheriff’s office and stints as an EMT for Adventist Health and reporter for the Headlight Herald, and that he would prioritize increasing county government revenues if elected.

Jones hopes to overhaul building department if elected commissioner

WILL CHAPPELL CITIZEN EDITOR

Darcy Jones, who is running for position number two on the Tillamook County Board of Commissioners, recently sat down with the Headlight Herald to discuss his campaign. Jones’s top priority as commissioner would be overhauling the county’s building

department, which he says is a hindrance to development. Jones also mentioned pressuring state and federal agencies on natural resource issues, increasing county revenues and decreasing services for the county’s homeless population in the interview.

“My biggest motivation is really the building department,” Jones said, “I want to make it more efficient. It’s stalling the whole county in a lot of ways, the planning, zoning and the building department. We’re just at a total stall here in Tillamook County.” Jones is a lifelong resident of south Tillamook County and recently celebrated his 66th birthday in early April.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Jones began to work as an excavation contractor part-time at the age of 14 and eventually opened his own business in 1992. Since that time, Jones has been involved in a wide swath of projects including development work on South Beach Road in Neskowin and in several subdivisions in Pacific City.

“To me it’s rewarding because you can always see what you’ve created,” Jones said of his work as an excavator.

Jones also served for 16 years on the school boards of the Hebo School District then the Nestucca Valley School District following those districts’ merger. He has also served on the county’s roads advisory committee. In recent years, Jones said that he noticed delays in the Tillamook building department’s processing of applications as compared to other nearby jurisdictions, which eventually led to his decision to run for the board of commissioners. Jones said that a process that would take days in other counties in Oregon was taking multiple months in Tillamook.

Jones believes that the issues in the department are being caused by staffers being inefficient with their time and that he would direct the department’s head to process applications in less than a week.

“I can give the head of that department a plan of assistance and a timeline that those will be done in,” Jones said.

Removing the impediments to development presented by the building department’s slow pace is key to helping support the county’s tourist economy by paving the way for additional housing for employees, according to Jones. “To me the biggest thing we can do is we need to promote more tourism-oriented small business and we need to get some lower-income housing built,” Jones said. “Right now, with the way the building

department is, it’s just not a doable thing, we need to change that. To me that’s a big focus we can actually do.” Jones also bemoaned the decrease in local fish populations, saying that he believed the decrease had been caused by the discontinuation of a fish-box program that was previously administered by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) across the county. Jones said that he would favor seeing the return of the program and that if elected, he would try to pressure ODFW to bring it back.

“I really don’t know what influence we have and I think all we can really do is put pressure on fish and wildlife,” Jones said.

On the subject of timber and the recently approved habitat conservation plan (HCP), Jones said that he felt the county needed to continue fighting to derail the plan’s progress. He mentioned joining a lawsuit that was recently filed against the department of forestry by the Jewell School District seeking to block the HCP and the possibility of hiring a publicist to increase awareness outside the county. Jones said that the impacts of revenue decreases under the HCP were also a major concern as the county looks forward. He said that it would be difficult for the county to support its budget with current revenue but did not offer a solution. “I really don’t have an answer for that but as commissioners I think we have the power to change our tax struc-

ture, we should have a way to change it,” Jones said, without

County commissioner candidates (from left to right) Paul Fournier, Darcy Jones, Jeff Spink, Erin Skaar and Bruce Lovelin at the April 2 forum in Pacific City.

Darcy Jones

FENCEPOST

The Rockaway Beach City Council meeting of April 10 saw many resolutions, but the most anxiously awaited was surely Resolution 2024-25. This authorized the mayor and city manager to execute a contract for the S. Pacific Street waterline and road surfacing project. This resolution passed moments after city council voted on Resolution 202421, to adopt the Streets Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). This plan lists and prioritizes streets through-

Home & Garden

SHow Tillamook

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out Rockaway Beach for repair or repaving. I first wrote about the CIP in October 2023, six months ago, and after detailed deliberation at multiple city council workshops and meetings, the plan is now being executed, in priority order. The entire Streets CIP is online at the city’s website, https://corb.us. Click the top link on the column at the left to take you to the CIP page. There, you’ll find three PDF documents; at the top of those three is the Streets Capital Improvements Plan document.

Page 44 of that PDF file lists the streets with the highest priority for repair, with North and South Pacific in the two top spots. The presentation includes maps and photos supporting the decision. Below that link you’ll find the original presentation by HBH Consulting, followed by a

offering the opportunity to address any household exterior needs, stock up for a summer garden or purchase a variety of other goods.

The beekeepers will be bringing their demonstration hive to give showgoers an inside look at the functioning of a colony and offering honey and pollinator friendly plants for sale. The group will also be hosting short classes on beekeeping starting at 9:30 and 11 a.m., and 12:30 and 2 p.m. on Saturday, and 11:30 a.m. and 1 and 2:30

City Hall

Manzanita

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hall in a facility with a guaranteed maximum price of $4.6 million. The city is financing the project through a loan from Business Oregon’s Special Public Works Fund and

will pay back the borrowed money over the course of ten years. At the groundbreaking ceremony, Mayor Kathryn Stock spoke first and thanked current and former city councilors for their support of the project. She also gave special thanks to ex-City Manager Jerry Taylor, who was instrumental in early efforts at starting the project, and the com -

preliminary street inventory from the CIP.

In good news for our tourism-supported businesses, the city adopted Resolution 2024-20, concerning recreational immunity. The state legislature, through SB 1576, only granted automatic immunity to cities with populations over 500,000, requiring smaller communities to opt in to be included. Resolution 2024-20 includes us in the recreational immunity coverage. Public Works will remove signs restricting beach access with the passage of this resolution.

In addition to starting work pursuant to the Streets CIP Program, the city voted (in Resolution 2024-23) to approve a new proposal from HBH to develop a water and wastewater CIP, including a study of System Development Charges (SDCs).

SDCs are an alternative

p.m. on Sunday.

The beekeepers will also be holding a raffle over the course of the weekend with the grand prize being a handmade, Tillamookcheese-block themed hive. A $200 gift certificate for the Tillamook Creamery will be the second-place prize, third place will receive a $100 gift certificate to the Tillamook County Creamery Association farm store and fourth will win a $50 JAndy Acres Nurseries certificate.

Other raffles will be held

munity as a whole.

“A sincere thank you, we are all part of this community together,” Stock said, “if I could, those of you who know me you know I might actually try but I won’t try to introduce every person that’s here.”

way of funding required changes to the city’s water and wastewater infrastructure without affecting rate payers. Rather than force an increase in our water bills (already a sore spot for many residents, especially those who own summer homes here), SDCs are a way to ensure that additional development pays its fair share for required upgrades. It was noted that the last time Rockaway Beach updated its SDCs was in 2009.

HBH President Robert Henry talked about how these charges are determined and assured us the process would be open and transparent. Considering that his assistant, Matt Del Toro (responsible for managing the Streets CIP), has been presenting at city council meetings and workshops for the past six months at least, residents

by the Tillamook Peoples’ Utility District and the Kiwanis Club of Tillamook as part of their KT Days Tillamook Scholarship Drive. Handcrafted, wooden American flags will be on sale, with proceeds going to support Tillamook American Legion Post 47, which is celebrating the first anniversary of its reopening this month. Two vendors will be offering a selection of plants to help jumpstart residents’ gardening season. Monkey Business 101

of Rockaway Beach should have ample opportunity to observe and weigh in on the SDC process. As always, you can sign up to receive emails at the City Web site. These typically include the full agendas for City Council Workshops and Meetings alike, where you can review any items of concern. Other important resolutions included authorization for the city to take action in a nuisance abatement issue in the south part of town, good news to residents who have faced serious problems there. The City Council also awarded a number of additional grants from the 2023-2024 Community Grant Program, with plans to address several other important grants for non-profit organizations such as our highly active and muchappreciated Lions Club. (It’s just not a summer festival for me if I don’t get a hot dog at the purple Lions Club trailer.)

from south Tillamook County will bring a wide assortment of berries, ranging from Logan and Lingen to Goose and Boysen, grapes, fruit trees, monkey trees and more. Garden Witch Goods will be bringing everything from decorative flowers to edible veggies from their farm to the show. Pacific Restaurant will be serving food to showgoers for the second year in a row, with breakfast available on Saturday and lunch available both days.

expressed support for the Rockaway Beach Emergency Preparedness Corp (the new title of the combined emergency preparedness, CERT, and radio teams) for having acquired a grant from the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management. This grant will help us acquire food, water sanitation gear, and shelter in the event of an emergency. The final resolution, 2024-27, declared a state of emergency due to the sewer mainline failure early this month. Quick thinking on the part of Public Works Superintendent Dan Emerson resulted in locating a crew with the right skills and equipment to resolve a serious problem with a sewer line on S. 2nd, permitting repairs the same day.

Breakfast options vary from biscuits to burritos, while for lunch, burgers, tri-tip and more will be available.

Show cosponsors, Tillamook County Solid Waste, will host a booth and share information about their various programs, with a particular focus on recycling and the Oregon Department of Forestry will be handing out free seedlings. See the show program inside this edition for a complete list of vendors and activities.

City Manager Leila Aman followed Stock and thanked the construction team and the staff at city hall, whose support she said had been and would continue to be critical to the project’s success. Aman noted the special contributions by Public Works Director Dan Weitzel and voiced her appreciation for the turnout at the event.

Saturday when it’s pouring rain.”

Architect Chris Keane, Project Manager Jesse Steiger and Cove Built

“I’m so grateful and surprised and moved and also unsurprised to see so many people out here today,” Aman said, “so thanks for taking your time on your

LLC Owner Jason Stegner also spoke, with Stegner highlighting the number of local subcontractors that would be employed on the project.

Finally, Kozlowski took the stage and thanked the project team and city coun -

cil for its hard work before the council officially broke ground on the project. “We would not be here today without all of you,” Kozlowski said, “it is your support, your energy, your feedback, your caring, your working with us to get what I think will be an extraordinary city hall. So, with that and with our great thanks, let’s dig it.”

SCOTT FISHER ROCKAWAY BEACH sfisher71@yahoo.com

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NOTICE OF BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING

A public meeting of the Budget Committee of the City of Manzanita, Tillamook County, State of Oregon, on the budget for the fiscal year July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, will be held on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. via zoom teleconference. The purpose of the meeting is to receive the budget message and budget document. A copy of the budget document may be inspected or obtained on or after April 26, 2024 at http://www.ci.manzanita.or.us. On Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. via zoom, an additional Budget Committee meeting will be held if needed. These are public meetings where deliberation of the Budget Committee will take place. On Wednesday, May 7, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. via zoom, the Budget Committee will hold a public hearing to take public comment, including public comment on proposed uses of State Revenue Sharing. Any person may appear at this meeting to provide public comment on the proposed programs with the Budget Committee.

Log in information will be posted on the City’s website one week in advance of each meeting. You may also contact the City of Manzanita at cityhall@ci.manzanita.or.us to obtain log on information.

This notice is also posted on the City’s website http://www.ci.manzanita.or.us.

sioners position number two, aiming to employ his business experience to manage the county.

In a recent interview with the Headlight Herald, Spink said that he would prioritize preserving Tillamook County’s natural-resourcebased economy, promoting economic development and fiscal responsibility in county government.

“We’ve got to figure a way to get back,” Spink said about the county’s timber economy, “it’s sustainable, it’s a natural resource, it will grow back. Same thing with fishing, same thing with the farming community.

We have resources here, we just need to make sure that they’re sustainable, survivable, that’s what made this county.” Spink was born and raised in upstate New York and ended up in California while serving a tour of duty with the Air Force shortly after graduating high school. After discharge, Spink moved to southern California, where his father owned an automotive racing team, and began to pursue his dream of being a race car driver. Through the 1980s, Spink worked in car dealerships while competing as a driver and crewmember in various rac-

ing series in his free time. After visiting friends in Lincoln City following a trip to negotiate a sponsorship contract for a professional cycling team with Nike, Spink made the decision to move to the Oregon coast in 1993. Spink worked in car dealerships in Newport and Salem for several years, before starting the Oregon Coast Guide, a magazine promoting the coast, in 1996. For the next eight years, Spink ran the publication, before a major bike accident forced him to return to the car industry.

Since 2004, Spink has been the general sales manager at Tillamook Motor Company. Spink also served as a Marion County Reserve Sheriff’s Deputy for a decade and the cochair of Americans for Prosperity in Tillamook County in the 2010s. An interest in government and desire to serve the community drove Spink to enter the race for commissioner after he was approached by a group recruiting candidates. “I’ve always been interested in government but not actively as a politician,” Spink said, “and so at my age I guess it’s like this opportunity may not come again. It’s not something I thought about or planned but I thought, ‘what the hell, I’ve had all kinds of adversity before and come out somewhat successful.’” Spink said that his top

priority in running for commissioner was to preserve the health of Tillamook County’s natural-resource economy and the way of life that accompanies it. Spink noted that as jobs in naturalresource dependent sectors disappeared, people who previously held those jobs were forced to move, siphoning talent and a sense of community from the area. “We’re losing those skillsets, we’re losing basically a tax base because as those

jobs curtail and get shrunk down these people are moving away,” Spink said. “So, we’re losing that whole part of our community base now and to get it back is not going to be easy and it’s going to be a slow process.” Spink said that he would favor forming a coalition of counties to advocate against the recently approved habitat conservation plan during next year’s long session in Salem, in hopes of seeing the plan repealed and control of

woodland sources given to counties.

Running the county in a fiscally responsible matter would be another priority for Spink, who said that the county must live within its means and avoid operating at a deficit. To achieve this, Spink said that he would look to control employee costs by streamlining processes and combining overlapping departments, mentioning the possibility of employing artificial intelligence technology for lower-level needs.

Spink mentioned the need to promote real estate development in the county as another focal point. He said that he would like to reassess fees and costs that the county levies to develop properties and to shorten the timeline for permit and plan approvals. Spink said that he would favor the creation of a liaison position to work with local utility companies to promote development and exploring state and federal grants to support infrastructure development necessary for further property developments.

Spink also weighed in on short-term rentals, saying that he supported family or individually owned properties but was wary of business interests purchasing blocks of homes. “My whole thing is I don’t want to see investment groups and big corporations buying blocks of houses just to turn into hotels,” Spink said. “I think it should be kind of a grass-

roots, small, mom-and-pop type thing.”

Another issue that Spink mentioned was addressing the closure of the U.S. Renal Care dialysis center in Tillamook. Spink said that the facility was needed in the community and that he would work to find grants or partnership opportunities to maintain the center’s operations.

Spink said that if elected, he would evaluate issues by soliciting multiple perspectives and using that feedback to guide his response. “If you look at five or six different perspectives you can kind of figure out what the core issue is gonna be and the one common problem that’s blocking everything up,” Spink said, “and that’s how I approach different decision-making processes.” Beyond his platform, Spink said that he would emphasize listening to constituents and let their feedback inform his work as a commissioner.

“Everybody’s got an opinion, some of them are valid, some of them are not valid but they still have a voice and you have to take that accordingly and hopefully the decisions you make impact the positive in the community for future generations to come,” Spink said. “It’s not about me and it’s not about a legacy, because that’s not anything that I’m worried about, I just want to be able to do good for the community and the county.”

Jeff Spink