Cheesemaker Neah-Kah-Nie swimmers win robotics team headed to state Cowapa League Page A10
Page A2
Headlight Herald
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | Vol. 136, Issue 07
$1.50
www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
CARE breaks ground on shelter WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
Community Action Resource Enterprises Inc. in Tillamook broke ground late last month on their new shelter facility in downtown Tillamook. The first phase of the project will add a communal, no-barriers shelter open 365 nights a year and six smaller shelters to help homeless clients transition to permanent housing. Earth is being moved and gravel was delivered last week to lay paths for the facility, which is expected to be complete between March and June depending on weather. “We’re just eager to get this project going,” said Community Action Resource Enterprises (CARE) Executive Director Jeff Blackford. The new facility is being constructed using $266,000 in funding from behavioral health and resource networks, which were created by Measure 110, passed by Oregon voters in 2020. It will be located adjacent to CARE on First Street in downtown Tillamook, on a piece of county property behind a parking lot. The nightly shelter will be 400 square feet and nobody will be turned away, although substance use will not be permitted inside the facility. The nightly shelter will be able to accommodate either 12 to 14 or 24 to 28 people, depending on whether a recently discovered bunk bed option pans out, according to Blackford. Smaller shelters at the facility will house either two people
The site where the new CARE shelter facility will be constructed behind a parking lot in downtown Tillamook, with the building that will be renovated in the next round of work on the right.
to not be a danger to themselves or others. There will also be two restrooms onsite. Blackford said that the vision for the facility was that those
or four- to six-person families for three to six months while they seek permanent housing. Applications will be required for these shelters and residents need
experiencing homelessness would come to the nightly shelter and begin taking advantage of CARE’s services, allowing them to transition to one of the smaller shelters
and eventually stable, permanent housing and self-sufficiency. All structures at the facility are coming from Pallet Shelter and can be assembled within an hour and a half. The shelters will include a self-levelling feature, which would allow for them to be deployed at other locations in the county. Funding for the project came through in early 2023 and the site was secured, with a $1-a-year lease from the county in April with construction originally anticipated last fall. However, scheduling and manufacturing complications delayed the project and now its completion is anticipated between March and June. The first stage of work consists of grading portions of the property, which sits on a hill, to allow for the installation of the structures. Then, ADA-accessible concrete paths will be added and electrical and plumbing work completed before the shelters themselves are delivered and assembled. Facilities will expand further later this year or next, with the addition of 14 additional shelters and the major renovation of a building currently housing CARE’s Healthy Families program that is immediately adjacent to the shelters. That renovation will see the addition of a commercial kitchen, computer lab, laundry facilities, and classroom and meeting spaces to help CARE expand its offerings and footprint. “We want to provide support and services with community partners throughout the county,” Blackford said.
Tillamook County graduation rates rebound, exceed state average WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
This photo taken by Mike Kennedy on December 9, shows where a construction road at the Two Capes Lookout campground site crossed a stream on the property.
Graduation rates in each of Tillamook County’s three school districts improved in the 20222023 school year and exceeded the statewide average four-year graduation rate, according to numbers released by the Oregon Department of Education on January 25. Nestucca Valley School District had the highest graduation rate in the county, with 95.1% of students receiving a diploma after four years last year, while 86.1% of Neah-Kah-Nie and 82.4% of Tillamook students did the same. Across the state, 81.3% of students who had attended four years of high school graduated in the 2022-2023 school year, a drop of more than two percentage points from the previous year and
1.3% below the average over the past five years. In contrast, Tillamook County students had their most successful year since the 2019-2020 school year, with 85.3% of all students graduating in four years last year. Tillamook High School saw a graduation rate of 82.4%, up from 80.3% the year prior, but still below rates achieved from 20182020, when more than 86% of students graduated in four years. Neah-Kah-Nie’s graduation rate rebounded to 86.1% after just 77.8% of students earned a diploma after four years in the 2021-2022 school year. Nestucca High School maintained its recent history of high four-year graduation rates, topping 90% for the third time in the past five years, and narrowly edging its mark of 95% in 20192020.
Tierra Del Mar campground project violates state regs Council passes shopping WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
An early December inspection of the Two Capes Lookout campground project in Tierra Del Mar by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality revealed multiple water quality violations caused by road construction. Oregon Treehouse Partners, the company developing the project, began working with an official from the state to remediate the problems and have made good progress, according to the official. Mike Kennedy, an inspector for the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), made a spot check of the project on December 9, 2023, when he was in the area
and found multiple reasons for concern. Workers at the site had not erected a construction gate to control access to the project and had built a road immediately adjacent to and, at one point, through a stream. Kennedy also found that the project was impacting an area considerably larger than what had been reported to DEQ and subsequently needed to go through a public hearing process, which it had not. In addition to negatively impacting the stream, the road had been constructed on steep slopes and in other ways that caused sedimentation to run into a wetland on the site. Kennedy said that at the time of his visit, there were
IN THIS ISSUE News Opinion Obituaries Sports Classifieds
A2-3 A5-7 A7-9 A10 A11-16
no erosion controls in place and the steepness of the road made it highly erodible. “The first thing I noticed was they had not implemented a shred of erosion control,” Kennedy said. On December 21, Kennedy sent a pre-enforcement letter to Oregon Tree House Partners informing them of the violations and requiring them to take corrective actions. Kennedy said that the project team had immediately ceased all work other than installing erosion controls. Since then, Kennedy said that the team has retained a new erosion consultant and made strong progress on installing erosion See CAMPGROUND, Page A4
cart ordinance
WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
Tillamook’s city council passed an ordinance regulating unattended shopping carts in the city at their February 5 meeting. Councilors also approved a residential leak protection program, opened applications to fill Councilor Doug Henson’s position on a temporary basis and rejected a raise request from City Manager Nathan George. Going forward, the unauthorized appropriation of shopping carts from any of the three grocery stores in Tillamook will be a violation, with a penalty to be
set by the city manager. Grocery stores will be responsible for creating a retrieval system, though carts that are misappropriated will be collected by the police before their owner must collect them within 72 hours or face a penalty. George said that he had spoken with the owners of Tillamook’s Safeway, Fred Meyer and Grocery Outlet and that all three were in support of the ordinance. The residential leak protection program from HomeServe will cost $1.80 monthly and be assessed to residents’ water bills. The program will take effect in See COUNCIL, Page A4
Send us a news tip at tillamookheadlightherald.com | Your message could be the first thing our readers see!
Weather Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
High 51° Low 34°
High 48° Low 38°
High 48° Low 40°
High 51° Low 40°
High 50° Low 39°
High 50° Low 40°
High 51° Low 40°