PIRATES
JUNE DAIRY
FESTIVAL
IN ROCKAWAY PIRATE FEST RETURNS THIS WEEKEND, PAGE A10
SPECIAL SECTION WITH LIST OF EVENTS, INSIDE
Headlight Herald
TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM • JUNE 20, 2012
LONGEST RUNNING BUSINESS IN TILLAMOOK COUNTY • SINCE 1888
Report Shared community, shared ministry Episcopalians, Methodists and Lutherans worship with a single pastor slams Rockaway budget BY MARY FAITH BELL mfbell@countrymedia.net
BY ERIN DIETRICH edietrich@countrymedia.net
ROCKAWAY BEACH – Just minutes before the City Council was to adopt the 2012-13 city budget, a group of citizens presented a report claiming the budget contains serious financial irregularities and potential violations of state laws. Their 24-page report, generated by forensic accountant Tiffany Couch, CPA/CFF, CFE with the Acuity Group of Vancouver, Wash., was paid for by a group of local citizens, including former councilor John Orloff, recalled mayor Dennis Porter and George Taylor. It was presented to the City Council during their regular meeting on June 13.
Mainline American Christian churches have been in a steady membership decline for decades. Churches that used to enjoy congregations of 120, such as St. Alban’s Episcopal, and as many as 200 members, such as Tillamook United Methodist, have watched with heavy hearts as long time members pass on and are not replaced by young families as in
the days of old. Many churches around the country have folded, closed their doors in the face of dwindling members and resources. Not so Tillamook. The Tillamook faith community has taken a unique step to adapt to the current reality and hopefully, to grow in the future. Three Tillamook denominations, St. Peter Lutheran, Tillamook United Methodist and St Alban’s Episcopal, are sharing one minister, in Elder/ Pastor/ Father Jerry Jefferies.
A shared ministry among Christian churches is not unprecedented. Around the state of Oregon, Lutherans and Episcopalians share a minister in Hepner, and Lutherans and Methodists share ministers in McMinnville and Hood River. But the trinity of a Lutheran/ Methodist/ Episcopalian shared ministry in Tillamook may be ground breaking. Or rather, barrier breaking.
See MINISTRY, Page A5
ON THE
RIGHT
See BUDGET, Page A3
INDEX Classified Ads .........................B5 Crossword Puzzle....................B5 Fenceposts ..............................B2 Letters .....................................A4 Obituaries................................A6 Sports......................................A8 Tides .......................................A9
WEATHER STATS HIGH LOW RAINFALL 57 51 .00 57 47 .00 66 43 .00 67 55 .22 59 51 .15 59 49 .19 59 47 -PRECIPITATION PAST WEEK: 0.56 MONTH TO DATE: 3.00 JUNE 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
JUNE NORMALS HIGH: 65 LOW: 48 TOTAL PRECIPITATION: 3.58 WEATHER COURTESY OF WEATHER UNDERGROUND
1908 2nd St. 503-842-7535 www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
Vol. 123, No. 25 75 cents
Neysa Ellgren, Canon to the Bishop (left) and Jerry Jefferies in his welcoming ceremony as Priest in Charge of St. Alban’s.
What a difference a spray makes: Power washing the sidewalk in front of Bell’s Office Supply and the Pancake House on Main Street.
PATH
Downtown cleanup reveals successes and future needs BY SAMANTHA SWINDLER sswindler@countrymedia.net
A
sweet chorus of power washers sang along Main Street June 16, for the first “Company’s Coming” cleanup of downtown Tillamook. More than twenty volunteers registered at the event. But that figure doesn’t account for the handful of shopkeepers and employees who saw the commotion and stepped outside to spruce up their own storefronts. Tillamook Mayor Suzanne Weber, City Manager Paul Wyntergreen and City Councilors Steve Forster, Doug Henson and Cheryl Davy pitched in for the effort, along with a host of other civic-minded residents. Sponsored by the city of Tillamook and the Tillamook Revitalization Association, volunteers were asked to meet at the corner of Ivy and Second streets at 10 a.m. For the next several hours, they pulled weeds, planted flowers, power washed and brushed away cobwebs along downtown streets. The cleanup came at the start of tourist season, and the weekend before the June Dairy Parade, which brings hundreds of visitors to downtown. At the end of the day, workers were rewarded with a wonderful lunch donated by The Local Dog House in the 2nd Street Market. I spent at least an hour on my weary knees on that tiny section of sidewalk from the Time Out Tavern to the Salon Coquillage. Our work group pulled weeds, picked up cigarette butts and mulched and planted flowers in a small public garden space. A noticeable impact was made, but there were sections we didn’t have the time or manpower to address. Certainly, downtown didn’t decay in a day, and it won’t turn around quite that quickly either. This is only the beginning. Volunteers were able to address the sidewalks and street corners. But they didn’t tackle the glaringly obvious problem with downtown – the handful of vacant or blighted buildings owned by property owners who either can’t or won’t fix them.
See CLEANUP, Page A3
ERIN DIETRICH/HEADLIGHT HERALD
Alex Eckhart, 7, now lives in Tillamook with his mother, Jona Bronson.
After trauma, autistic boy finds help in Tillamook BY ERIN DIETRICH edietrich@countrymedia.net
Before...
.... and after. (Top) Steven Kershaw power washes his building at Second and Main. (Above) Michele Bradley and her daughter, Claire, address cobwebs and weeds growing on the outside of buildings. (Right) The weeds in this public garden space were replaced with flowers from Sandy’s Nursery.
TILLAMOOK – Alex Eckhart looked like any other happy boy while playing on the lawn behind the Farmer’s Market on a sunny Saturday last week. No one would guess that the autistic, sandy-haired 7-year-old and his older brother, who they call JohnJohn, 8, were found in April 2011, caged in an unlit room in their father’s home in Washington, wearing nothing but diapers. Alex came to live in Tillamook with his biological mother, Jona Bronson, in October of last year, where she says he is thriving. Alex has grown 10 inches and gained 20 pounds since his removal from his father’s care, she said, and he just finished the first grade at Liberty Elementary. Alex and John-John’s biological father, John Eckhart, 31, and his girlfriend Alayna Higdon, 27, were charged with felony criminal mistreatment and unlawful imprisonment in the case. They were acquitted in a Vancouver court May 29. Both boys are autistic, and the defense argued the boys were kept locked up to keep them from harming themselves and others. Several newspapers reported that inside the caged room, the boys had no toys, no light and slept together on a toddler-sized mattress. “The whole thing that bothers us the most is they got away with a pretty heinous crime,” said Jona’s husband, Dick Bronson, who is helping raise Alex along with the couple’s two-year-old son Logan. “Does this make a whole new legal precedent, that if you’re having trouble dealing with your child, this is an OK way to deal with it?” The older boy lives in a foster home in Washington and is under legal guardianship of the state. Jona said there’s a possibility she will seek custody of John-John in the future, but for right now, she is happy with where he is at.
See TRAUMA, Page A5