Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thanksgiving Festitivites at the Beach Schedule Inside
North Coast
Citizen
$1
November 21, 2019
northcoastcitizen.com
Volume 24, No. 23
City of Manzanita to send care packages to 186th Infantry Hilary Dorsey
headlightreporter@countrymedia.net
At Manzanita’s City Council meeting on Oct. 16, it was announced that the city is partnering with the unit of the 186th Infantry, the soldiers whose bus crashed on 101 a few weeks ago, to send the soldiers care packages or whatever else is needed. The soldiers just deployed to a couple of different peace-keeping missions overseas. Kristin Grasseth, finance/administrative specialist at the City of Manzanita, is waiting on headcount information from the 186th Infantry. They are currently in the process of deployment. Grasseth believes the 186th Infantry left on Oct. 18 or 19 and will need a couple days to get
where they are going and get settled in. “I asked that they give me a headcount of men and women to each location as we knew they were going to be placed in different areas,” Grasseth said. “I was able to pull some information offline to help us with do’s and don’ts of what to send and met with Dan Haag, our Visitor Center Coordinator, last week and he will be putting out a note this week or so to the businesses in our area.” Grasseth is currently waiting for a headcount to know how many people the City of Manzanita will be providing for. “I will say it is our intention to continue these care packages until this group returns November of next year,” Grasseth said.
Courtesy Photo
Manzanita officials discuss next steps in city hall project Cody Mann
headlightnews@countrymedia.net
City officials discussed stepping back from the new city hall project during a special workshop meeting of the Manzanita City Council in early November. The meeting followed the news that the bond measure to fund the $6.5 million project was voted down by the community. “I remain committed to the goal,” Councilor Hans Tonjes said. “The need we have to get staff into safer facilities and be prepared for some growth – but clearly, there’s a reboot.” Mayor Mike Scott suggested resuming talks on the project after the first of the year. Councilor Steve Nuttall, reflecting on the wide margin of the vote, said the council needs to take some time exploring why so many were against the bond measure. He said the coming year should be spent trying to better understand the desires of the community, noting a series of other projects requiring attention. “There are wounds that need to be healed,
and there are friendships that have been damaged,” Nuttall said. Nuttall also said the council and the community have been hamstrung by the low tax rate in Manzanita – one of the state’s lowest – that provides very little revenue to fund city operations or growth, making revenue streams from grants, new taxes or bonds essentially the only method to fund large projects. Councilor Thomas Aschenbrener echoed the commitment to safer workspace for city staff. He said it’s been well documented that the current facility is not safe. He agreed with taking a pause until January and trying to get a better read on what the people want in a new city hall and emergency services hub. Nuttall said immediate action is still needed regarding front desk security issues and the lack of adequate restrooms at city hall. He said the money for those upgrades should be found as quickly as possible. However, Tonjes said a previous attempt to find contractors willing to do the smaller projects had fallen flat. City Manager Cynthia Alamillo confirmed a lack
of contractors and later rising costs had halted previous project attempts. “We still have those plans and I think it’s important for council to revisit that improvement,” Alamillo said. The vote on Bond Measure 29-159 was just 31.5-percent in favor, 131 ‘yes’ to 284 ‘no’ with nearly 78-percent turnout, according to updated unofficial election results. The $6.5 million bond measure was unanimously approved by the council with support from the mayor, but public opposition led to a lengthy debate about costcutting options and a series of public hearings. The proposed bond’s funding mechanism was a 50-cent tax increase per $1,000 of assessed property value. The project includes construction of a city emergency hub, police office, administrative and workspaces, multipurpose room and a kitchenette with storage spaces. The funds were expected to pay for demolition and construction. The new facility was expected to be built at 11,776 square feet and designed to meet long-term needs for multiple purposes. The
site selected for the project was the Underhill property, featuring a former school building that sits out of the tsunami inundation zone, unlike the current city hall. Much of the public debate centered around remodeling or tearing down the buildings at the site. City officials issued a statement following the defeat of the bond measure that said compromise with the community would be sought in order to solve the issue of needing a new facility to house city operations.
Manzanita City Hall.
File photo
Court of Appeals extends stay on flavored nicotine vaping products, flavored cannabis vaping products Hilary Dorsey
headlightreporter@countrymedia.net
Gov. Kate Brown’s six month ban on flavored nicotine and cannabis vaping products is on hold with new rulings Nov. 14 by the Oregon Court of Appeals. Last month, the Court temporarily halted the ban on only flavored nicotine vaping products. It has now extended the stay and granted a stay covering the ban on flavored cannabis vaping products as well. While a judicial review is conducted, enforcement of this rule will be discontinued. Until the judicial review is
complete, licensees are not prohibited from processing, transferring and selling products previously banned. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) had filed temporary rules Oct. 11, that put into effect Gov. Kate Brown’s Oct. 4 executive order banning all flavored vaping product sales in the state. “The court’s decision to enter stays last week is unfortunate in light of the ongoing public health threat posed by vaping-related illness and the alarming growth in the use of vaping products by Oregon youth,” said Charles Boyle, press secretary of the Office of Gov. Kate Brown.
“What is clear is that it is far past time for the Trump Administration and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to follow through on their promises to ban flavored vaping products so that we can protect children across the country from vaping-related illness and lifetime of nicotine addiction.” Boyle said in the meantime, Brown will continue to work with stakeholders and the Legislature to find long-term solutions to protect the public health from vaping-related illness. Brown continues to urge Oregonians to heed the public health warning of the OHA and to stop vaping immediately.
Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), released on Nov. 18 a statement regarding reports that President Trump blocked the FDA from issuing a proposed ban on all flavored e-cigarettes. The proposed ban was designed to protect children from vaping, as data from 2019 shows surging e-cigarette usage among middle and high school students with 5.3 million kids now vaping. Sweet flavors – including candy, fruit, and mint flavors – have proven especially attractive to teenagers.
“Yet again, President Trump is going spineless in the face of corporate lobbying,” Merkley said in the statement. “The health of millions of American children will suffer. For years, e-cigarette companies have been given free rein by the FDA to pursue a massively successful strategy of addicting a new generation on nicotine, targeting middle and high school students with social media influencers and sweet flavors blatantly designed to appeal to children. Now, finally, the FDA is ready to act – but President Trump has apparently ordered them to stand down in the face of an industry lobbying campaign.”
PSU study finds microplastics in oysters, clams on Oregon Coast Cristina Rojas
Portland State University 7
29467 70001 8
Tiny threads of plastics are showing up in Pacific oysters and razor clams along the Oregon Coast — and the yoga pants, fleece jackets and sweatwicking clothing that Pacific Northwesterners love to wear are a source of that pollution, according to a new Portland State University study. Britta Baechler, a Ph.D. student in PSU’s Earth, Environment and Society program, and Elise Granek, a professor of environmental science and management, looked at what variables predict microplastic concentrations in Pacific oysters and razor clams — organisms that have commercial, recreational and cultural importance in Oregon. On average, the researchers found 11 microplastic pieces per oyster and nine per clam in the samples, and nearly all were microfibers, which can
come from clothing made from synthetic or natural materials as well as derelict fishing gear. “These microfilaments can be shed from clothing, up to 700,000 per load of laundry,” Baechler said. “Those particles then travel out through greywater into wastewater and to the coast.” Microplastics were found in both Pacific oysters and razor clams collected from all 15 sample sites along the Oregon Coast during spring and summer 2017. Microplastics were found in all but two of the roughly 300 organisms sampled. The team also found that spring oysters contained more microplastics than the oysters sampled from the summer. Baechler said seasonal precipitation and the type of clothing typically worn in the spring compared to summer may have been factors. “Whether it was a fairly urban site or a rural site, estuary or open-coast beach, both species had
microplastics,” Granek said. “Although we think of the Oregon coast as a much more pristine coastline compared to California, Puget Sound or the Eastern Seaboard, when we are talking about microplastics, we’re still seeing that human footprint on even our more pristine coastline.” Granek said that because fishing gear can be a source of microfibers, fisheries and oyster growers are often blamed for the problem of microplastics in seafood — but there is no scientific consensus that this is the case. “It’s not because people aren’t managing our fisheries well or are being unclean in their practices,” she said. “We’re all using plastics on a daily basis. We are all the source of contamination in our seafood. And microplastics are not just in our seafood. We know that they are in our beer, in our salt, in our drinking water.” Baechler and Granek said more research still needs to
Razor clams, freshly dug up in Seaside. Photo: Seaside Aquarium
be done to determine what effect the microplastics have on the organisms themselves and the humans who consume them. Studies have shown that microplastics can have negative physiological impacts such as reproductive and growth impairments on oysters and clams. “If reproduction or growth is impaired, that could really affect not just individual clams or oysters, but possibly local populations of these organisms as well,” Baechler said. Granek said engineers are coming up with
filters that could attach to washing machines, but it’s still too early to tell how effective they are at preventing microfibers from discharging into the water and whether they’re too costly for the general public. The team’s research was supported by Oregon Sea Grant, and their findings were published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters. The team also included Matthew Hunter from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Kathleen Conn from the U.S. Geological Survey.