Tillamook High School basketball Page A9
Garibaldi council okays PFAS study Page A2
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2024
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 136, NO. 4 • $1.50
Commissioners declare state of emergency WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
T
illamook’s board of county commissioners declared a state of emergency on January 17, in response to a winter storm that battered the area on January 13 and 14. Commissioners also approved a $3.47 million bridge project on Sand Lake Road, a $40,000 culvert repair on Blaine Road, wage increases for non-unionized and elected county staff, awarded $25,000 to the Pacific City-Nestucca Valley Chamber of Commerce and continued a decision on the dissolution of the Beaver Water District. The declaration of emergency was issued in response to the winter storm that covered much of Tillamook County in a sheet of ice and sent temperatures plunging over the weekend. The declaration will allow the county to more easily access state and federal funding to offset the cost of response and recovery to the storm. Tillamook County Emergency Director Randy Thorpe said that he had already been in contact with the state about the declaration and that he expected it would take several weeks to assess the damage. He also noted that Community Action Resource Enterprises would be eligible to receive funding to help offset the cost of staffing its warming center. Funding for the $3.47 million repair to a bridge on Sand Lake Road between its intersection with Cape Lookout Road and Galloway
Rocks on Netarts Bay were coated in ice by the recent winter weather. Photo by Celeste Colasurdo
Road is primarily coming from the federal government, which is contributing 90% against a 10% match from the county. Tillamook County Public Works Director Chris Laity said that the project would now begin design and permitting and that he expected construction to take place in 2028. The repair to the culvert at milepost 10.3 on Blaine Road will be completed using polyurethane foam that will help to secure the
culvert by filling voids around it and preventing subsidence of the road running over it. Non-unionized and elected officials will both receive a 2% cost of living adjustment effective as of January 1, with another 3% bump to come on July 1. The increases match those approved last week for county workers represented by AFSCME. The grant of $25,000 in transient lodging tax funds to the Pa-
cific City-Nestucca Valley Chamber of Commerce will allow the group to hire a full-time employee to staff the south county visitors’ center at Kiawanda Community Center in Pacific City. The chamber used to run a welcome center in Cloverdale with a part-time employee but discontinued the offering when finding staff became untenable. Thanks to its recent success, the Kiawanda Community Center will be matching the grant from
the county to fully fund the new position. When hired, the staffer will work to organize events and activities at the visitors’ center and give information to visitors. After concluding the rest of their agenda, the commissioners held a public hearing on the dissolution of the Beaver water district. The dissolution saga began in August when the secretary of state’s office informed the county that the water district was three years behind on its audits. This tardiness automatically triggered the dissolution process, with an initial public hearing held on November 1. After receiving notice of the dissolution, the district’s board hired a new staff member, Heidi Reed, to address the district’s issues. At the November hearing, Reed said that she had been in contact with the secretary of state’s office and was working to find auditors to complete the necessary work. Commissioners agreed to continue the hearing until January to allow work to progress. At the hearing on January 17, Reed said that the district’s audits had now been completed through fiscal year 2021 and submitted to the secretary of state’s office. Reed said she is still working to find an auditor to complete the final two audits but that she has been in contact with several and has kept the secretary of state’s office apprised of the progress. Commissioners voted to continue the hearing again, setting the next hearing date for April 3, to allow Reed more time to complete the audits.
OCSR prepares for water tower plaza WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad is getting ready to break ground on a nearly $400,000 project to add a new plaza with a water tower, telegraph office and phone booth in Garibaldi. The new plaza is the first step in a plan to reimagine the railroad’s facilities in the town and increase their operations, with a new depot and learning center planned next to pave the way for two-train operations. ”This is going to be super, super fun for us and also for the area because it’s going to increase a lot of the local aesthetic,” said Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad (OCSR) Director Racheal Aldridge. Construction on the new plaza is expected to begin in late April or early May when weather improves, and OCSR staff will be doing much of the work themselves. The plaza will be located on the south side of the tracks, east of third street, in front of the Old Mill RV Park and Event Center.
The new water tower will stand 29 feet 9 inches tall with a capacity of 8,000 gallons and will serve as the water source for the railroad’s steam engines, removing the current reliance on a nearby fire hydrant. The tower will be painted a bright, brownish red according to OCSR Superintendent Samuel Aldridge and may carry OCSR branding. Garibaldi’s old telegraph office, constructed in 1938 and purchased and moved to its current location by the Lions’ Club in 1963, will have a new foundation added and serve as an office for OCSR staff. The plaza will be covered in pavers and feature planters with local plants and plaques detailing them, as well as an antique phone booth. 16 parking spaces will also be added adjacent to the plaza, as well as a ramp to add ADA accessibility to the plaza. The project is expected to be complete for a grand opening to the public in May 2025 and has a price tag of just under $400,000. A $100,000 grant from Travel Oregon and $75,000 transient lodging tax
The new water tower and plaza will stand on the southside of the tracks, opposite the town, in Garibaldi. grant from Tillamook County are the largest sources of funding, with the rest coming from private donations and a portion from OCSR’s funds. Samuel said that the railway plans to apply for a second transient lodging tax grant from the
county and that the labor by railroad staff was helping to keep the budget relatively low. The project is happening concurrently with $150,000 in upgrades to the railroad’s street crossings that are being undertaken by the Oregon Department
of Transportation as part of their Highway 101 project in Garibaldi. The crossing at Third Street has already been improved, with new sidewalks but a straighter alignment is still to come, as well as an SEE OCSR PAGE A4
Conversation with a conservationist Oregon’s timber future
WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
As the Oregon Board of Forestry nears a decision on a habitat conservation plan for western Oregon state forests, the Headlight Herald sat down with the Wild Salmon Center’s Oregon Policy Program Manager Michael Lang to discuss the plan, forest conservation and the recent Hampton sawmill closure in Banks. Lang said that the conservation plan was a good starting point, although he and other conservationists would like to see a plan to help species recover and questioned
Hampton blaming the Banks closure on declining harvests. “For the preservation of state forests for greatest permanent value for all Oregonians we think there’s a lot more we can do,” Lang said. “For our public lands, for our state forest, having a species recovery plan is where we want to end up long term.” When discussing the new habitat conservation plan (HCP) for state forests, Lang says that the past failures of the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) to meet conservation goals have shown the need for the plan. In particular, Lang points to a performance metric passed by the board of forestry over a decade ago that called for state forests to contain 30% complex layered habitat. That habitat is characterized by a mix of tree species and ages that create a multi-layered canopy. Since 2013, ODF has surveyed
the percentage of state forests meeting that goal biannually, and Lang said that from a baseline of 13% in 2013, state forests had declined to only 11% complex layered habitat by last year, with only 8% in the Tillamook State Forest. “That was put in place over ten years ago, yet the ODF kept selling timber and not trying to comply and obtain that goal and get more habitat in the forest,” Lang said. “I think that’s good background to show why an HCP is needed at this point and that ODF realizes that.” As for the proposed HCP, Lang said that it is a step in the right direction but said that he would like to see ODF go further and adopt plans that would help endangered species recover. “The HCP is just a start, it’s to stop the decline of endangered species,” Lang said, mentioning that he would like to see increased buffers on headwater streams and more protections for
mature tree stands next to habitat conservation areas. Lang also said that the angst among counties and special districts that rely on state forest timber revenues to fund their budgets was valid. He noted his group’s support for a bill last year that would have created a task force of government leaders, timber industry representatives, conservationists and other stakeholders to address the issue, which was ultimately not passed. “The reason why that bill didn’t pass is because the timber industry opposed it,” Lang said, noting that he suspected the opposition came from a fear that the proposed funding solution would be a tax on timber. Lang said it wasn’t his or the conservation community’s place to propose alternate funding sources but said that he would look at the history of funding in the state, mentioning the timber severance
tax that was eliminated in the early 1990s. “We ought to take a look at how we got here and look at remedies for how to take the burden off our state forests that have been overharvested for years,” Lang said. Lang also discussed the recently announced closure of Hampton Lumber’s sawmill in Banks, questioning the blame being placed on declining state forest harvests. Lang noted that Hampton recently completed $150 million in upgrades to their sawmill in Willamina and purchased large tracts land in Washington, belying the argument that poor business prospects caused the closure. “It looks like they’re shifting their business models and expanding mills where they need to and then closing their oldest mill and blaming it on the HCP and that doesn’t square with the facts,” Lang said.