Historic Season Comes to An End Pages 8-9
Tillamook County Wellness Page 10
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2022
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 134, NO. 48 • $1.50
Rhodes to act as interim School Superintendent T
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
he Tillamook School District Board of Directors appointed Bruce Rhodes interim superintendent at a special meeting on Monday, November 21. Rhodes will serve as superintendent until January 13, 2023, and was approved unanimously. “The district means a lot to me,” Rhodes said when asked by the board why he was volunteering for the assignment. Rhodes began working in the district as a biology teacher in 1987 and most recently worked as the grants and programs director at Tillamook High School until his retirement in 2019. Since retiring, Rhodes had been working intermittently as a grant writing consultant with various schools and districts in the area. “I’m a known quantity and stable,” Rhodes said. “I’ve been around a long time” Rhodes said that he would prioritize stabilizing the district through a time of transition in his short stint as superintendent. The board now has just under two months to find an interim superintendent to manage the district for the remainder of this school year. They can then begin the search for a permanent replacement for Curt Shelley who resigned abruptly on November 14, after five years
Council approves contract with police dept. labor union T
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
he Tillamook City Council approved a new contract with the city’s police department labor union at their meeting on November 21. The department is represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the new contract will run through June 30, 2025. The new contract largely hews to the same form as the previous contract, although with a slight pay increase for officers. Officers will also stop receiving a $50 monthly cellphone stipend as they already receive department issued phones. Tillamook’s police department is fully staffed, although Chief Raymond Rau let the council know that he was still trying to hire an officer to replace a retired officer who is working part time. Ratification of the contract was the only major business addressed by the council in the meeting, with the only other agenda item being a slight modification to the city’s sign ordinance. Councilors also gave updates on workforce housing projects coming to the area. Councilor Brian Reynolds, who is also on the planning commission, told the council that the commission had approved construction of four small houses at a lot on fourth street. Rebekah Hopkins, who also serves on the Tillamook Urban Renewal Agency Board, told the council about a site visit the board made at their most recent meeting. They visited the Oregon Coast Dance Center above which owner Lisa Greiner is planning to build four apartments. Please send any comments to headlightreporter@countrymedia. net.
with the district. The board thanked Rhodes for his availability and willingness to take the position, amended the district’s organizational resolution to reflect his hiring and adjourned. Shelley resigns Shelley resigned as superintendent of the Tillamook School District, effective Monday, November 14; he will receive his salary through October 31, 2023. The school board unanimously accepted Shelley’s resignation at its regular meeting on November 14, reading a brief statement before voting to accept the resignation just before adjourning the meeting. “Superintendent Shelley and the Board have agreed that now is the time to make a change at the helm,” the board said in the statement. “Therefore, effective today, November 14, 2022, Curt will no longer serve as our Superintendent.” Board members refused to comment further on the matter and directed questions to district staff. The separation agreement released to the Herald revealed that Shelley will be paid his full salary of $158,656, and will receive medical, dental and vision insurance coverage through the district until October 31, 2023. The agreement also contains a clause that neither Shelley nor the board “shall release any information from the investigation including
In this Headlight Herald file photo, Bruce Rhodes gives an update to the school board on community partnerships. Rhodes will act as interim Superintendent of Tillamook School District 9 while the board searches for a new Superintendent. the investigation report by Ussery Consultants, Inc.,” as well as a nondisparagement clause. Shelley and the board had reached a new contract agreement in March 2021 that would have seen Shelley remain in charge of the district through 2025.
The contract called for Shelley to give 60 day’s advance notice of his intended resignation and stated that he would be paid for “days actually worked, accrued vacation, and holidays that occur prior to the termination of the agreement.” Per the terms of the contract,
Shelley was entitled to receive a severance payment of one year’s salary in the case of termination without cause.
Please send any comments to headlightreporter@countrymedia. net.
Visitor Spending tops $1.46 billion in NW Oregon in 2021 Erik Knoder For the Headlight Herald
V
isitor spending rose to $1.46 billion in Northwest Oregon in 2021. This was an increase of 46.4% after adjusting for inflation from 2020. Visitor spending collapsed by 42% in 2020 when the pandemic recession struck, and businesses were curtailed in March of that year. The jump in spending in 2021 was the largest since data has been collected, but it still yielded less spending than the $1.73 billion that was spent in 2019. Visitor spending had been growing about 3% per year since 2011. The region had seen drops in spending before, such as during the Great Recession, but nothing compared to the collapse in 2020. The leisure and hospitality sector was commonly the largest industry sector in Northwest Oregon measured by employment, but the pandemic recession reduced its size to where it was slightly smaller than the trade, transportation, and utilities sector in 2020 and 2021. Leisure and hospitality provided 14,906 payroll jobs on an annual average basis in 2021. This was about 16% of all jobs (excluding self-employment) in Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Lincoln, and Tillamook counties combined. The two largest parts of the sector are the accommodation industry (e.g. motels and campgrounds), and the food services and drinking places industry (e.g. restaurants and bars). The sector’s health depends in large part on spending by visitors. Visitors also spend money in other sectors such as retail trade, transportation, and even health services when vacation accidents happen. But because visitors account for a smaller portion of spending in these industries, the leisure and hospitality sector is considered the best proxy for the tourism industry as a whole. Visitor spending peaked in 2006 at $1.43 billion (in 2021 dollars), and then fell two percent the next year. Spending was up and down during the Great
Recession and recovery before climbing steadily from 2012 until the pandemic hit in 2020. Travel and occupancy restrictions reduced the number of customers available for lodging and food service businesses, and many tourism businesses closed or dramatically reduced their offerings. Visitor spending in Northwest Oregon fell 42% in 2020 to $998 million. This was just above the level of 1992. Benton County had the second-largest drop in visitor spending (-57.2%) of all counties in Oregon in 2020. But the county bounced back dramatically in 2021 with visitor spending increasing 158% to a record $148 million. The drop and recovery are probably due to changes by students at Oregon State University; in-person attendance was suspended in 2020 and resumed in 2021. The other counties in Northwest Oregon saw visitor spending increase sharply in 2021, but not quite recover to pre-pandemic levels. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector tends to parallel visitor spending. It’s improving rapidly but is still not completely recovered, except in Benton County. Employment in the five counties in Northwest Oregon dropped an unprecedented 54% from March to April in 2020. Employment has been growing since then. In September 2022 it was 8.6% higher than the year before, but it remained 1.2% lower than in September 2019 – the last year before the pandemic recession. As Northwest
Oregon’s leisure and hospitality sector headed towards winter in 2022, employment was starting its seasonal decline. It seems likely that the sector will continue to grow in the longer run and its employment will return to pre-pandemic levels by next year. In fact, there is some reason to think that the main constraint on employment growth in 2022 was the tight labor market, not lack of visitor spending. Job vacancy surveys showed that there were more job openings than people who were unemployed in 2022. The long-term outlook for visitor spending is good. The leisure and hospitality sector’s employment in Northwest Oregon is expected to grow 44% from 2020 to 2030. Most of that growth is based on the expectation that the sector recovers to its former level. After that, the sector’s employment will probably grow at a little less than 1% per year. A major unknown factor will be how the pandemic recession and subsequent tight labor market will affect the sector’s adoption of labor-saving technology and business practices. Businesses may be more likely to implement service models, such as takeaway food, that allow them more flexibility in adapting to any future pandemic. There is nothing leisurely in the work life of leisure and hospitality managers! Erik Knoder is a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department. He may be reached at 541-351-5595.
County employees to receive pay increase in 2023 T
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
illamook county employees will be receiving a 5% pay increase in 2023. The county’s board of commissioners approved the increase for the county’s unionized employees at their November 23 meeting and signaled that they would do the same for nonunion employees shortly. Commissioners said that with the high level of inflation and housing costs in Tillamook County the raise was well-deserved. The funds to pay for the raise will come from salary allocations for positions that remain vacant in the county. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters that represents the sheriff’s department and AFSCME that represents non-managerial staff across the county have already signed off on the pay increases. The board also cleared Tillamook County Treasurer Shawn Blanchard to start the accounting process to give the same raise to managers and other nonunion staff. The board also approved a memorandum of agreement with the Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay. The memorandum will send $20,000 in county funding to the corps that plays a critical role in disaster response in the central county. Commissioners gave approval for an Oregon Department of Emergency Management Grant that pays for Emergency Management Direc-
n See PAY, Page A6