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Seasons Greetings Section Inside Letters to Santa
by Tillamook County 2nd & 3rd Graders
Inside
Headlight Herald 2022
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 134, NO. 51 • $1.50
A Christmas Story ...
Rockaway resident recounts time as a ‘A Christmas Story’ extra He also worked for Shirley Temple, and has childhood ties to Jeffrey Dahmer
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Chelsea Yarnell Guest Contributor
t’s an iconic cinematic scene. In “A Christmas Story,” The Old Man Mr. Parker wins a sweepstake and is overjoyed that his prize is leg lamp. He plugs the lamp into an electrical socket and places it in the home’s front window. “It’s indescribably beautiful! It reminds me of the Fourth of July,” the family patriarch cries in the movie scene. “Turn off all the lights. I want to see what it looks like from the street.” Mr. Parker runs out the front door of his home to the sidewalk on the other of the street. As he stands there admiring his new possession, neighbors stop to see what he’s staring at. One of the neighbors in the scene was Rockaway Beach resident Mike Kukral (62). Kukral, 22-years old at the time, was home from college for Christmas and was looking for some short-term employment during the break. “I was looking for a job,” Kukral said. “Sometimes I worked for UPS delivering packages, but this time I didn’t have anything lined up.” Kukral recalled seeing a little ad in the local Cleveland newspaper. “It read: ‘Extras wanted for major motion picture being filmed in downtown Cleveland. Must be available 24 hours a day,’” Kukral recalled. “And I was available to do that.” Kukral replied to the ad and began working as an extra on the movie set in downtown Cleveland. “[While I was working], I never knew the name the movie. I never knew who was in it,” Kukral said. After its release in 1983, Kukral learned he had participated in the “A Christmas Story” film. Himself, as well as his family’s 1937 car, were used in scenes throughout the movie including the downtown Christmas parade. “They’d shut down the streets at about 1 a.m. and decorate the
streets,” Kukral said. “They would start the whole parade at 3 a.m. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Bands were playing… it was really bizarre, but I guess this was how it worked. I’d never seen how movies were made.” While Kukral said most of his time was spent standing around outside waiting, he did eventually make his silver screen début. “There’s one scene I’m really, clearly in,” Kukral said. “It was a cold winter night, in a westside neighborhood at a house that they had bought to use. Darren McGavin [Mr. Parker/The Old Man] comes running out of the house. It was the leg lamp Mike Kukral poses for a photo with Darren McGavin, who plays Mr. Parker (The Old Man), on the set of “A Christmas Story” in 1982 in scene; it was sitting Cleveland, Ohio. in the window. We saw this and thought, time, we thought this was a hor‘What is this movie about?” rible movie because of all these Kukral said the scene was initially filmed with solely Mr. Parker cheap props, but those were all admiring the leg lamp from outside these dream sequences. It’s astounding to me that it has become his home. such a well-loved movie and some “They filmed this 38 times of people’s favorite movie.” him coming out of the house and For his time, Kukral was paid into the street,” Kukral said. minimum wage of $3.50 an hour in After all those takes, one of the movie directors grabbed five extras cash every night. When asked if Kukral watched and told them to walk up behind the 2022 sequel “A Christmas The Old Man and pretend to see Story Christmas,” he replied that what he’s looking at. “It was such a fun time,” Kukral he had recently. “I was pleasantly surprised that Rockaway Beach resident said. “They filmed it one time that I liked it,” he said. “I enjoyed it. It Mike Kukral recently retired way and they use that scene, and was a lot of fun.” to the Oregon Coast after I’m in it.” Kukral didn’t seek out further decades as a geography Kukral can be seen behind The film roles, but it wasn’t his last professor. Throughout his Old Man, wearing a cap and a long life Kukral also worked as connection to Hollywood. overcoat. a movie extra in “A ChristAfter receiving degrees in Ge“We thought this was going to mas Story,” was a graduate ography, Environmental Science, be some really awful movie. And student with connections to and Political Science from Ohio someone said, ‘It will probably Ambassador Shirley Temple University, Kukral went on to renever get released or get finished Black, and was in the same ceive his PhD from the University because it looked terrible,” Kukral high school graduating class of Kentucky in Geography. During laughed. “Us extras, who were as American serial killer Jefstanding around talking all the frey Dahmer. See STORY, Page A3
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County’s Short-Term Rental Advisory Committee discusses changing regulations T
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
illamook County’s ShortTerm Rental Advisory Committee began discussing different regulatory frameworks at their meeting on December 13 at the Port of Tillamook Bay. Committee members asked staff for more information on most of the options presented before moving forward in their decision making. Each of the options has its pros and cons, although the biggest challenge with any regulation will be addressing already operating properties, according to Daniel Kearns, the lawyer advising the committee. One option which would mitigate this challenge is limiting the number of nights a property can be rented during the year. Locali-
ties using this type of regulation tend to set the limit between 90 and 120 nights. Committee members expressed concern that this approach would further concentrate tourist activity in the summer months, leaving properties empty and businesses strapped even more in the winter. It was suggested that the limit could be monthly or quarterly to encourage more distributed stays. The second option Kearns detailed was limiting short-term rental licenses to properties that are a primary residence. This option was dismissed quickly by the committee as too restrictive and removed from the list of options. The two final ways to restrict the number of properties were distance and density limits, and a hard cap on the percentage of properties allowed to operate as short-term rentals. Distance and density limits would impose a buffer zone around short-term rental properties to prevent clustering. This clustering has led certain neighborhoods in the county to become what many at the meeting referred to as, “party streets.”
Kearns said that density restrictions could be tailored for different communities but said that bringing existing licenses in line with the new regulations would be very difficult. The committee expressed concerns about the approach limiting rental activity in developments designed with the practice in mind or in communities like Tierra Del Mar where rental properties outnumber full-time residents. A cap on the percentage of properties across the counties permitted to hold licenses would be less complicated to implement. Localities opting for this approach typically set the cap between 12% and 17%, although Bay City recently enacted a cap of 5%. Across the county, between 12 and 24% of properties are currently operating as short-term rentals. The last two regulatory tools that Kearns described were mechanisms that could bring the number of short-term rentals in line with any new restrictions. First would be placing a transferability limitation on licenses, leading to attrition of licenses as properties transfer hands going
forward. Someone pointed out that circumventing such a regulation would be as simple as placing the property into the ownership of a trust or LLC and selling that, which Kearns acknowledged was true. The other option he mentioned was a limit on short-term rental licenses issued to each property owner. This would prevent consolidation of property ownership for short-term rentals and reduce the number of licenses. Committee members asked staff for additional information about the impacts and feasibility of all the proposals, except the primary residence restriction that nobody had favored. The committee then decided that it would hold its meetings in the Port of Tillamook Bay’s conference room going forward. Meetings will be held on the second Tuesday of the month from 9:30 a.m. to noon and are open to the public. Please send any comments to headlightreporter@countrymedia. net.
School board taps interim Super J
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
im Mabbott will be interim superintendent for the Tillamook School District between January 9, and June 30, 2023. The district’s board selected Mabbott at a special meeting on December 14, at which they also chose Human Capital Enterprises to assist with the search for a permanent replacement for the recently resigned Curt Shelley. “I am very excited to serve the students, staff and community of the Tillamook School District,” Mabbott said in a statement released following the meeting. Mabbott will be taking over from Bruce Rhodes who has been serving since November 21. Mabbott will earn $11,590.94 in January before making $15,000 monthly between February and June. That amount will be split between a $5,000 salary and a $10,000 tax shelter annuity. He will also be given $5,000 to help pay for housing and relocation related expenses. Mabbott has experience in northwestern Oregon, having served as superintend of the Northwest Regional Education Service district from 2004-2011. Most recently he was superintendent of the Castle Rock School District until his retirement in 2019. “I’m an in the schools and community kind of guy,” Mabbott said at the meeting, appearing via Zoom. After appointing Mabbott, the board selected Human Capital Resources to lead the search for a new superintendent to replace Shelley who resigned abruptly on November 14. The decision came after the board heard presentations from Human Capital and McPherson and Jacobson, the other finalist. The board chose Human Capital, which will begin its search shortly with a cost between $14,000 and $18,000. Hank Harris and Robyn Bean will be leading the search for the firm and made the presentation to the board. They emphasized their commitment to community outreach as part of the superintendent search process, as well as their history of success. Founded in 2011, Human Capital has led searches for a mix of urban and rural districts around the state, including in the South Coast Educational Service District in Coos Bay and the John Day School District. The search process will start with interviews of school board members, teachers and other district stakeholders early next year. Harris and Bean will then solicit public feedback through a series of townhall events and an online survey, both of which will have Spanish language options. Their initial proposal projected naming a replacement in early April of 2023, but when asked said they could accommodate a faster search if that was a board priority. The range on the price of their search owed to options they will offer
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