NKN ranked NO. 1 Page 10
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Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2022
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 134, NO. 12 • $1.50
‘Leggs’ crawls to crab race win N
Ashley Tike Staff Writer
ine-hundred people showed up in support of the 2022 Garibaldi Crab Races, held at the Old Mill Marina Saturday, March 12th and 13th. Winner Stan Dennis and his crab “Leggs won $100 a trophy and bragging rights for the year. Second place finish was Corinna Cates with crab “Crabby 2,” 3rd place Troy Shelly with crab “Crabzilla,” 4th place Larry Derr with crab “Toot-Toot,” and 5th place was JC Chess with crab “Larry.” The top three finishers received trophies donated by Rosenberg building supply. The grand prize winners of the children’s races were a bicycle and helmet for each boy and a girl to finish the sweepstakes. The Garibaldi Lions Club was happy to provide this fundraiser event for the community after a 2-year pandemic hiatus. Entry fee was $5 for adults, $2 for kids 6-12 and kids five and under are free. Racing costs ranged from $1.00 to $10.00, depending on the prize and type of race. Local merchants generously donated items and gift certificates for prizes and the City of Garibaldi generously helped with funding the event. The local Garibaldi crabbing fleet provided the crab racers and cooked crab. All money raised will go towards support of local sight and hearing requests and Christmas basket program. The president of the Lions Club, Patricia Moore said that she’s happy to do a good thing for the community, adding that they typically raise around $20,000 for
Easter Bunny takes flight: Helicopter egg drop planned EXCLUSIVE
ORIGINAL Lucy Wagner and brother Fox Wagner of Portland with Ella Ayres and Brynn Post racing in the kids crab race at the 2022 Garibaldi Crab Races at Old Mill Marina. Photo by Ashley Tike charity each year. The main organizer of the event, Judy Riley calculated about 900 people were in attendance based on the number of buttons used. She said, “We use the buttons as a measure and ran out of the 800 printed, so we used leftover buttons from the 2020 crab races that were canceled due to COVID.” After calling the races since the very first Garibaldi
Crab race 35 years ago, Bill Beck, the track announcer, said that this year will be his final race. The event was ran exclusively by volunteers. Kitchen veterans Valerie Bailey, the creative head chef, along with Laurie Wandell and Carolee North kept the kitchen crew running smoothly throughout the weekend of events. Becky Daniels was the Track Secretary and Tim Sutfin was
the Track Steward. Gary Mandella, John Hurn and Tim Hall, Mayor of Garibaldi, played the essential role of crab jockey placing the crabs on the race track. Comments: headlightreporter@ countrymedia.net More Crab Race pictures on page 3
TPUD one step closer to building Oceanside Transmission Line project T
Ashley Tike Staff Writer
he Tillamook People’s Utility District (TPUD) board approved the signing of the Tillamook to Oceanside Transmission Line Contract and the purchase of the SPX transformer for $710,000 in February 2022. On March 15, 2022, the TPUD board met for their regular meeting with the intention to approve resolution No. 22-03-02, “A Resolution to Approve the Acquisition of the Tillamook to Oceanside Transmission Line Project Easements and Properties.” They were met with more than 60 angry farmers and landowners in the room. Oceanside farmer Kurt Mizee said, “We showed up to the February TPUD meeting to discuss an alternate route for the line, and you voted in the contract and put in an order for the transformer without notifying anyone. Doesn’t strike me as a very ‘public service’ thing to do.” Doug Olson, a TPUD board member representing subdivision #1 said, “Of course everyone has different views on how things should be done; that’s the nature of public policy. I’ve been doing this for a long time, you can’t please everybody.” TPUD expressed that for the past 10 years these property owners have been invited to come to meet with experts about the facts. This March meeting was the highest attended TPUD board meeting in the past 14 years. Todd Simmons, the TPUD General Manager, said that TPUD is ready to negotiate this, whether or not the landowners will come to an understanding on the decision is just
E
Ashley Tike Staff Writer
aster is right around the corner and with it more fun community events. The helicopter Easter egg drop hosted by Living Water Fellowship is back again for another year. The event will take place at 11 a.m. on April 16, at Hadley Ballpark. LWF suggests that people arrive early to get raffle tickets, coffee, hot chocolate and find their kids age group to stand in. Last year the field was divided up by age groups and covered in eggs for the kids to find and gather. The highlight of the event was when the helicopter swooped in dropping even more eggs on the field to the delight of all the kids and adults. LWF will host this event again this year in the same location with plans to have even more eggs on the field, give away even more prizes and add in more parking options. For more info visit the church Easter webpage at livingwatercoast. com/easter Comments: headlightreporter@ countrymedia.net
Photos provided by Mark Farrier
EXCLUSIVE Doug Olson speaking on behalf of the TPUD to a room full of property owners about the district’s plans to build a transmission line through their land. Photo by Ashley Tike
part of the process we will need to go through. “We’ve got the route ready to go, we’ve surveyed all the land, we’ve been on every property, we’ve got approval from the Public Utility Commission (PUC) and we’ve done this before,” Simmons said. “In cases like this most landowners will see the reality of actual scenario and eventually agree.“ TPUD will be seeking roughly 37 easements through 35 landowners’ properties along the route that goes from Tillamook to Oceanside. If approved by the board at the next meeting, TPUD intends to use eminent domain (condemnation) rights if they do not get cooperation from all property owners. It has become standard and accepted practice for utility companies to build towers and run high-voltage lines through privately owned land, compensating the landowner for space occupied by the structures and transmission lines. Karl J. Zweifel, farmer and longtime resident of Tillamook passionately said, “I’ve been offered a lot of money for the land that I grew up on; you just can’t put a price on
it. Living in a city you don’t get the connection to the land that farmers do. Food doesn’t come from Safeway.” There are approximately 2,000 customers in the southwest Tillamook, Whiskey Creek, Netarts, and Oceanside areas that are provided electric service by a single radial line. A new transmission line would provide a redundant power source to the area to use in the case of an outage or maintenance work is necessary. Zweifel added, “We’re not here to say that they don’t deserve power out there, but this is our land, our life. Just take a look at our callused hands, we put our blood sweat and tears into our work, which is our land.” According to a published paper by Alison Berry at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy called Landowner Compensation for Electric Power Transmission Rights-of-Way, running transmission lines will be an ongoing challenge in the western part of the United States over the next several decades, as populations grow and demand for energy increases.
ORIGINAL
“This is what we do,” Simmons said. “We are constantly looking at things from an engineering and operations perspective and this is what needs to be done for the community.” Simmons added that after this project is completed the TPUD will have to do the very same thing for the Neskowin area. According to TPUD engineers, the 22-million-dollar project will greatly improve power for 10% of TPUD’s clients including the large elderly community whom sometimes rely on power for essential medical equipment. TPUD said this power line is 50 years old and eight times worse than the rest of the lines. Mizee responded, “Trim the trees in the way and we’d have half the outages that we have. 22-million-dollars is enough to buy and install an entire house generator for everyone out there. Actually, I know there’s a bunch of people that already have one.” TPUD plans to work with a qualified appraiser to develop an accurate
n See TPUD, Page A2
Tillamook family learns to fly together T
Ashley Tike Staff Writer
illamook Airport flight instructor, Mark Farrier, has been holding a Civil Air Patrol Ground School and has been giving flight training using a 1939 Piper J3 Cub. “We have been teaching numerous folks to fly through that program, last year 15 year old Blake Ricks signed up,” said Farrier. Blake’s parents, Brent and Molly Ricks brought him to the class. After seeing Blake start flying lessons Molly jumped on the bandwagon and started learning too. She said, “I have always wanted to fly, but over the years life got busy I never really thought flying was realistic.” Shortly after, Blake’s dad, Brent Ricks then signed up for the flight course too. “I wanted to learn since my wife and son were learning and I didn’t want to be in a plane with them
n See FAMILY, Page A4