2023 JUNE DAIRY FESTIVAL & RODEO INSIDE
l Parade & Festiva Rodeo Tillamook County 2023
Princess Ambassador, Oregon Dairy The 2023-2024 2023-2024 Alternate (right) and the Clara Blaser (left) Clancey Krahn Princess Ambassador, Oregon Dairy been crowned. pose after having Nicole Photography Photo by Katelyn
2023 Miss Anderson, crowned 22-year-old Brooke with one of her horses. poses Rodeo website. Rodeo Queen, Tillamook County Photo taken from
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2023
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 135, NO. 25 • $1.50
Commissioners signal intent to extend STR pause to continue deliberations WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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ith issues remaining for discussion after the second public meetings on proposed updates to short-term rental regulations on June 13, Tillamook’s Board of County Commissioners set a third hearing for July 6. The next day, commissioners discussed extending the current pause on short-term rental (STR) licenses for 60 days, signaling they intend to do so at their meeting on June 21. “We had hoped, really hopped to be done by July 1, but we are not quite there,” Commissioner Erin Skaar said at the Wednesday board meeting. The public hearing on Tuesday night was once again dedicated mostly to hearing public testimony from concerned citizens, but time was also left for board discussions at the end. The hearing started with Jeffrey Kearns, the attorney who has been advising the county on the ordinance update, responding to a letter threatening litigation against the proposed ordinance. The letter, sent on behalf of a group called Oregon Coast Hosts by Tonkon Torp, asked them to reconsider the ordinance, claiming that it constituted illegal land use regulations. Kearns vigorously disputed the various claims laid forth in the let-
ter, reiterating that as the program was being structured as licensure instead of permitting, it was not a land use regulation. He said that this base distinction negated most of their claims, but a representative from Oregon Coast Hosts who spoke following Kearns voiced the group’s continued disagreement with that assertion. Homeowners weigh in Unlike the first meeting on May 30, at which a vast majority commenters were STR owners or operators speaking against the ordinance, most of the two-dozen-plus commenters at the second meeting spoke in favor of the proposed ordinance amendments. These commenters were full-time residents of the communities that had been impacted by the proliferation of STRs, and they loudly pushed back against owner and operator claims of no negative impact. They attested to the livability issues caused by the properties and their concern over losing a sense of community, with multiple commenters mentioning the depletion of volunteers in the county. They said that they supported the proposed ordinance and asked that the commissioners try to address the conversion of some neighborhoods into dispersed hotels in it. Commissioners set third hearing and deliberate As commissioners began their
discussion, Skaar said that she thought a further public hearing would be necessary before the ordinance could be voted on by the commissioners. Skaar noted that there were too many issues for the commissioners to discuss, that those discussions would lead to updates to the proposed ordinance and that she would like the public to have an opportunity to give feedback on those updates. The other commissioners agreed and scheduled the third hearing for July 6. Commissioners then quickly agreed to remove daytime noise regulations from the ordinance and to keep a half-hour-response requirement for complaints that had drawn criticism from owners and operators. Commissioner David Yamamoto said that they needed to have a reasonable response time included in the ordinance and half an hour was reasonable to him. Skaar noted that the first response could be via telephone and only a second response would require an in-person appearance, allowing the respondent an hour to arrive. After agreeing on those points, the commissioners moved into discussion of a cap on the number of licenses, limit on transferability of licenses and a use-it-or-lose-it provision for licenses. Commissioners agreed that a cap on the number of licenses was
necessary to address the community livability concerns raised at the meetings and in many of the more than 1,500 emails submitted as public testimony. All emphasized that they were not interested in reducing the number of existing licenses, noting that the economic benefits to the county and its government were critical but that unmitigated growth was untenable. The STR advisory committee that delivered the proposed ordinance updates to the commissioners suggested a 1% increase in the number of licenses in each of the 14 unincorporated communities in the county ahead of a communityby-community feedback process to determine a permanent cap. Commissioners were open to the process but did not commit to the 1% per community interim raise, saying they might opt for a different number. Next came the discussion of license transferability, which has become one of the most contentious in the ordinance update process, with owners and operators rejecting any limit on transferability out of hand. Commissioners were unmoved by these protestations and supported the proposed one transfer limit for licenses issued before the pause and no license transfers for newly issued licenses, with exceptions for those occurring amongst
family. Skaar said that she wanted to see the licenses circulate and not become assets that added value to properties, and the other commissioners concurred. Commissioners then discussed the possibility of adding a use-it-orlose-it restriction to licenses under the new ordinance. Skaar noted that some 250 of the 1,200 licenses currently issued by the county were not being actively used and said that these license holders were generating no economic benefits. Skaar suggested that licensees whose properties went unused for a certain number of nights have their licenses revoked, to allow new properties that would contribute economically access to the program. Both Commissioner Mary Faith Bell and David Yamamoto agreed in principle to this suggestion and asked Kearns to work with Director of Community Development Sarah Absher to develop language doing so. Finally, they discussed the possibility of limiting individual ownership of multiple properties. They noted that in certain neighborhoods, especially in north county around Manzanita, some streets had been bought out by a single owner or operator and effectively converted into hotels. They said that they would like to see a way to SEE STR PAUSE PAGE A12
New Tillamook fire chief warns board of dire state in district WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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elivering his first update to the Fire District Board on June 13, interim Chief Jeff McBrayer sounded the alarm about the district’s situation and asked for the public’s help. McBrayer said that falling volunteerism, outdated infrastructure, aging trucks and lawsuits were threatening the district and that they needed more support from the community. “The briefing, Mr. Chairman, is as follows: mayday, mayday, mayday,” McBrayer said at the meeting. McBrayer said that Tillamook’s fire district was in a tenuous position, as its equipment ages and volunteer engagement drops. He said that these factors, combined with neglected hydrant infrastructure, would be causing the department to be reclassified from a risk category 3 to a risk category 5, which will mean a rise in insurance rates for all residents in the district. He said that these depredations had been caused by the inadequacy of the district’s tax levying authority and a slew of costly litigation. The district is allowed to tax property owners only 69 cents per $1,000 of property value, he said, compared to surrounding districts which raise $2 to $2.50 per $1,000 of property value. This has left the district with aging safety equipment and trucks, the newest of which is more than 20 years old. McBrayer noted that volunteers responded to three to four calls a day and that an average call lasted two hours. Exacerbating problems, according to McBrayer, are lawsuits being brought against the district by former volunteer Fire Captain, Mayor and Fire District Board Member elect Aaron Burris and former Battalion Chief Chuck Spittles.
McBrayer said that these legal proceedings had cost the district more than $100,000 in the past year, a figure which he expects will double in the next budget. McBrayer called the suits “frivolous and baseless” and accused the plaintiffs of trying to bankrupt the district. McBrayer called on the public to take more interest in the district and especially the suits. “If citizens truly knew what was happening, they would stand up to these bullies. They would surround these volunteers and they would protect them,” McBrayer said. McBrayer said that volunteers felt underrecognized in the community, and that the stress of the lawsuits had been added to that of the pandemic and baseline, dayin-day-out difficulty of the job. He said that most people didn’t think of the fire department until an emergency necessitated their services and that the volunteers had joined out of love for fulfilling that purpose but that they needed more support. He also brought up the specter of fires in the Tillamook Forest, saying that there was more undergrowth than there had been prior to the Tillamook Burn starting in 1933. McBrayer said that preserving the district’s operations in the face of these challenges would require an equipment bond or option levy to pass by the end of the year to secure the district’s finances. “We desperately need the citiSEE NEW FIRE CHIEF PAGE A12
Tillamook State Forest land located just outside of Idaville. PHOTO CREDIT: WILL CHAPPELL
HCP delayed, board of forestry announces WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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regon’s Board of Forestry met on June 7, in Sisters, and, among other things, discussed the forthcoming habitat conservation plan. Board Chair Jim Kelly kicked the meeting off by sharing new figures for the amount of land that will be taken out of the harvest rotation and announced that the release of the habitat conservation plan (HCP) has been delayed from
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are already unharvested and that number would only be increasing by about 5%. Kelly said that some 19% of the land is inaccessible, 6% cannot be harvested because of conservation requirements and 27% is kept out of harvest as part of planning constraints. “There’s not some 50% plus wholesale change, that’s the total land that is constrained,” Kelly said, noting that only some 30,000 acres would be added. While sharing these accurate SEE HCP DELAYED PAGE A11
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