2023 ROCKAWAY BEACH KITE FESTIVAL INSIDE
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 135, NO. 37 • $1.50
Pastega Foundation donates $1 million to YMCA for purchase of Tillamook Bowling Lanes WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
T
he Tillamook YMCA will be closing on the $1.2-million purchase of the Tillamook Bowling Lanes on September 15, and taking over their management with an eye towards increasing offerings for children in the community. The purchase is being made possible thanks to a $1 million donation from the Mario and Alma Pastega Family Foundation, which saw a great opportunity to support Tillamook’s youth. “The YMCA and a modern youth activity center that includes bowling seem to go hand in hand as a venue to gather with family and friends to promote physical activity and friendly competition,” said Denny Pastega. “Kaylan shared his contagious excitement for this project with our family and we felt it was a project that we wanted to invest in with and for our community.” Tillamook YMCA’s CEO and Executive Director Kaylan Sisco came up with the idea of purchasing the center last winter and has shepherded the process over the course of this year. “I was walking past the bowling alley one day and saw the for-sale sign and thought ‘man, we could expand our footprint, we can expand our services, what can we do with a bowling alley,’” Sisco said. Sisco quickly got to work investigating the possibility of purchasing the property and how the YMCA could finance the acquisition. Timing was good for the YMCA, as the organization had just completed a new strategic plan at the end of 2022 and had $2.5 million in
its endowment. Sisco initiated talks with the owners of the bowling center, Dennis and Tanya Wilks, while simultaneously beginning to look for potential donors in the community to support the project. Pastega is the son of foundation namesakes Mario and Alma Pastega, who purchased the PepsiCola franchise in Tillamook County in 1974, at which time Pastega and his wife moved to Tillamook as well. Today, the Pastegas own and operate the Blue Heron French Cheese Company in Tillamook and are frequent visitors to the YMCA. “Over the past nearly 50 years, the YMCA has been an important part of our lives,” Pastega said. “We utilized the many services and programs of the YMCA when raising our children, Tony, Jason and Jessica. Fast forward to now, and all our grandchildren are experiencing all the year-round benefits of the YMCA.” Sisco reached out to Pastega and his wife Chris about the opportunity and they enthusiastically agreed to lend the foundation’s support. The foundation will give the donation in annual installments of $100,000 over the next ten years. The center will be renamed to recognize the Pastegas’ legacy, although a final decision on the name has yet to be made. The project has also received commitments of support from the Loren Park Foundation and the Robert Riggert Family Foundation. After closing on the purchase on Friday, September 15, the YMCA will begin operating the 16-lane center the following
Monday. Sisco said that he plans to keep the center’s current staff and operating hours, although he noted that they will be closed on September 16, as that is the day of the YMCA’s annual fundraising event at the fairgrounds. Residents will not need to be YMCA members to use the facilities, although Sisco has yet to determine pricing. The center will continue serving alcoholic beverages in the evenings but its lottery machines will be removed.
In addition to continuing services for existing customers, the YMCA will be using the center to expand its after-school activitt offerings for Tillamook young people. The property on Third Street shares a property line with East Elementary School and is near both Tillamook Junior High School and High School, a factor that strongly attracted Sisco. “One of the best parts about the opportunity was the fact that it shares a property line with the school district,”
Sisco said. “We have a great relationship with (Tillamook) School District 9.” Sisco said that he plans to operate the center as a youth center from 3 to 5 p.m. on weekdays, with free food and access to bowling and other activities. He also mentioned the possibility of adding outdoor activities to the open area on the property behind the center. According to Sisco, the YMCA will initially focus on getting up to speed on operating the center
before evaluating possible renovations, upgrades or additions to the facility, with a temporary floor to cover some or all the lanes being one possibility. “We will evaluate the community need, what’s the best use of the space, and if bowling is it then bowling is it,” Sisco said. “We operate everything based on the community and that’s what we’ve done here and that’s why we’re successful.”
Board of Forestry leaves HCP Bonamici stops by Liberty on decision for future meeting first day of classes WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
O
regon Board of Forestry Chair Jim Kelly elected to set aside a resolution that he had added to the board’s meeting on September 7. The resolution would have instructed staff to increase harvest levels under a new Habitat Conservation Plan for a final draft while simultaneously approving those revisions and the plan for submission to the federal government. Other board members expressed concern at the late addition of the proposed resolution to the meeting’s agenda and thanked Kelly for not pursuing it. They said that they supported increasing harvest levels while completing the plan development process in public meetings. “I am committed to us being successful in getting this but I’m not committed to an HCP that isn’t appropriately well balanced, and that’s going to have to be a judgment for each of us,” Kelly said. The resolution that Kelly considered bringing forward
was authored by Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) staff in August and added to the agenda late in the month. Kelly explained that the resolution had been written to address concerns from forest trust land counties and the public over significantly reduced timber harvest levels expected under a habitat conservation plan (HCP) that has been under development since 2018. Kelly’s resolution would have instructed ODF staff to modify the HCP to maximize timber harvest levels as much as possible while complying with the Endangered Species Act and other applicable federal laws and guidelines. The resolution also would have given approval to the resulting document with “no
need for staff to return to the Board for further direction.” This resolution drew negative feedback from public commenters at the meeting, and particularly from Tillamook County Commissioner David Yamamoto, who serves as the chair of the Forest Trust Lands Advisory Council (FTLAC). Appearing in that capacity before the board on September 6, Yamamoto complained that the proposed resolution had not been brought to the FTLAC’s attention by ODF staff either at their last meeting in August or when it was added to the board’s agenda. Yamamoto said that after learning about the proposed resolution from a third party, SEE HCP DECISION PAGE A4
WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
C
ongresswoman Suzanne Bonamici was in Tillamook on September 6, to visit Liberty Elementary School on its first day of classes. Liberty Elementary Principal Rachel Williamson gave Bonamici a tour of the school and the congresswoman visited with Tillamook Superintendent Matthew Ellis, students and teachers. Bonamici’s visit to Liberty came in the afternoon as half of the school’s students were finishing up with their introductory day for the school year. The other half were set to arrive the following day for their first day. Liberty Elementary
Tillamook Superintendent Matthew Ellis high fives first graders as they leave gym class while Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici and Liberty Elementary Principal Rachel Williamson greet the kids. educates the kindergarten and first-grade aged students of central Tillamook County and currently has 260 students enrolled, divided between 120 kindergarteners and 140 first
graders. Williamson showed Bonamici the school’s six classrooms and discussed SEE BONAMICI PAGE A5
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