Fifth graders go clamming Page 6
North Coast
Citizen Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
northcoastcitizen.com
May 4, 2023
Home and Garden Show wrapup
Melissa Martin owner of Malakina’s Shave Ice based in Cascade Locks serves a customer. Photo courtesy of Katherine Mace
Will Chappell
T
Editor
he Tillamook Headlight Herald’s Home and Garden Show had a great turnout, as families shopped with local businesses, sampled delicious food and supported charitable organizations. The show took place on April 29 and 30 at the Tillamook County Fairgrounds and was cosponsored by Tillamook County Solid Waste. Showgoers perused a
wide variety of goods, from local honey, seeds and dahlia tubers to paintings, wind chimes, yard sculptures, outdoor wooden furniture and hot tubs to cabinets, fabrics, recliners, art and kitchen wares. They also took advantage of the opportunities to enter a wide swath of raffles, including those being put on the Kiwanis Club of Tillamook and the Tillamook Beekeepers Association. The former supports scholarships for local students and raffled 18 items from
local businesses, while the latter is raffled a custom, dairy-themed beehive and two gift certificates to the Tillamook Farm Store and JAndy Acres Nursery. The Kiwanis Club raised just shy of $2,500 through their raffles on the weekend. In total the Kiwanians will give away $20,500 in scholarships, with the remainder of that amount coming from their radio ad sales campaign in March and April. The Tillamook Beekeepers Association raised just
under $2,000 in its raffle, in which Marsha McCorkhill won the drawing for the beehive. Show cosponsors Tillamook County Solid Waste had a booth to share information about their programs in the county. Adjacent to their booth was that of the Oregon Department of Forestry. They gave out 1500 Western Red Cedar, Hemlock and Noble Fir seedlings. The free yard waste disposal permits were handed out by Tillamook County Solid Waste.
Pacific Restaurant, Gourmet Cotton Candy and Malakina’s Shave Ice all offered tasty refreshments to showgoers at their booths, while Just a Distillery offered rum samples a short distance away. Other booths included one from the Tillamook People’s Utility District, the Tillamook County Republican and Democratic Parties, Accountable Exteriors, Prestige Senior Living, Kitchen Craft and many more.
STR committee divided as ordinance due date approaches T
illamook County’s Short-term Rental Advisory Committee split on the issue of a limit on the transferability of licenses at their April 18 meeting, as the deadline for submitting their recommendations to commissioners in May looms. Committee members were able to agree to a new license issuance cap of 1% over existing levels when a pause on license issuance is lifted and compromised on neighbor notification requirements and noise regulations. The meeting began dramatically, as one committee member confronted others who have recently joined groups representing property owners opposed to short-term rental (STR) regulation in the county. The committee member was upset that fellow committee members would join groups at loggerheads with the committee’s work and
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asked if it was a conflict of interest. Tillamook County’s Director of Community Development Sarah Absher said that she had been in contact with county counsel, who had advised that it was not legally a conflict of interest. She also said that the groups formed to advance STR interests had reached out to her and county commissioners to attempt to discuss the new ordinance, but that they had rebuffed such attempts instead saying those concerns should be addressed to the committee. Committee members affiliated with the new antiregulation groups defended their ability to participate objectively on the committee, but the upset member was not mollified. After reviewing the amendments made to the parking regulations section following their previous meeting and slightly changing verbiage related to on-street parking, the committee jumped into neighbor notification. The initial draft of the ordinance had required that STR owners notify their neighbors of their operation annually via a mailing. STR owners and operators on the committee
said that the requirement was overly burdensome, noting that finding mailing addresses for neighboring property owners would be challenging and that the annual requirement seemed excessive. They suggested that the exterior signage and an online database would be sufficient to notify neighbors. Other committee members agreed that the annual requirement was unnecessary and said that they would be fine with notification happening upon the issuance or transfer of a license. However, they were insistent that mailing a letter was critical to them as a means of fostering stronger relationships between STR owners and operators and their neighbors. Absher offered that her office could provide cards with correct mailing addresses to new license holders to reduce their workload. After discussing the proposal, the committee agreed, while also reducing the boundary for notification from 250 feet to 150 feet. STR licensees will be required to sign an affidavit affirming that they sent the postcards provided by the department of community
development. Focus then shifted to proposed noise abatement regulations, one of the major livability concerns that spurred the license pause and committees’ formation. The initial draft of the proposed ordinance required that any noise produced in an STR not be audible beyond the property’s lines at any point. It also called for quiet hours between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. when no amplified music, loud talking or noise audible beyond the property line would be allowed. Absher said that enforcement of any noise regulation would be exceedingly difficult, confirming that neither her department nor the sheriff’s office had the staff to proactively address the issue. Instead, it would be incumbent on neighbors to report offenses. Committee members noted that this would be difficult for average property owners but agreed that the limitations were necessary. A discussion of how to gauge excessive noise was had, with some favoring a decibel limit and others language calling for “reasonability.” The committee settled on adding language
that would ban “unreasonable sustained” noise audible outside the property limits during the day. They also agreed to change the penalty for infractions to a citation from the sheriff’s office, rather than a strike against the property’s STR license. After breaking for lunch, the group returned and dove into discussions on license growth management strategies and license transferability. Both Absher and Commissioner Erin Skaar, who is liaising with the committee, reiterated that the commissioners did not desire to reduce the extant number of licenses but would be implementing some tool to limit the issuance of new licenses. Skaar said that the county citizenry’s desire to do so was clear and had been the reason for the pause and the committee’s formation. Absher’s recommendation was that new license issuance initially be limited to a 1% increase over the number of existing licenses prior to the pause in each affected community. She and her staff would then conduct public meetings in
n See STR, Page 3
$1.50 Volume 30, No. 9
Rockaway Beach holds community meeting on path design ockaway Beach R community members gathered to give feedback to
a team working on preliminary design of a new walking and bike path that will serve the town on April 26. The new path will connect Washington Street at the south end of the city with Neah-Kah-Nie Middle and High Schools on the north, mostly running adjacent to the train tracks used by the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad. Jon-Paul Bowles from Destination Management Associates led the meeting and started by saying that his team’s goal during the initial design phase is to make sure that the community’s sentiments are mirrored in the design memo they will deliver later this summer. Bowles asked the assembled community members to share what they thought made Rockaway Beach a special community. They mentioned the great schools, civic engagement of the population, affordability, support for different sections of the community, the beach and more. Bowles then delivered a presentation about the project and his team’s goals. Destination Management Advisors (DMA) were awarded a $60,000 contract by the city to lead public feedback and create a design memorandum to use in funding applications. The $60,000 contract is being funded by a $750,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Community Paths program. DMA employees have gathered public feedback over the past several months and identified several priorities to guide their design process. Among those priorities are enhancing foot traffic to businesses in town, increasing safety, especially as it regards crossing Highway 101, and beautifying the town. After laying out those priorities, Bowles shared a preliminary design concept that his team had put together. In the design, the path runs next to the railway, except for a section Beach Street and North 23rd street where it ran on the east side of Highway 101 and between North and South 3rd Streets, where it would run along both sides of the highway. These choices account for the Creek Rail Trestle on the north side of town and would allow for foot traffic at all downtown businesses. The design also included six pedestrian crossings at different intersections. Residents expressed support for this design while offering some concerns that it raised. Those concerns included losing parking for businesses and residences on Miller Street, the cost of maintenance and the possibility of flooding. Bowles said that DMA will be hosting more events to gather feedback through June before working to develop their final design memorandum by the end of the summer.