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2024
Tillamook County Voter Guide
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Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thursday, October 17, 2024 | Vol. 31, Issue 19
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Sheriff, DA discuss drug recriminalization, deflection WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
physically intensive stoking process, which usually occurs twice or thrice annually. Rowland’s path towards working with Tides of Change began in the early 2000s with their sister agency in Clatsop County, The Harbor. Rowland said that the agency’s director at the time approached him to ask if he could help with a
Following hard drugs’ recriminalization on September 1, Tillamook County officials are working to stand up a deflection program for those caught in possession of hard drugs going forward. While the program itself will be the purview of healthcare and mental health providers, both Tillamook County Sheriff Josh Brown and District Attorney Aubrey Olson will have to sign off on the program. Brown’s deputies will also be in charge of determining whether individuals should be referred to the program or face charges, with Olson and her staff in charge of prosecuting those charged. House Bill 4002 was passed by the Oregon legislature this spring and recriminalized the possession of hard drugs in the state after Measure 110 decriminalized it in 2020. The bill gave counties the opportunity and funding to set up drug deflection programs that would prioritize treatment over prosecution while also creating a new class of drug enforcement misdemeanors. Tillamook County is working to establish its deflection program, with the Local Public Safety Coordinating Committee leading the development. Once the program is set up, those found in possession of drugs will be referred without being arrested or charged based on law enforcement officers’ judgement. Brown said that his deputies would have the option to refer those in possession of hard drugs to the program, but they would also have the option of taking them to jail or issuing a citation. Making that determination will be left to individual deputies’ judgment and Brown said that his staff will be well-informed of the program’s specifics and use that knowledge and their training and experience to decide how to proceed in each situation. “We trust them to do their job, we train them to do their job, they have ethical guidelines that put them in this position where making a decision like that is going to be second nature to them,” Brown said. Brown clarified that a referral to the program would deflect a person away from the criminal justice system but that if they failed to begin or complete the program, charges could still be brought later. While Brown said that he agreed with Measure 110’s aim of addressing substance use disorders outside of the criminal justice system, he believed the lack of accountability it created had rendered law enforcement toothless. Consequently, Brown said that for the deflection program to receive his approval, it would need to require ongoing accountability through completion of the program. “I want a program that has accountability so that those that do get entered into it have the greatest opportunity to be successful at kicking their addiction,” Brown said. “That’s the whole point of this so if we’re not working towards that there’s no point.” Tillamook County District Attorney Aubrey Olson will also be asked to sign off on the program, but her office will have no direct involvement once it launches, since participants will be deflected away from prosecution. Nonetheless, Olson’s office will once again have a role to play for individuals who law enforcement officers determine are not good candidates for deflection. House Bill 4002 instituted several penalties for drug possession, with the most basic being a new unclassified misdemeanor specifically geared at drug enforcement. Olson said that people charged with this misdemeanor will be eligible for a diversion program, similar to the deflection program but with more stringent conditions, akin to those for probation, attached. The diversion program will offer treatment to participants, and they will face up to 180 days in jail and 18 months’ probation should they fail to complete it, though Olson noted that in her experience, judges give participants considerable leeway if they experience setbacks or relapses in similar programs. “The court system today is designed to give people as many chances as reasonably possible,” Olson said. So far, Olson said that she hasn’t seen any drug enforcement misdemeanor cases come across her desk and that she expects many of the cases that she sees involving those charges will also involve other, more serious alleged crimes. Initially, Olson said that she was doubt-
See SOUP, Page A6
See DEFLECTION, Page A5
Congresswoman Bonamici visits with members of the Neah Kah Nie High School student government during her visit.
Bonamici tours Neah Kah Nie High School WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
United States Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici visited Tillamook County on October 9, making stops at Neah Kah Nie Middle and High School, Tillamook Bay Community College and Nestucca High School. During her visit to Neah Kah Nie, Bonamici spoke with the high school’s student government before touring the campus and visiting the school’s health center, a carpentry class and the Future Natural Resource Leaders’ forestry team’s practice facility. Bonamici kicked off her visit with a sit down with representatives from Neah Kah Nie’s student government. She introduced herself to the students, telling them that she was looking forward to her visit because education was one of the most See BONAMICI, Page A5
(Left to right) Neah Kah Nie Superintendent Tyler Reed, Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici, Tillamook Bay Community College President Paul Jarrell, Tillamook Bay Community College Foundation Executive Director Britta Lawrence, Nestucca Superintendent Misty Wharton, Tillamook Superintendent Matt Ellis and Neah Kah Nie High School Principal Christy Hartford take a group shot in front of the Future Natural Resource Leaders’ forestry team practice complex.
Soup Bowl event returns with kiln fired bowls WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
For five days last week, a group of 25 volunteers stoked an enormous kiln buried deep in a forested hillside in Clatsop County to fire hundreds of bowls for Tillamook’s Tides of Change. The bowls will be filled with all-you-can-eat soup for attendees of Tides of Change’s Soup Bowl event, making a return after five years on October 26 at Pacific Restaurant in support of the organization’s mission to serve survivors of sexual and domestic violence in the county. This year will mark the event’s 14th edition and give the organization’s supporters the chance to reconnect and catch up on its activities while showing their appreciation for its work. “It’s the idea of working together, collaboration, because if you get good people working together you can do anything,” said Richard Rowland, the potter who coordinates the bowls’ production on his property outside
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The Anagama kiln in Clatsop County during the firing process.
Astoria. Rowland has a long history in Clatsop County, having purchased the property from a timber company following a clearcut in the 1970s, when he was teaching pottery at Clatsop Community College. Rowland built his first Anagama kiln on the property in the early 1980s, bringing the medieval Japanese pottery technique to Oregon for the
first time. Anagama kilns are wood fired and require constant stoking for five days to a week to give pieces a unique finish thanks to the variance in the fire’s heat and intensity in different parts of the kiln. The kiln, nicknamed the dragon kiln, became an asset for the local pottery community, with Rowland offering free use, as long as artists participated in the long and