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Stay active with fall community events Pgs 4-5, 8-9 October 31st Halloween trick or treating in downtown Tillamook. File photo
Wheel Class Clinic at Hoffman Center for the Arts
Touch base with the arts this fall through our local non-profit art organizations Pgs 6-9 Headlight Herald
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Music is ‘live’ at Kitty’s Food & Spirits in Tillamook
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Pg 10 The Joel Baker Band performs at Kitty’s Food and Spirits as couples dance to live music recently. Photo by Joe Warren
Citizen North Coast
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Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thursday, October 3, 2024 | Vol. 31, Issue 18
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Manzanita water billing detailed ahead of referendum WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Manzanita City Manager Leila Aman gave a presentation on the city’s water utility system at a city council work session on September 11, ahead of a November referendum on the frequency of billing. Aman discussed the history of rates and billing cycles in the city and said that moving to quarterly billing would necessitate a higher base rate than the current monthly cycle. Aman picked up the history in 2008 when city council adopted a base rate of $34.50 for 6,000 gallons for residential customers. Following that update, rates in the city stayed flat for the next seven years, until the council raised the rate by $5 and cut customers’ allowance to 4,000 gallons in 2015. The change was made following a rate study, although it was a smaller increase than recommended. In 2021, the city contracted an update to its water master plan and in July 2023, the council used those data to again revise the base rate and allowance, providing customers with 2,000 gallons for $47.56 a month. The council also voted to change the city’s billing frequency to monthly from its previous quarterly period, with the change taking effect last October. Earlier this year, city staff recognized a problem with the ordinance regulating the billing frequency, according to Aman, and sought and received council approval to correct the error in early April. The update triggered a 90-day period for citizens to demand a referendum on the ordinance and on April 8, Randy Kugler filed a petition for the referendum, sending the decision to voters in November. Aman said that with the possible reversion to quarterly billing on the table, a new rate study had been necessary to determine the impacts of the proposed change. The study found that using quarterly billing would decrease the number of rate payers that went over base allowances for water used, as overages in any given month would be offset by lower use in the others. The study found that covering the difference in lost overage charges would require a quarterly base rate of $150, versus $142.68 per quarter with a monthly billing cycle.
NeCarney bridge work on track for mid-October completion WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Following a 37-hour closure September 21 and 22, Oregon Department of Transportation crews plan to complete a new sidewalk and guardrail sometime in the next two weeks. During the closure, a crane was used to remove the old guardrail and sidewalk and a department official said that another closure is not expected. The bridge was originally damaged sometime on August 30, with a passing motorist reporting damage to the 1937 structure’s concrete sidewalk
and guardrail in the afternoon. This triggered a temporary closure of the bridge until inspections showed that it could handle one lane of traffic, allowing Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) officials to reopen one lane of traffic with a flagger that evening. The September closure allowed crews to remove the damaged concrete sidewalk as well as a section of tubular guardrail that had been installed in 2008 and been damaged in the same incident that caused the sidewalk damage. See BRIDGE, Page A5
safety Garibaldi council eyes acquisition Public committee briefed on deflection programs of Coast Guard buildings WILL CHAPPELL
WILL CHAPPELL
Citizen Editor
Citizen Editor
Garibaldi’s city council approved a letter of intent to acquire a disused station house and officer’s quarters in the city from the United States Coast Guard at their September 16 meeting. While nonbinding, the letter marks a step toward the city taking control of the building that the Coast Guard plans to declare surplus. The two buildings stand above Highway 101 at the West End of Acacia Avenue on Coast Guard property. The station house was the second housing built for members of the guard in the county, opening in 1943, and replacing the original station in Barview, which had opened in 1907. Located directly across Highway 101 from the guard’s historic boathouse, the location was active until the current station
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opened in 1981. Garibaldi City Manager Jake Boone said that the Coast Guard had contacted the city about the possibility of taking control of the buildings and that he and Mayor Katie Findling and members of the fire department had done a walkthrough of the property recently. That walkthrough revealed that the building appeared to be in good shape structur-
ally and asbestos had apparently been remediated, though aesthetically there were many issues. Boone said that the facility could serve as a replacement for Garibaldi’s city hall, with staff having outgrown the current space shared with the fire department and library. The station house is currently laid out with a lot of bedrooms that Boone said could be converted to offices and there
would probably be excess space on the building’s second floor that the city could use for archives or lease out. Garibaldi’s letter of intent will serve as notice to the Coast Guard that the city is serious about the acquisition and request more information about the building and access for further inspections. It will also allow city staff to put further time into exploring the possible acquisition.
Tillamook County’s Local Public Safety Coordinating Committee met on September 16, with a professor giving a presentation about the state’s new deflection program system for individuals in possession of hard drugs. Counties across the state has either already established or, like Tillamook County, is in the process of establishing their own deflection program to steer those with substance use disorders into treatment rather than the criminal justice system, after hard drugs’ recriminalization, which took effect September 1. Dan Hoover, a member of the addiction medicine faculty at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), discussed the program’s underlying philosophy and the practical implementation methods that other counties across the state are employing. Hoover began by discussing the difference between deflection programs and diversion programs that have existed for the past several decades. In diversion programs, people contacted by law enforcement are arrested or booked before being diverted to a specialty program, like drug court, that diverts them away from jail. Deflection, on the other hand, aims to entirely forego contact with the criminal justice system by having law enforcement officers refer people in possession of hard drugs to treatment programs rather than arrest them. Hoover stressed that deflection was a community-based approach that would rely on law enforcement working with public health See DEFLECTION, Page A5