Holiday Edition 2024 Family Owned Businesses Shopping Local & Events
Fall Home Improvement • 2015 • 1
Celebrate the Holidays
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Special Event Highlights Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day Weekend Pages 4-5
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Citizen North Coast
Family Owned Businesses Holiday Edition Special Section Inside
Inside • The Spot, pg 3 • Heart of CARTM, pg 6 • The Fern, pg 7 • Holiday Shopping in Rockaway Beach, pg 8 • White Christmas at Coaster Theatre, pg 8 • Family-owned candy shops, pg 9 • Locally designed holiday cards, pg 10-11 • Communities benefit from shopping local, pg 12 • Captain’s Corner, pg 14 • Pacific Northwest Cabinets, pg15 • Four Paws on the Beach, pg 16
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Thursday, November 28, 2024 | Vol. 31, Issue 21
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Test results improve in Tillamook school districts WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
The view of the city hall’s exterior and secure parking garage from the corner of Classic Street and Manzanita Avenue.
Manzanita city hall and police station framing nears completion WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Manzanita city staff and councilors gathered for a tour of the new city hall and police station construction site at the corner of Manzanita Avenue and Classic Street on November 14. Jason Stegner, owner of Cove Built, the company constructing the facilities, led the tour and said that the project is on pace to open in late May 2025, as scheduled, with crews nearing completion on framing. Framing began in early September and has been completed on the exterior of both buildings as well as on the interior of the smaller, police station building. Stegner said that he expects crews to complete framing the city hall structure by the end of November. See CITY HALL, Page A5
Councilors and staff inspect the city hall’s interior, looking from the staff area towards the city council chamber at the west end of the building.
A tragic day in Nehalem Bay
Two perish in separate incidents STAFF REPORT
North Tillamook County First Responders were busy with two tragic calls on November 18, as deadly incidents unfolded simultaneously in Wheeler and Nehalem. Local fire and EMS crews were frantically fighting a fully involved structure fire in Wheeler and extricating an 83-year-old female victim who was trapped in the house, when a call came in from Tillamook 911 Dispatch about another emergency just up the road at the North County Recreation District in Nehalem. “The fire call came in at 11:33 a.m.,” said TCSO Deputy Chris Rondeau. “Then at 12:47 p.m., just as Tillamook Ambulance crews were rushing the fire victim to the hospital, the call of an unconscious/not breathing man at NCRD came in. Personnel from Cannon Beach Fire Department, that had
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Student test scores in English language arts, math and science improved across the board in Tillamook’s three school districts between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, Oregon Department of Education data showed. North county’s Neah-Kah-Nie School District continued to lead the county in achievement, overperforming state averages in each of the tests, while Tillamook and Nestucca continued to trail those averages in most results. In math testing, 27.0% of Tillamook students tested proficient for their grade level, compared with 31.0% across the state, 33.9% in Neah-KahNie and 12.4% in Nestucca. That marked a 5.6% increase in performance from last year for Tillamook and fourth graders had the strongest results, with 45.1% achieving proficiency in the testing. Neah-Kah-Nie’s fifth graders performed the strongest of any grade level in any district in the county, with 51% testing at grade level, helping to drive a 1.4% increase in overall proficiency for the district. English language arts scores were higher across the state as well as the county, with 42.5% of Oregon students demonstrating grade-level proficiency, a slight dip from last year’s 43% result. Tillamook school district saw its proficiency percentage increase from 35.0% to 38.4%, with eighth graders and high school juniors each achieving a 54.2% mark to lead the way. 57% of Neah-KahNie’s students showed grade-level proficiency in English language arts, up from 54.2% last year, and Nestucca students improved from 28.6% showing proficiency in last year’s test to 34.8% in this year’s. Science results showed a small increase statewide, with 30.6% of students demonstrating proficiency as compared to 29.4% last year. In Tillamook, a significant jump in performance occurred, with 30.5% of students proficient compared to 24.8% last year and high school juniors performing strongest with 46.0% demonstrating proficiency. Neah-Kah-Nie students also showed improved proficiency, with 37.7% testing at grade level as compared to 35% last year and 21.7% in 2021-2022. Nestucca students took a slight step back in science testing, with 15.4% showing proficiency in the subject compared with 19% last year. This year was the third that standardized testing returned after the coronavirus pandemic forced a one-year hiatus and students statewide have still not matched the performance of their pre-pandemic peers. Prior to the pandemic, 39.4% of students statewide tested as grade-level proficient in math, 53.4% in English language arts and 36.9% in science. That trend is largely the same in Tillamook’s school districts, although Neah-Kah-Nie’s English language arts and science test scores were higher this year than in 2018-19, as were Tillamook’s science scores. All three districts also showed strong performance in the percentage of high school students on track to graduate, with 89% of Tillamook students on track, 82% of Neah-Kah-Nie students and 88% in Nestucca, compared with the statewide average of 85%.
Councils decide on floodplain development updates in response to FEMA WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Firefighters responding to the structure fire in Wheeler.
responded to assist with the fire, were able to break away and respond to NCRD while local fire personnel continued to fight the Wheeler fire.” In the NCRD incident, a 68-year-old Nehalem man was swimming laps in the pool when the lifeguard noticed he had stopped moving.
“The lifeguard pulled the man from the pool with the assistance of other staff, and they began CPR and used an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and called 911,” said Deputy Rondeau. “When fire personnel arrived on scene, they continued to work on the man for over a half hour, but unfortunately,
PHOTO BY HAL MCMAHAN
they were unable to resuscitate him.” Tragically, the elderly female victim from the Wheeler fire also succumbed to her injuries after being transported the hospital. The victim’s names were not released by the Tillamook County Sherif’s Office, per their standard policy.
With a December 1 Federal Emergency Management Agency deadline to update ordinances regulating developments in area of special flood hazard looming, cities across Tillamook County made changes to their zoning ordinances in November. Rockaway Beach and Bay City signaled their intention to adopt a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) model ordinance, Nehalem selected a permit-by-permit approach, Wheeler’s council did not take action and will default to a permit-by-permit regime, Garibaldi opted to let staff decide based on neighboring cities’ decisions, Tillamook opted to pursue a fourth approach suggested by county leaders and Manzanita was unaffected. Originally triggered by a 2009 Audubon Society lawsuit, updates to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood insurance plan and its recommended flood plain development ordinances are expected to be finalized by 2026. The updates will follow recommendations laid out in a biological opinion from the National Marine See FLOODPLAIN, Page A5