North Coast
Citizen Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thursday, February 19, 2026 | Vol. 33, Issue 4
Pie Day raises $11,000 for White Clover Grange
Wheeler mayor wins third EVCNB Emergency Cooking Competition
WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
White Clover Grange celebrated its 16th annual Pie Day on February 7, with a theme of Happy 250th Birthday, America, and a 26-pie auction and feast raising around $11,000 to support the grange. Chip MacGregor auctioned the tasty treats, which were donated by 40 residents and restaurants and ran the gamut from savory to sweet, before attendees tucked into a smorgasbord of yet more delectable pastries. Pie Day is an important fundraiser for the grange and in the past ten years has helped to support extensive upgrades to its building, including structural repairs, a new roof and windows for the building’s front, upgrades to the restroom and the digging of a new well. The auction got off to a slowish start with the first three pies selling for $130, $200 and $170, before the fourth pie, a triple coconut cream pie from James Lambert elicited a bidding frenzy that only ended at $310. From there, only five of the remaining 21 pies sold for less than $200, with a cheesecake from Evelyn Mast matching the coconut cream’s pie $310 winning bid price, before the day’s final pastry, a goat cheese and roasted vegetable pie from Jennifer Childress set a new highwater mark with a winning bid of $320. In all, the 26 pies brought in $5,255, while a round of “zero calorie” pie purchases, i.e. donations, raised another $1,150 for the grange. In addition to home bakers who donated pies, restaurateurs from Offshore Grill, Wild Grocery & Café, NeahKahNie Smokehouse, the Roost, Bunkhouse Restaurant, Downie’s Café and the Big Wave Café donated pastries for the auction. The auction was followed by a raffle which included a quilt, two pies and a gift certificate to the Salmonberry Restaurant, which along with entry fees paid by attendees and donations from event sponsors brought the fundraising total to approximately $11,000, according to event organizers. Following the auction’s conclusion, winners were invited to take See PIE DAY, Page A2
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WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
PHOTO CREDIT: TRAV WILLIAMS, BROKEN BANJO PHOTOGRAPHY
Pie Day attendees peruse the pies available for auction before the bidding begins.
PHOTO CREDIT: TRAV WILLIAMS, BROKEN BANJO PHOTOGRAPHY
Grange member Gail Nelson welcomes Chip MacGregor to the stage as Bob LaTorre (left) and Scott Wagner (right) trumpet his arrival.
In a culinary showdown at Manzanita’s Pine Grove Community House on February 10, Wheeler Mayor Denise Donohue was crowned the Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay’s top emergency chef. Donohue achieved that honor by preparing an entrée and dessert using only shelf-stable ingredients as part of the Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay’s (EVCNB) third annual emergency food cooking contest. Conceived by EVCNB President Trish Johnson in 2024, the contest serves as a fundraiser for the group while giving local cooks the opportunity to demonstrate techniques to spice up the culinary situation in an emergency. Donohue was joined in the contest by Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell and Manzanita Police Sergeant Mike Simms, while Frank Squillo from Wanda’s Bakery, Eric Kammerer from Yolk and Christopher Mullins, the inaugural contest’s winner, served as judges. Contestants were given 20 minutes to prepare four servings of each dish—three for the judges and one for auction to event attendees—without the use of heat or water, as a crowd of 100 watched and enjoyed shelf-stable emergency snacks and wine. For the entrée, Simms prepared shredded chicken salad two ways, in a spring roll and on a black bean chip, with a peanut sauce on the side. Judges complimented the dish’s flavor profile but were See WHEELER, Page A2
Developers present Country Media, Inc., has announced that this is the final housing projects issue of North Coast Citizen WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Eight developers presented their plans for multifamily workforce and affordable housing projects across the county to the Tillamook County Housing Commission on February 5, seeking a portion of the $400,000 available from the housing production solutions fund. The projects would span the county from Beaver to Manzanita, adding nearly 300 units, if fully realized, and the commission will discuss its funding recommendations at their March meeting.
Alder Ridge Lisa and Ralph McRae have been working for the past several years towards transforming the property that used to house the family’s paintbrush handle factory in Bay City into a multi-use residential and commercial develop-
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ment with up to 58 units. Those units would constitute a mix of different housing types with a 16-unit apartment building, 12 1,100-1,200-square-foot, single-family houses, each of which would also include a 400-squarefoot accessory dwelling unit, eight townhomes and a ten-home cottage cluster. The 25,000-squarefoot factory building and another building being rented for storage space on the site would be used to house businesses. The McRaes requested $125,000 from the housing commission to help move forward with civil engineering for the project and to begin building the infrastructure that will be necessary to support the large development. Most of the units in the development would be affordable for residents making between 80% and 120% of the area’s median income (AMI), the McRaes said, with some of the apartments reserved for those making 60% AMI. Housing commission members asked the McRaes which part of the project they would tackle first, and Ralph said that they were debating between the apartments and the single-family See HOUSING, Page A5
Country Media, Inc., which has owned the North Coast Citizen for nearly 15 years, has announced that this is the newspaper’s final issue. “Simply put, for several years we’ve struggled to generate enough sub-
scription and advertising revenue to support this every-other-week newspaper,” said Country Media’s CEO, Steve Hungerford. “By discontinuing its publication,” said Hungerford, “we’ll be able to sharpen our focus on
the sustainability of our company’s eight other paid-subscription Oregon newspapers.” Hungerford said that subscribers to The Citizen who have $5 or more in prepaid subscriptions will be mailed refunds.
Country Media is a family-owned newspaper company based in Salem. It publishes the community weeklies in Tillamook, Dallas, Coos Bay, Cottage Grove, Coos Bay, Florence, Newport and Brookings.
Rockaway council approves Thursday markets for wayside, STR updates, Lake Lytle restroom WILL CHAPPELL CITIZEN EDITOR
Rockaway Beach’s city council approved an updated application from the city’s chamber of commerce to use the wayside for their Thursday artisan markets at their meeting on February 11. The decision came after councilors expressed concern in January over the impact the group’s original proposed hours would have had on parking for downtown busi-
nesses and with councilors saying they hoped to see the market look for a different solution for future seasons. Council also approved an update to the city’s short-term rental (STR) regulations that will require license holders to rent their unit for a minimum of 30 days a year to maintain their license and approved a $302,000 contract with Romtec Inc for a new restroom at Lake Lytle. An updated application for wayside use for
the Thursday markets came before the council after a previous application submitted in January sought exclusive use of the wayside from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., drawing concern from councilors about hurting local businesses by limiting parking during the busy tourist season. The chamber’s updated application, reviewed in February, reduced the requested time of closure to 1-8 p.m. on Thursdays from June 4, through August 20.
When the application came up for discussion, it was clear that there were still mixed feelings about the application, particularly after a public commenter suggested that the market could be held in the area covered with pavers adjacent to the caboose rather than the wayside’s parking lot to prevent parking concerns. Several councilors were intrigued by the idea, with Councilor
See ROCKAWAY, Page A3