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North Coast
Citizen Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thursday, July 25, 2024 | Vol. 31, Issue 14
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www.northcoastcitizen.com
Budget committee discusses deficit solutions WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
A large group of community members, district staff and elected officials gathered in Wheeler on July 20, to break ground on the Nehalem Bay Health District’s new health center and pharmacy. The new $12.2-million facility, scheduled for a September 2025 opening, is being supported by a $10.25-million, voter-approved bond as well as federal and state funding, and will greatly expand the district’s capacity and offerings. It is part of a project with a total budget of $15.5 million, which is also overhauling the district’s senior care facility and will see the current health center and pharmacy demolished to make way for housing. “The vision for this facility was to create an opportunity to improve healthcare in our
Facing a projected $14.5-million deficit in the budget over the next five years, the Tillamook County budget committee held the first of six monthly meetings to discuss possible solutions on July 10. Tillamook County Commissioner Doug Olson shared a list of more than 50 potential revenue-boosting or cost-cutting options to address the shortfalls that are being caused, in part, by cuts to the county’s state forest timber revenues. The meeting started with Olson and the other commissioners welcoming the assembled group to the meeting and thanking them for their participation. Commissioner Mary Faith Bell said that the commissioners knew that addressing the financial difficulties might be a difficult process for county employees and that she wanted to include those who would be affected in the conversations leading up to any changes. Tillamook County Treasurer Shawn Blanchard then discussed the budgetary situation facing the county. For the budget year that began on July 1, the county was forced to cover a gap of more than $3 million in funding by drawing down the revenue stabilization fund and allowing the county’s beginning fund balance to drop. Going forward, those revenue shortfalls are expected to continue, in a projected range between $2 million and $3.6 million over the next five years, according to
See NBHD, Page A3
See BUDGET, Page A3
Members of the Nehalem Health Center and Pharmacy board were joined by State Senator Suzanne Weber, Tillamook County Commissioner Erin Skaar and Nehalem Bay Health District Board Chair Marc Johnson for the ceremonial groundbreaking.
NBHD breaks ground on new health center and pharmacy WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Nehalem Bay Health District Board Chair Marc Johnson welcomes the crowd to the groundbreaking ceremony.
FEMA flood plain development restriction updates accelerated WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Member of the Neah-Kah-Nie robotics team practicing with their microplastics-sifting robot during their recent camp. Photo courtesy Kathy Harmon.
NKN hosts robotics summer camp KATHY HARMON
Neah-Kah-NIe Robotics Coach
Microplastics are a global environmental issue that particularly impact coastal communities. There aren’t a
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lot of ways to remove small pieces of plastic from our environment so our team decided to attempt to tackle a collection device. If microplastics are removed by hand the process is pretty onerous - requiring a lot of dull hand labor and this made it a good candidate to tackle as a summer camp project for the NKN Robotics team. This program was focused on helping the nine students who attended learn collaborative skills together and become stronger engineers and programmers.
Students built a microplastics sifting robot with the goal of being able to sift larger (>5mm) microplastics from dry sand on the beach. Their solution involved designing and building a 24-inch tank tread chassis, a plow sifter with star shaped scoops that propelled sand into a trailer with a screened base. All aspects of this design required multiple iterations, from quick duct tape applications to CAD modeled propellers. Students worked together on tasks to design and build
the robot, program and test the functionality of the different solutions they came up with, and document their experiences. Older students spent significant time helping younger students gain skills. Two new programmers learned Onbot Java which will help the team significantly when competition season starts in September. All nine students earned .25 high school credit for the work they did during summer camp.
See ROBOTICS, Page A5
A July 15 letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that Oregon governments will be required to update flood plain development ordinances by the end of the year. Tillamook County Director of Community Development Sarah Absher discussed the options for updating ordinances and impacts on her department and development in the county with the board of county commissioners on July 17. Work on updating the requirements for participation in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood insurance program has been ongoing since a 2009 lawsuit by the Audubon Society, which claimed that the program was harming Coho Salmon in Oregon in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). FEMA commissioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to investigate the claim and in 2016, the fisheries service released a report saying that the flood insurance plan was
causing a take of Coho and other salmonids that would lead to their eventual extinction. This meant that FEMA needed to update the requirements of partner governments in the flood insurance plan to comply with federal statute. But that work was delayed, first by a 2016 suit against FEMA by Oregonians for Floodplain Protection and then by a 2018 congressional delay of three years passed by former Congressman Peter Defazio. When the implementation stay expired in 2021, progress resumed on updating the program, with a proposal for updates released in 2023. The biological opinion called for the program to update the ordinances for building in flood plains to achieve zero net loss in three areas of floodplain functionality that help preserve fish habitat: flood storage, water quality and riparian vegetation. Under the new rules, any projects proposed in the 100year floodplain would have to include mitigation efforts that would lead to no loss in any of the three fish habitat See FEMA, Page A3