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Tillamook County
Cheesemakers Capsize Fishermen
Special Section
2024
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Citizen Headlight Herald North Coast
Tillamook County Voter Guide
Headlight Herald
Tuesday, October 15, 2024 | Vol. 136, Issue 42
Fired up for survivors Tides of Change ‘Soup Bowl’ returns WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
or 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 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 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
nited 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 important issues to her as a congresswoman. “Education is really the reason I got involved as a policy maker,” Bonamici said.
County budget working group nears decisions WILL CHAPPELL
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Hartford said that the center offered both physical and mental healthSee TOURS , Page A2
See BUDGET, Page A3
Photos by Will Chappell/Headlight Herald
Top: The Anagama kiln in Clatsop County during the firing process. Bottom: The view of the kiln’s interior when opened for additional wood to be added to the fire.
him to ask if he could help with a fundraiser involving bowls and he agreed on the condition that she and her staff collaborate in the production process. “I said, ‘I don’t want to just hand over money, I want to collaborate with you’, and told her if you’ll collaborate with me, we can both improve our outlook on the vision,” Rowland said. That first year, Rowland and a fellow potter each made 50 bowls, but that number has grown greatly in the years since, with a group of See TIDES, Page A3
The congresswoman then invited the students to ask her questions about her background and work in Washington, fielding inquiries about her educational background and preference between serving as a state and federal legislator. Bonamici said that she preferred working at the federal level as it gave her more of an opportunity to set policies, specifically mentioning her work replacing No Child Left Behind with the Every Student Succeeds Act as an example. Bonamici also explained the federal government’s role in supplementing funding for under resourced schools, referencing a recent bill that helped districts purchase electric school buses. Neah Kah Nie High Principal Christy Hartford then led Bonamici and the superintendents from each of the county’s school districts and Tillamook Bay Community College President Paul Jarrell and Foun-
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Photo by Will Chappell/Headlight Herald
Congresswoman Bonamici visits with members of the Neah Kah Nie High School student government during her visit.
dation Executive Director Britta Lawrence on a tour of the school. The group stopped first at the Neah Kah Nie Health and Wellness Center, which opened in 2021.
Headlight Editor
ith a list of more than 50 revenue-boosting or cost-cutting measures reviewed and prioritized, the Tillamook County budget working group is approaching decisions about a path forward following their October 9 meeting. County commissioners revealed at the meeting that they were planning to turn the list over to outside financial consultants for further review and hoped to begin acting on items as early as December. The meeting began with unwelcome news shared by Tillamook County Commissioner Doug Olson, who has been leading the expanded budget review process since August. Olson shared projections from the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) that were updated on October 1, revising the county’s previously projected $4.6 million in timber revenue for this fiscal year downwards to a new estimate of $4.1 million. Olson said that the newest numbers were not entirely surprising, as ODF’s early projections have historically been high as compared to actual revenues, but that the downward departure created a larger gap to fill in this year’s budget. Previously, County Treasurer Shawn Blanchard had projected a $411,000 shortfall in maintaining a $10 million beginning fund balance for the county’s general fund heading into 2025, but that number is now between $800,000 and $900,000. Olson added that the projections would be updated again in January. On a positive note, Olson said that since the group’s previous meeting in October, department heads had identified $253,000 in savings that could be achieved by accounting for open positions in their departments. Realizing these savings would only require an amendment to the county’s budget, with Olson suggesting that a resolution might be brought to the budget committee as early as November. The conversation then turned to ways to address the remaining $550,000 shortfall. Director of Veterans’ Services Nick Torres brought up the possibility of adding franchise fees to Tillamook Peoples’ Utility District (TPUD) bills in unincorporated Tillamook County, which had been mentioned at previous meetings. Olson said that he had spoken with TPUD’s director since the last meeting and been informed that each 1% added to bills would generate $250,000 annually for the county. Any fee would have to be approved by the board of county commissioners and TPUD’s board. Olson noted that each of the county’s cities charged between 5% and 7% for TPUD’s use of their rights of way. However, Olson said that if the county took such a step 40% of the revenue would be generated would come from dairy farms and the Tillamook County Creamery Association, and wondered if this might make the option politically
Bonamici tours Tillamook County schools U
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