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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 43
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County Community celebrates leaders dialysis center reopening prepare for winter S weather WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
eaders from county departments, the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Office, Tillamook Peoples’ Utility District, emergency volunteer groups and others gathered for a winter preparedness meeting at the Tillamook 9-1-1 Dispatch Center on October 20. At the meeting, convened by the Tillamook Bay Flood Improvement District, and led by Tillamook County Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Randy Thorpe, attendees were given a seasonal weather outlook and discussed available resources and their plans for responding to emergent situations. The meeting started with Tom Schuldt, a meteorologist from the Portland office of the National Weather Service giving a presentation on the winter outlook. Schuldt explained that to create long-term projections for seasonal weather, meteorologists look at the ocean temperature in the equatorial pacific. They judge temperatures against the 30-year average to determine whether the pacific is in a so-called El Nino cycle where temperatures are half a degree Celsius or more above average, La Nina cycle, where they are below average, or around average, which meteorologists term ENSO neutral. From there, forecasters compare past years in which the pacific experienced the same equatorial conditions and look for years that match the most closely with weather trends in the current year to develop a weather projection in comparison to annual averages. Currently, a La Nina advisory is in effect, which Schuldt said typically means a stronger polar jet stream will drive cold air from the Gulf of Alaska into Oregon and Washington, leading to cooler and wetter than average conditions. Schuldt cautioned that long-term models were significantly less accurate than forecasts, only offering probabilities of different outcomes as related to average, rather than specifics about given storms or systems. Given those constraints, Schuldt said that he and other forecasters expected that there would be slightly lower temperatures than average between the months of December and March, while precipitation was expected to be higher in December See COUNTY, Page A3
taff, patients, elected officials and community members gathered on October 23, for a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house celebrating the July reopening of the dialysis center at Tillamook’s Adventist Hospital. The new center, named the Tillamook Kidney Center, is being managed by Dialysis Centers Inc. (DCI), a Nashville-based nonprofit, and at the ceremony, Adventist Health Tillamook President Eric Swanson praised the community support that had made the reopening possible. “Today represents what’s possible when a community refuses to settle for less than the best,” a visibly emotional Swanson said at the ceremony. “This is a perfect example of how vision, partnership and perseverance can change lives right here where we are.” Tillamook’s old dialysis clinic, operated by U.S. Renal Care (USRC), announced that it would be closing its doors in January 2024, due to a lack of profitability at the center, leaving patients who rely on the thrice-weekly treatments to travel to Forest Grove, Lincoln City or Astoria for care. Swanson and the team at Adventist quickly sprang into action after the announcement, and learned about DCI, whose leaders immediately expressed interest in reopening a center in the same space previously occupied by USRC. After learning that it would not be possible to operate under the license previously issued to USRC,
Left to Right: Adventist Tillamook President Eric Swanson, Tillamook County Commissioner Paul Fournier, State Senator Suzanne Weber, DCI Senior Operations Director Sharon Marti, State Representative Cyrus Javadi, Tillamook County Commissioners Mary Faith Bell and Erin Skaar, and Dialysis Nurse Molly Lust.
DCI began the permitting process with the Oregon Health Authority last fall. That process stretched on through the end of 2024 and into the first half of 2025, as patients continued multi-hour commutes on treacherous winter roads. Elected officials representing Tillamook County, including State Senator Suzanne Weber and State Rep-
resentative Cyrus Javadi, as well as members of Oregon’s federal congressional delegation, kept pressure on the agency and operating permits were secured early this summer, allowing the center to open in July. At the ceremony, Swanson welcomed the crowd and thanked the teams at Adventist and DCI for their hard work on the project, and
Weber, Javadi and other lawmakers for their support. Swanson also thanked Mike, a dialysis patient, and his wife Sharon for their persistence in advocating for themselves and the center’s other patients throughout the process, noting that Sharon had helped him understand how impacted patients’ family members were by the closure. Swanson said that the reopening had restored time and dignity to the couple and other patients. “Patients can now receive their care right here at home, surrounded by familiar faces, their family and friends, and all of their support networks,” Swanson said. “It’s about restoring time, energy and dignity in peoples’ lives.” Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell then spoke, sharing the story of a friend from a nonprofit board who had been forced to resign after being diagnosed with end stage renal disease and needing to travel for dialysis treatments, and who recently passed away. Javadi then spoke about his and Weber’s efforts to ensure that another community would not face the same situation by passing a bill that would allow recently closed centers to reopen under new management with existing licenses. Finally, DCI Senior Operations Director Sharon Marti addressed the crowd and expressed her and the company’s gratitude for being able to operate the center. “We’re just grateful,” Marti said, “we’re grateful to be a part of the community, we’re grateful to serve these patients, that’s what we do this for.”
‘No Kings’ protests draw over 1,500 county wide WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
illamook, Manzanita and Cloverdale each saw crowds of more than 100 gather on October 16, for “No Kings” rallies protesting the administration and policies of President Donald Trump, according to organizers. According to Don Backman, a member of Indivisible Tillamook, the group that organized the protests, more than 800 people participated in Tillamook, an uptick of several hundred from the group’s last protest in June, showing growth in discontent with Trump. “We are excited at how the movement is growing,” Backman said. “Tillamook County residents are very concerned at the harm the Trump administration is causing. Authoritarian overreach is a term that means dictatorship, plain and
simple.” The protests were part of a nationwide day of action that saw similar demonstrations across the country. In addition to the 800 people who lined Highway 101 on the bridge over Hoquarton Slough and as it separates coming into Tillamook from the north, Backman said that organizers had counted more than 750 participants at a protest on Highway 101 in Manzanita and 106 in Cloverdale. In Tillamook, some protesters donned costumes, including an inflatable chicken suit, mimicking protesters at the Immigrations and Custom Enforcement facility in Portland that has become a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration in recent weeks. Protesters lined both sides of the bridge over the Hoquarton Slough in downtown Tillamook and along Highway 101 to its intersections with First Street.
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