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• Candy Cane Express, pg 4 • Santa coming to Wheeler, pg 5 • Gingerbread Party, pg 6 • Bay City, pg 8 • Festival of Trees, pg 9 • Tillamook County Special Events, pg 10-12 • Rockaway Beach events, pg 13 • Bay Ocean Community Chorus, pg 13 • Tillamook Air Museum Santa and The Grinch, pg 13 • Monday Musical Concert, pg 13 • Cannon Beach events, pg 14-15
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 47
Healthcare Education Building construction in home stretch
WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
W
ith less than a month remaining until substantial completion on December 8, the new Healthcare Education Building at Tillamook Bay Community College is rapidly nearing the finish line. As equipment and technology go in and finishes begin to be installed, Tillamook Bay Community College (TBCC) President Paul Jarrell said that he is excited for the college to gain not only a beautiful new building, but a true campus feel. “The way I think about it is the bond funding of this building, $14.4 million from the community and $8 million from the state in matching money, that allowed us to build this building,” Jarrell said. “But what it really allowed us to do was create a campus, because we’re investing in tying in these four (buildings), the community center together with the plaza, close proximity to the fairgrounds, to create a greater sense of community.” On a recent tour of the facility with the Headlight Herald, Jarrell took a moment to reflect on the history of the college as he gazed over the new plaza between the under-construction building and TBCC’s main classroom building. Jarrell recounted that TBCC had been founded as a satellite campus for Clatsop Community College in the mid-1980s and operated as a satellite for that institution and later Portland Community College until 2014, when the school gained independent accreditation. Originally housed in the old
A
Headlight Editor
mid a statewide budget crunch with departments asked to present options to cut 2.5% and 5% of their expenses, representatives from the Oregon Youth Authority and Oregon Department of Corrections shared lists of potential cost saving measures that included the closure of three Tillamook County facilities. Oregon Youth Authority (OYA) Director Mike Tessean said that if the department cut its budget by 5% both the Tillamook Youth Correctional Facility and Camp Tillamook, collocated at the Port of Tillamook Bay, Oregon Department of Correction (ODC) Director Mike Reese said the South Fork Prison Camp would be on the chopping block should his agency need to cut their budget. Tessean and Reese testified along with five other agency heads before the joint interim committee on ways and means’ subcommittee on public safety on November 17, as part of the Oregon legislature’s legislative days. Heading into the week, August’s revenue forecast from the state’s office of economic analysis predicted there would be a shortfall of $372.7 million for the state government. That prompted lawmakers to ask
Tillamook, Bay City fire talk merger WILL CHAPPELL
B
he stressed that it was not a step that should be taken lightly. Tessean explained that reducing intermediary steps available to youth by closing camps would reduce the department’s options to slow releases and mean keeping youth in higher expense facilities for longer, or risking releasing them too soon and increasing the burden on law enforcement agencies across the state. Tessean also cautioned that the overall decrease in beds would lead to an increase in crowding at other facilities, including the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility that holds around half of the authority’s roughly 375 detained youth, decreasing youth safety and increasing the risk of staff burnout and turnover. Reese described a similar situation at the DOC, where delaying hiring, reducing contract positions, especially nurses and doctors and delaying maintenance and capital improvement projects, would have a significant impact, but not meet the requested 5% figure. To do so would require the closure of the South Fork Forest Camp, located in the Tillamook State Forest and the Oregon State Correctional Institution. South Fork Forest Camp has 125 adults in custody and is run jointly by around 50 staff from DOC See CUTS TO, Page A3
See MERGER, Page A3
Most exterior work was complete on the new TBCC Healthcare Education Building as of mid-November.
care education building began during a staff brainstorming session at the Tillamook County Creamery Association in 2018, which identified the need for a new building to continue expanding the college’s mission. With a new facilities master plan incorporating that feedback in hand by April 2020, TBCC’s board approached the state legislature and requested matching funding to support a project. After receiving a high initial ranking on their proposal, TBCC further developed the plans, de-
mortuary on First Street that now houses the Tillamook School District, TBCC moved into its current home at the corner of Third Street and Marolf Loop Road adjacent to the fairgrounds in 2010 after voters approved a bond to build the facility. Further expansions came with the construction of the Partners for Rural Innovation building in 2017, and 2020 purchase of the Center for Industrial Technology, both located across Third Street from TBCC’s main building. Progress towards the health-
department heads across the government to create proposals for cutting 5% of their departments’ budgets, which in total would reduce the state’s budget by $276.6 million. At the hearing, Representative Paul Evans, subcommittee co-chair, began by saying that the legislature’s job over the next two years was to determine how to make cuts to the state’s budgets while still meeting the needs of Oregonians, which he said would be a delicate process. He then welcomed the heads of OYA, ODC, the Oregon Judicial Department, Public Defense Commission, State Police, Department of Justice and Criminal Justice Commission to testify for ten minutes. When invited to testify, Tessean detailed OYA’s portfolio, which includes five correctional facilities and four transitional camps that provide an intermediate step between incarceration and freedom for youth to learn how to work a job and other life skills. Tessean said that after struggling for years with maintaining consistent staffing levels, OYA has made lots of
IN THIS ISSUE News Opinion Obituaries Sports Classifieds
A2-4 A5-6 A7 B1-2 B3-8
progress recently on recruiting and retaining staff, which he said has a positive impact on youth in custody who benefit from strong relationships with adults. As part of the budgeting reduction exercise, Tessean said that he and his team had looked at ways to increase the agency’s efficiency and decrease bottlenecks, but that the needed reductions could not be accomplished without cutting positions. Tessean said that OYA’s correctional facilities are essential to the authority’s mission, while the camps are not, and that given the size of the needed budget reduction, staff had identified their Tillamook campus, which houses both a camp and correctional facility, and Camp Florence as the most appropriate options. Camp Tillamook employs 18 staff, while the Tillamook Correctional facility has 47, and the facility is in the design phase of an update, the cancellation of which would return significant savings. While Tessean said that closing the three facilities would be necessary to meet the 5% reduction goal,
Headlight Editor
ay City City Council and the board of the Tillamook Fire District both approved and supported a petition to seek voter approval to join the district and Bay City’s fire department in a new fire district on November 18. The proposed district, to be known as the Tillamook Bay Fire & Rescue Rural Fire Protection District, would help to alleviate longtime budget concerns at the Tillamook district by allowing the institution of a new taxation rate and help Bay City save on administrative costs and take advantage of efficiencies presented by combining resources with the larger entity. Voter approval for the new district will be sought in next May’s primary election with a proposed permanent tax rate of $1.49 per $1,000 of assessed property value. Bay City City Manager David McCall detailed the proposal at Bay City’s city council meeting, saying that in August, council and the fire district’s board had approved the formation of a steering committee to begin working on documents related to the proposal. That committee consisted of members of both governing bodies, members of the public and other stakeholders, had 15 members and met every other Thursday since being formed to work through a list of necessary documents prepared by Bay City Fire Chief Alan Christensen, who is also serving as the Tillamook District’s acting operations chief. The committee finished its work earlier this month, allowing the resolutions in support of the ballot measure to come before the council and board. McCall explained that the electoral process would consist of two different votes, with the first being a question to voters in the Tillamook Fire District seeking to dissolve the district. If approved, the second question will seek approval from those voters as well as those in Bay City to form the new district. The proposed $1.49 per thousand dollars of assessed property value tax rate would match the existing rate paid by Bay City residents for their department, while representing a significant increase from the Tillamook Fire District’s current rate of 69 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value. That taxation rate has been the same since 1993, causing significant budgetary issues for the district, and attempts to gain voter support for levies to supplement it have failed, most recently in May 2024. If approved, the new district would begin operations on July 1, 2026, with a new, five-person board of directors selected on the May ballot. McCall told city council that before approving the petition they needed to decide how they wished to proceed with the department’s current location in city hall should they move forward. McCall said that the building could either be subdivided into separate tax lots for the city hall, fire district and library, a process that would cost between $10,000 and $14,000, or the council could agree to a long-term lease with the new district. Councilors quickly agreed that
Photo by Will Chappell
ciding that the building should be dedicated to healthcare education based on community feedback, and were awarded $8 million by the legislature in the summer of 2021. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when Tillamook County voters approved a $14-million bond in May 2022, securing the state matching funds and fully funding the project, with a $1.4-million bond preSee BUILDING, Page A3
Tillamook correction facilities on lists of potential cuts
WILL CHAPPELL
$2.00
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