Lady Mooks extend win streak
Mooks stun Indians
Business owners raise parking concerns
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, January 13, 2026 | Vol. 138, Issue 2
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www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
Highway 6 and 101 repairs progress WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
rews are working six days a week to address damage to Oregon Highway 6 around milepost 35 and U.S. Highway 101 around milepost 102 caused by December storms and with an estimated price around $4 million combined. An Oregon Department of Transportation spokesperson said that work on Highway 6 was expected to take a further two to three weeks, while the repairs to Highway 101 were anticipated to take four to six weeks, with traffic to remain restricted to one lane of travel throughout. Both lane closures were caused by landslides during an atmospheric river that pummeled the coast the week before Christmas, with both roads completely closed temporarily on December 18. Crews from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) were able to reopen one lane of traffic on each highway by the next day, but outside contractors were called in to evaluate and complete the long-term repairs. On Highway 6, the slide occurred in a known problem area where a large section of hillside moves each year, and even as crews were working, they were forced to temporarily close both lanes of travel on January 4, after additional sluffing occurred See HWY 6, Page A4
Crews work to excavate old fill material at a slide near milepost 35 on Oregon Highway 6 on January 4.
Port commissioners weigh Hangar B repair options WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
t a special meeting on January 5, the Port of Tillamook Bay’s board of commissioners discussed bids for repairs to a 200-foot hole in the roof of Hangar B caused by a December windstorm. Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution affirming their desire to repair the structure, but with repairs for the recent damage estimated to cost in excess of $2 million, numerous other structural concerns existing in the building and relatively small revenue generation, all agreed it would be challenging to do so. The meeting began with Board Chair Jack Mulder addressing the large in-person and online audience, telling them off the bat that the port does not have the money to repair the hangar, but introducing the resolution as an aspirational statement that was made with an understanding of that reality. Mulder continued that while it was the port’s responsibility to maintain the building, the financial reality of the structure’s complexity, age and relative lack of revenue generation potential made it difficult to achieve that task. While repairing the roof is estimated to cost at least $2.45 million, Mulder said that the port could spend that money only for the same damage to occur in another section of the roof during the next storm. Mulder said that a comprehensive repair would cost ten times the amount for fixing the hole and noted that port commissioners had been trying to find a way to achieve
those larger repairs since at least the 1980s, without success. Mulder said that the issue was that there were four or five different elements of the building, from the box beams on the concrete columns holding the doors on the building’s ends to the doors themselves and numerous elements of the roof, that needed work, and that each project would cost $10-15 million, which was not economically viable. Mulder also addressed $44 million in funding the port received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2010, after a 2007 storm knocked out the port’s rail line to Banks. Mulder explained that those funds had not been invested in rebuilding the railroad or repairing the hangar, but instead in building new warehouses, upgrading the port’s water system, upgrading the airport’s fixed-base operator facilities and supporting the Southern Flow Corridor Project north of the city of Tillamook to reduce flooding. Mulder defended those expenditures as financially sound and discussed several grants, including one for $75,000 for a truss support study in 2022 from the county, that the port has pursued and won in support of hangar repairs. Port Commissioner Bill Baertlein then chimed in, saying that the port was not going to find a guardian angel to solve the issue, noting that grant funding was constricted at both the state and federal level. Baertlein said that it was therefore incumbent on the port to try to find a way to use taxes to support the project and floated several ideas for how to do so.
The most straightforward would be asking residents in the port’s taxing district, which stretches from Idaville to Pleasant Valley and from Netarts to the Washington County line, to support a bond to pay for the repairs. Baertlein said that his backof-envelope math suggested that a $20 million bond would require a tax increase for district residents of around 88 cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value annually. Acknowledging that it would be difficult to gain voter support for such an increase, Baertlein put forward the possibility of working with the county to seek a countywide bond in the same amount, which he estimated would only require a tax increase of 11 cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value. Baertlein also suggested that the port could ask county commissioners to ask voters to increase the county’s transient lodging tax rate by 5%, with revenue from the increase earmarked for hangar repairs. Baertlein concluded by saying that if the board wished to pursue any of those ideas, it would be necessary to establish a political action committee to advocate for them, as commissioners are not permitted to do so under Oregon law. Mulder then took a moment to acknowledge the hard work of the staff at the Tillamook Air Museum, which the port has operated since a previous concessionaire relocated to Madras in 2015. Mulder said that while he was personally saddened by the situation with the hanger, he See HANGAR B, Page A8
Tillamook Family Counseling Center Executive Director Frank Hanna-Williams retired at the end of 2025.
TFCC Executive Director retires WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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fter more than two decades with the agency, Tillamook Family Counseling Center Execu-
tive Director Frank HannaWilliams retired at the end of 2025. Hanna-Williams said that he was proud of work to expand Tillamook See TFCC, Page A8
IN THIS ISSUE Send us a news tip at tillamookheadlightherald.com | Your message could be the first thing our readers see! News A2-4, 8, B2-3 Opinion A5-6 Obituaries A7 Sports B1 Classifieds B4-8
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