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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 3
$2.00
www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
BLM moves to Port of Tillamook Bay Tillamook
librarians prep for new system, consortium
WILL CHAPPELL
T
Headlight Editor
illamook’s Bureau of Land Management field office has moved into a brand-new building located at the Port of Tillamook Bay, after vacating its old Third Street location last July. Staff are still working to move in furniture and settle in, and Tillamook Field Manager Janet Satter said that the office is planning a ribbon cutting and open house ceremony sometime in March to officially welcome the public to the new building. The move was precipitated after the owner of the Third Street building the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had occupied for 30 years decided not to renew the agency’s lease, which expired at the end of June 2024. This set in motion the gears of the federal government, with the General Services Administration (GSA) contracting with an outside company to purpose build a new facility at the Port of Tillamook Bay. In a somewhat convoluted ownership situation, the Port of Tillamook Bay retained ownership of the land, while the builder owns the building, which it leases to the GSA, which in turn leases it to the BLM. The result is a 20-year BLM lease for the building, which will accommodate the Tillamook field office’s 28 staff members. In addition to workspace for employees, the facility features a conference room that will be available for community use, a kitchenette and a large cold-storage unit to store tree seedlings. Satter said that she hopes to use the move as an opportunity to increase community awareness
WILL CHAPPELL
L
National Bank Building Being undertaken by Terry Phillips, the National Bank Building project on the Second Street Plaza in downtown Tillamook will add nine apartments when complete. The building, originally constructed by the National Bank, then housed in the building currently occupied by Pacific Restaurant, has played home to the Moose Lodge and Rialto Restaurant in the past, and used to have apartments on the second floor until a fire forced their abandonment. Phillips, owner of multiple local businesses, told the commission that he has built eight or nine houses in the past few years and undertaken numerous renovation
ibrarians in Tillamook County are preparing to switch the system they use for collections management and to join the Chinook Library Consortium, with both moves set to occur on March 10. According to Tillamook County Library Director Donald Allgeier and Systems Librarian Danielle Meininger, the new system will enhance patrons’ experience of interacting with the library’s offerings while the consortium move will expand those offerings. “These resources belong to this community and so this is just one more step towards making sure that everyone has access to the resources that belong to them,” Allgeier said. The change in integrated library systems, used to manage collections and lending, from the current Sierra system to the new Chinook has been in the offing since last summer. Themnew system will also be paired with a new catalogue tool called Aspen that will greatly enhance the system’s usability. When the new system goes live on March 10, users will be greeted with a more intuitive and discoverable interface, with all a certain material’s formats listed under a single entry, ratings for materials and increased ability to filter results. Patrons will also be able to search by keyword or phrase, and materials related to searches will also be displayed. “(It) is a really nice discovery layer that allows for a lot more patron interaction and it’s very pretty, so we’re really excited,” Meininger said. “It’s going to make things a lot easier to find for our patrons. It’s going to be a lot of fun to interact with.” The system will also sort results based on what has been borrowed most frequently and recently, and display events related to a search, with, for example, a knitting group being suggested if a patron searches for a book on knitting. “When you search something in Aspen it’s not just looking at the items that we have, but kind of holistically at all the offerings, our databases, our events, programs, things that we might have,” Meininger said. “And it’s going to be a lot more visual for people, there’s color coding, there’s ways to see, you know, what’s here right now, what could you get from another library, what’s checked out.” Another advantage of the system is that it is open source, meaning that Tillamook and the other members of the expanded Chinook Library Consortium will have the opportunity to provide feedback to its developers to inform the application’s future development. Tillamook librarians have begun the process of uploading the library’s catalogue into the new system and the Headlight Herald was given a demonstration of its functionality on January 15. Meininger said that she is working on the migration in conjunction with other librarians and that there will be a training with representatives from ByWater Solutions, the company which developed the Koha system, on February 13.
See HOUSING, Page A3
See LIBRARY, Page A7
Photos by Will Chappell
(Top) Most of the BLM’s 28-person Tillamook staff gather for a group photo in front of the new building. (Bottom) The large cold storage unit devoted to storing tree seedlings inside the new BLM building.
of the Tillamook Field Office’s operations, which largely revolve around timberland management, but also include recreational offerings. The Tillamook Field Office is one of five in the Northwest Oregon District Office, which manages BLM lands from the Columbia River to Florence, and from the Pacific Ocean to the crest of the Cascades. The Tillamook office itself manages some 104,000 acres between the Columbia and Highway 18 west to Portland. Half of the office’s staff comprises foresters who work to manage the agency’s lands in accordance with federal conservation restrictions and the Oregon and California Railroad Act, which requires the agency to manage
its timberlands for its own and partnering counties’ benefit. Satter said that the Tillamook field office oversees an average of 20-25 million board feet in annual harvest. None of the timberland managed by the Tillamook office is in Tillamook County, however there are 48,370 acres of BLM land in the county, spread across two parcels. The first is a preserve on the Nestucca River, containing four campgrounds and an extensive
OHV area, and the second is an undeveloped parcel on Tillamook Ridge, just north of the east side of Tillamook. Satter said that she hopes to see recreational opportunities added at Tillamook Ridge in the future. Satter said that a date for the building’s March ribbon cutting will be set soon and that she hopes members of the public will attend and take the chance to learn more about the BLM’s operations in the area.
Developers present affordable housing projects for county support WILL CHAPPELL
D
Headlight Editor
evelopers working to consummate eight workforce and affordable housing projects across Tillamook County presented their plans to the Tillamook County Housing Commission on January 14, as part of the application process for grants from the county’s Housing Production Solutions Fund. The projects range from four apartments above a commercial kitchen in Rockaway Beach to a 60-apartment project in Manzanita and the housing commission
will now score the projects and make recommendations to county commissioners for the $500,000 in available funds. This marks the third year of the county’s Housing Production Solutions Fund, which was established to support below-market-rate multifamily housing projects in the county. The fund’s money comes from a fee assessed on short-term rental licenses and after this year’s awards, the fund will have given a total of $1.5 million to support projects. Alder Creek Commons Led by North Development Group, the Alder Creek Commons project plans to repurpose the disused Nehalem Bay House in Bayside Gardens into 24 apartments for independent senior living. Nehalem Bay House was formerly a 34-room assisted care facility, which closed in 2022. The building belongs to Community Action Resource Enterprises (CARE) in Tillamook. The renovation will see a rearrangement of the interior space to combine smaller rooms into apartments, so that the resulting 24 apartments would each have a full kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Additionally, the building exterior will be upgraded with new windows and siding, a commercial kitchen would be removed, medical exam rooms would be repurposed as storage space and new laundry machines will be installed.
Courtesy photo
Alder Ridge rendering for a developent in Bay City.
Apartments will be affordable to people at several income levels, with all units affordable to those making 60% of the area median income (AMI) and six dedicated to those making 30% or below. North Development Group has already received a Local Innovation and Fast Track (LIFT) funding grant from Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and is asking the county for $120,000 to put towards the project’s $2.5-million budget. Renovations are expected to take six months, with Cove Built construction overseeing the work, Cascade Management signed on to oversee the building upon completion and CARE to stay involved as resident services partner.
Headlight Editor
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