Tillamook Headlight Herald Home & Garden Show
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Saturday, April 20 9 am to 4 pm
Sunday, April 21
at Tillamook County Fairgrounds
11 am to 4 pm •
Tillamook Beekeepers Association is Presenting
Bee Days 2024
Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Vol. 136, Issue 16
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Merkley focuses on healthcare in town hall
Tillamook Headlight Herald Home & Garden Show Set for Saturday and Sunday
WILL CHAPPELL
STAFF REPORT
Headlight Editor
Country Media, Inc.
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longtime Tillamook County tradition, the Tillamook Headlight Herald Home & Garden Show, will take place on Saturday and Sunday at the Tillamook County Fairgrounds. The show, held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, is once again co-sponsored by Tillamook County Solid Waste and coincides with the Tillamook County Beekeepers’ Association’s Bee Days celebration. A wide array of vendors will be at the show, offering the opportunity to address any household exterior needs, stock up for a summer garden or purchase a variety of other goods. The beekeepers will be bringing their demonstration hive to give showgoers an inside look at the functioning of a colony and offering honey and pollinator friendly plants for sale. The group will also be hosting short classes on beekeeping starting at 9:30 and 11 a.m., and 12:30 and 2 p.m. on Saturday, and 11:30 a.m. and 1 and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. The beekeepers will also be holding a raffle over the course of the weekend with the grand prize being a handmade, Tillamookcheese-block themed hive. A $200 gift certificate for the Tillamook See TILLAMOOK, Page A4
nited States Senator Jeff Merkley hosted a town hall at Tillamook Bay Community College on April 6, as part of his ongoing commitment to visiting every county in Oregon each year to hear from constituents. At the town hall and a preceding press availability, Merkley spent much of his time discussing healthcare issues in the country while also touching on hedge fund ownership of single-family homes, infrastructure and Gaza. Questions about the medical system came up repeatedly as patients from the recently closed U.S. Renal dialysis clinic were at the meeting to seek Merkley’s help in their quest for care. Like Senator Ron Wyden in March, Merkley pledged to lend his office’s help to the ongoing search for an alternate provider or solution to keep the center open and said that forcing patients to move to receive care was unacceptable. More generally, Merkley identified two factors as the primary drivers of high healthcare costs and difficult-to-access care, prescription drug prices and an aging population, respectively. “We need more healthcare and yet many of us were healthcare providers that are retiring,” Merkley said of the baby boom generation.
VFW members (left to right) Brad Charlson and Paul Ferris, Post Commander Donovan Goff and member John Reaksacker, give a $1,500 check to TSD Family Resource Coordinator Carol Abrogoua to support Tillamook Junior High School’s food pantry.
VFW donates $3,000 to school food banks T
he Tillamook chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars recently raised $1,500, which has been matched by an equal donation from the group’s national office to Tillamook School District’s food pantry program. Several of the group’s members gathered at Tillamook Junior High School on April 5, to give a check for half of the funds to Tillamook School District Family Resource Coordinator Carol Abrogoua. “The bottom line is for kids to eat better, to eat healthy and to learn how to make this stuff,” said Paul Ferris, a member of Tillamook’s Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) who helped spearhead the initiative.
Ferris discovered the program through the national VFW that would match donations of up to $1,500 to a local foodbank earlier this year and brought it to the membership of the Tillamook post. Post Commander Donovan Goff said that he had been unaware of the program before but that he was immediately receptive to Ferris’s pitch. “We think it’s a great opportunity that we’ve just been missing out on for the decade plus that I’ve been here,” Goff said. After receiving approval from the post’s membership, Ferris began raising money, focusing his efforts primarily among fellow veterans who had served during the Vietnam
conflict. Ferris was able to raise the full amount quickly and along with several other members of the VFW post has been volunteering at the food pantries. Abrogoua operates the storestyle pantries twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4 p.m. On Tuesdays the pantry at Tillamook High School is open, while on Thursdays the pantry at Tillamook Junior High School welcomes students and parents. Abrogoua said that she will also open the pantries as needed for students facing emergencies and that both pantries are staffed by bilingual volunteers. See VFW, Page A4
See MERKLEY, Page A4
Manzanita breaks ground on city hall
lowed Stock and thanked the construction team and the staff at city hall, whose support she said had been and would continue to be critical to the project’s success. Aman noted the special contributions by Public Works Director Dan Weitzel and voiced her appreciation for the turnout at the event. “I’m so grateful and surprised and moved and also unsurprised to see so many people out here today,” Aman said, “so thanks for taking your time on your Saturday when it’s pouring rain.” Architect Chris Keane, Project Manager Jesse Steiger and Cove Built LLC Owner Jason Stegner also spoke, with Stegner highlighting the number of local subcontractors that would be employed on the project. Finally, Kozlowski took the stage and thanked the project team and city council for its hard work before the council officially broke ground on the project. “We would not be here today without all of you,” Kozlowski said, “it is your support, your energy, your feedback, your caring, your working with us to get what I think will be an extraordinary city hall. So, with that and with our great thanks, let’s dig it.”
BRAD HART
Headlight Herald Guest Article
R
esidents and leaders from Manzanita and across north Tillamook County gathered on April 6, at Underhill Plaza to break ground on a new city hall and police station facility. The long-awaited facility is expected to take 14 months to complete and will be built by local contractors, Cove Built LLC. “We’ve had fits and starts but finally we’re here,” said Council President Linda Kozlowski, “and it really is thanks to our wonderful city manager and staff, it’s thanks to our great team and it’s thanks to a very brave and strong city council who said, ‘by god, we’re going to get this thing done.’” The ceremony took place on a rainy Saturday morning but more than 150 residents braved the inclement weather to witness the groundbreaking. For almost 30 years, successive city governments and administrations have discussed building a new city hall, but time and again efforts were stymied for various reasons. After the failure of a ballot question asking voters to approve a tax increase to fund a new facility
COURTESY PHOTO FROM JOHN GARCIA
From left to right: Manzanita City Councilors Jerry Spegman and Tom Campbell, Mayor Kathryn Stock, Councilors Brad Har and Linda Kozlowski, and City Manager Leila Aman break ground on the a new police station and city hall on April 6.
in 2019, the council began exploring different options. Eventually, the Underhill Plaza site was identified and a design was developed that will house both the police station and city hall in a facility with a guaranteed maximum price of $4.6 million. The city is financing the project through a loan from Business
Oregon’s Special Public Works Fund and will pay back the borrowed money over the course of ten years. At the groundbreaking ceremony, Mayor Kathryn Stock spoke first and thanked current and former city councilors for their support of the project. She also gave special thanks to ex-City Manager
Jerry Taylor, who was instrumental in early efforts at starting the project, and the community as a whole. “A sincere thank you, we are all part of this community together,” Stock said, “if I could, those of you who know me you know I might actually try but I won’t try to introduce every person that’s here.” City Manager Leila Aman fol-
Tillamook Beekeepers Assoc. is featuring
Headlight Herald
Bee Days 2024
• Honey products & plants for pollinators for sale • Educational workshops • Enter to win a Bee Hive
Cosponsored by Tillamook County Solid Waste
s ndor e V New affles R Food d o Go ts Plan
Citizen • Food by Pacific Restaurant April 20-21, Sat 9-4 & Sun 11-4 Still booking vendors! FREE ADMISSION • Monkey Business 101: Lots of berry plants & fruit trees, FREE ADMISSION & PARKING Bee Day 2022 503-842-7535 monkey puzzle trees Tillamook County Fairgrounds • Garden Witch Goods: Plant starts including decorative flowers to veggies headlightads@countrymedia.net Spring into Home & Garden Savings at the annual Home & Garden Show 20% off new & renewing subscriptions of the Headlight Herald North Coast
Saturday, April 30 9 am to 4 pm
Sunday, May 1 11 am to 4 pm
Tillamook Beekeepers Association is Presenting
at Tillamook County Fairgrounds
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