The Mook Golf Course unveils Miniature Golf and new Island Hole
Honl focuses on north coast families in state house run
THS track teams stand out Page B1
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, April 28, 2026 | Vol. 138, Issue 16
37th Home and Garden show a rousing success T
he Tillamook Headlight Herald’s 37th annual Home and Garden show took place last weekend at the Tillamook County Fairgrounds, giving attendees the chance to stock up on home and garden supplies, meet candidates for local office, learn about bees, trees and recycling, and observe demonstrations by area first responders. Tillamook County Solid Waste
cosponsored the show, with the Tillamook Beekeepers Association holding its annual Bee Days event throughout the weekend and local fire departments and LifeFlight giving demonstrations on Saturday. There were also raffles from the beekeepers and Kiwanis Club of Tillamook, among others, tasty food from Pacific Restaurant and Fryer and Ice, and oodles of flowers, trees, fruits and vegetables.
Theo Hilby talks to a Tillamook Firefigher at the safety fair as his parents Nathan and Jada and sister Ellie look on. Photo by Joe Warren
Photo by Katherine Mace
Photo by Katherine Mace
Wheeler council accepts emergency resilience hub
County to help USACE with Tillamook Bay dredging permitting Will Chappell
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Headlight Editor
t their meeting on April 22, Tillamook County commissioners gave Tillamook County Director of Community Development Sarah Absher permission to take the lead on permitting a United States Army Corps of Engineers project to dredge the channel between the Port of Garibaldi and the tip of Bayocean Spit. The project will take place after the completion of the rehabilitation of the south jetty at the entrance to the bay this summer and aim to increase navigability and the flow of water through the channel between the jetties. Port of Garibaldi General Manager Mike Saindon appeared at the meeting alongside Absher and explained that lots of sediment was flowing down the Miami River and being deposited in the channel, leading to daily incidents of boats running around while trying to enter the port’s boat basin. Saindon said that dredging was
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Will Chappell
a challenge at ports statewide, with all 23 public ports in the state facing issues with trying to fund dredging projects, as costs have in some cases quadrupled since 2019, with the port’s dredging needs for its boat basin alone jumping in price from $500,000 to $2 million. Saindon said that the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) had agreed to do the larger project several years ago but only recently secured funding to support the inflated costs. However, USACE staff will not go through the necessary state and county permitting processes, Absher said, a common occurrence with corps projects. Given the project’s importance to the local economy, Absher said that she felt it would be appropriate for her to take the lead on permitting. The main concern as relates to permitting the project, Absher said, is identifying a suitable location for the dredged material to be deposited. To do so, Absher is workSee dredging, Page B2
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Headlight Editor
t their April 21 meeting, Wheeler city council unanimously voted to accept two 40-foot Conex boxes containing emergency supplies from Oregon’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management, which will be installed at Wheeler’s Upper Park. The containers will house food and medical supplies and communications equipment and be attached to a propane generator and solar array, allowing them to serve as an assembly point during emergent situations and support small communities’ needs for one to two months. Wheeler had previously applied to the Office of Resilience and Emergency Management (OREM), a subdivision of the Oregon Department of Human Services, for resilience hub placement in 2024, but that application was not selected. Kevin Lindsey, OREM’s operations chief who spoke at the council meeting, said that the office had received 700 applications in that initial round of resilience hub funding requests and that none of the
hubs ended up on the coast. However, last year, the office found $3.2 million in unused funds in its budget and decided to use that money to expand the program further, with a focus on the coast. Lindsey said that Tillamook County had been selected to receive six resilience hub sites in this round of funding, all of which will be in place by the end of the year, bringing the county’s total to seven, including one already onsite at the Port of Tillamook Bay. Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay President Trish Johnson also spoke at the meeting, saying that after the city’s initial grant was rejected, representatives from her organization, the cities of Wheeler, Nehalem, Rockaway Beach and Manzanita, the Nehalem Bay Health District and the two local firefighting entities had come together to discuss possible sites for hubs. Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell and Emergency Manager Randy Thorpe also joined the group, and over the past year, they identified the Upper Park and a site in Manzanita as good candidates to receive See wheeler, Page B2
Tillamook council set to raise sewer rates 35% Will Chappell Headlight Editor
Following extensive discussions at their recent meetings, Tillamook city council asked City Manager Sean Lewis to bring a sewer rate increase of 35% for consideration at their next meeting, which would see the base rate for residential customers increase from $92.68 monthly to $125.12. The resolution asking for the resolution passed 5-1, with Councilor Hope Bouchard voting against, and will instruct Lewis to begin preparing a general bond obligation question to put before voters in November 2027, with the goal of removing the need for double-digit percentage increases in the rate in the next two years. Council also delayed a decision on increasing the city’s water rates, asking that Lewis gather more information on what increase, if any, is necessary this year to maintain access to a Business Oregon line of credit that the city secured last year but is not currently using. Lewis began the sewer rate increase discussion by telling council about inquiries he had made into Councilor Justin Aufdermauer’s suggestion that the city seek voter approval of a general obligation bond to support the $45 million in infrastructure projects needed by the system over the next 25 years. Based on discussions with three different bonding agencies, Lewis said that a general obligation bond for the city would come in with an interest rate around 5%, meaning that a $40 million bond with a 20-year term would require $2.9 million in annual debt service. Given the city’s assessed property value of $536,157,875, Lewis said the debt service would require homeowners pay $5.41 per thousand dollars of assessed value, or between $1,300 and $1,500 annually for a home valued at $300,000. Lewis said that based on his back-of-the-napkin math, a 40% increase in rates this year, followed by 12.5% increases in the next two years and increases pegged to inflation for the next 20 years, the total annual cost to end consumers would be less than $800. Regardless the long-term approach, Lewis said that each of the bonding agencies he had spoken with, as well as direct lenders and bond counsel, had stressed that the water rate increases were necessary to put the utility in a place to access a See rate increase, Page B2
IN THIS ISSUE Send us a news tip at tillamookheadlightherald.com | Your message could be the first thing our readers see! News A2-3, 8, B1-2 Opinion A4-7 Obituaries A7 Sports B1 Classifieds B3-8
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