Cheesemaker Javadi looks to golf competes build on first term in Cowapa successes League tourney Page A3
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | Vol. 136, Issue 19
In wake of Rau plea, questions linger about missing evidence
Tillamook prays
Tillamook stalwart Henson passes
WILL CHAPPELL
WILL CHAPPELL
Headlight Editor
Headlight Editor
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early 200 grams of methamphetamine, 25 methamphetamine pipes, $792 and a Smith and Wesson revolver were all removed from the Tillamook Police Department’s evidence storage at some point before May 9, 2023, an audit conducted by the Oregon State Police found. On April 3, former Tillamook Police Chief Raymond Rau pled no contest to two counts of official misconduct and admitted to removing evidence related to two found property cases involving drugs, while denying responsibility for additional irregularities. Despite the yawning gap between the amount of tampering confirmed and explained, the Oregon State Police (OSP) investigation into the matter has been concluded for eight months and a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice said that it has “filed criminal charges for each circumstance that was provable beyond a reasonable doubt.” This reporting is based on a review of the report on the OSP audit of the Tillamook Police Department’s (TPD) evidence room by the Headlight Herald. The audit was conducted May 16 and 17, 2023, a week after TPD’s evidence technician discovered methamphetamine missing from the evidence locker and Rau confessed to having removed it. An OSP evidence supervisor and two evidence technicians conducted the audit, with a detective overseeing the process and writing the final report. Over the course of two days, the auditors found that a total of 83 cases had been tampered with, 64 with a connection to drugs and 19 without. Most of the tampered cases involved the removal of baggies containing methamphetamine residue or small quantities of the drug, pipes for smoking it or, in some cases, both. But in one case, See RAU, Page A10
More than 50 residents gathered in front of the Tillamook County Courthouse on May 2, to celebrate the National Day of Prayer. Musicians led the crowd in several songs before various pastors and community members led prayers for a variety of groups from school children to the military to businesses.
ongtime Tillamook booster Doug Henson passed away on April 28, 2024, at the age of 75, succumbing to a prolonged illness. Henson served for more than 20 years on the Tillamook City Council and supported a laundry list of efforts to make Tillamook a better place for children, veterans and every citizen throughout his adult life. Born in Salem, Henson spent most of his life in Tillamook County. After graduating from Neah-Kah-Nie High School in 1966, Henson served in the army during the Vietnam Conflict, receiving a purple heart, bronze star and air medal, before returning to See HENSON, Page A9
County dialing in emergency radio bond specifics WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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group of Tillamook County staff is working to finalize the details of a bond question to support the replacement of the county’s emergency radio system that they plan to bring to voters in November. The new system would bring Tillamook’s emergency radio communications into the digital age and carries a projected price tag of $27 million. “Now, we need to come into the 21st century and we need to increase reliability,” said Tillamook County Commissioner Doug Olson, “we need to do all those things technically.” The system that currently supports emergency responders in the county was built between 2001 and 2003, following voter bond approval in 2001. The system consists of 12 towers spread across the county housing VHF repeaters. According to Rueben Descloux, communication systems administrator, the old system is overburdened and becoming challenging to keep
in service. The analog nature of the system limits the number of users that can simultaneously use the system while also constricting its range, making countywide communications impossible. The analog system is also more prone to static or other interference than a replacement system would be, with sometimes troubling results. Olson relayed the story of an officer-involved shooting that occurred last summer in Rockaway Beach during which the responding officers radioed for backup. But owing to interference other officers responding misheard the transmission and slowed their response believing the suspect was in custody. In addition to the technical constraints, the physical infrastructure of the system is deteriorating and replacement parts are becoming hard to come by. This leaves the system at risk of failures that could not be repaired, according to a report on the system by Federal Engineering completed in 2020. That report recommended that the county begin the process of replacing the aging system and a
second report that year, also by Federal Engineers, recommended a new, digital system and provided a conceptual design. At that point, the replacement system carried a projected budget of $20 million, but with inflation in the intervening years, that estimate has now risen to $27 million. Tillamook County Chief of Staff Rachel Hagerty is also a part of the team working on the new system and is leading the work to put the financial package together to support the project. Hagerty was already able to secure a $2 million federal appropriation last year and recently applied for another $8.9 million in federal funding. Hagerty is also working with bond consultants at Piper Sandler to determine the specifics of a bond question, which must be submitted by August for inclusion on the November ballot. Several factors, including the bond term and interest rates, will affect the tax rate necessary to support the bond but preliminary estimates from late 2023 showed a cost to taxpayers of between 15 and 38 cents per thousand dollars of assessed property
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IN THIS ISSUE News Opinion Obituaries Sports Classifieds
A2-4 A5-7 A7 A9-10 B11-18
value. In tandem with those efforts, Olson and Descloux are working to ramp up a public outreach campaign to educate voters about the need for a new system and promote the bond. The educational efforts will be led by Descloux, who exudes enthusiasm about the project and its implications for first responders across the county. Improvements to the system’s functionality will be achieved by the new system’s reliance on transmitting digitally encoded, binary signals rather than physical radio waves across the VHF frequencies the county uses. The encoded signals are much smaller than their analog counterparts, which will allow multiple users to communicate on the same channel simultaneously, reduce interference and increase signal range by 40%. The system will also be more automated, automatically switching between the transponders rather than requiring manual inputs by first responders and allow for
See COUNTY, Page A9
Celebrating a Graduate in your family this year?
This Special Section highlights our local high school graduates plus Valedictorians and Salutatorians.
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COURTESY PHOTO
Doug Henson.
COURTESY PHOTO
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