Our Time 55+ God’s Haulin’ Food Wagon, pg 7
Lila and Rock Wickham of Cannon Beach, pg 5
2024
Our Time 55+ Summer 2024 Inside
Stay active with community events, pg 3 Photo by Patricia Barry, Rockaway Beach Chamber of Commerce
Manzanita council approves solar for new city hall Page A2
Pat Patterson’s Totem Pole restoration project, pgs 6-7
Headlight Herald Headlight Herald
Citizen North Coast
Tuesday, June 11, 2024 | Vol. 136, Issue 24
www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
$1.50
Election results updated WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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he Tillamook County Clerk’s office released an update to election results on June 4, which showed that Tillamook County Commissioner Erin Skaar still appeared on track to avoid a November runoff election. As of the update, the clerk had accepted 8,591 ballots in the race, up from 7,783 on election day, pushing voter turnout over 40%. Official results must be submitted to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office by June 20, and the 116 voters who submitted ballots with missing or challenged signatures have until June 11 to remedy those issues. In the latest round of vote counting, Skaar’s total climbed from 3,792 to 4,208, pushing her percentage from 53.3% to 53.7% in the race for position one on the board of county commissioners. Jeff Spink held steady with 28.0% of the vote, while Bruce Lovelin’s share of the vote dipped slightly to 17.8% Unless Skaar’s vote total falls under 50%, she will be reelected, if it falls under that threshold she would face the second highest vote getter in a runoff in November. In the race for position two on the board, Paul Fournier remained on track for a victory with 70.4% of votes cast, and Kasandra Larson’s total held steady at 65.0% of votes cast in the race for Tillamook County Assessor.
COURTESY PHOTO
Junior Charity Drive overalls Abi Blackburn (left) and Kennedy Moncrief (right) awarded over $60,000 in grants to community organizations in front of Tillamook High School.
Charity Drive funds distributed WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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epresentatives from community groups gathered at Tillamook High School on June 4, where junior Charity Drive overalls Abi Blackburn and Kennedy Moncrief awarded them $61,829.72 in community grants. The awards accounted for 30% of the record $223,446.39 that Tillamook High School students raised in the annual fundraising initiative
in February, with 50% of the funds going to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and 20% to a scholarship program for graduating seniors. A committee including senior Charity Drive overalls Shayla Hillstrom and Peyton Rawe selected local organizations to receive the grant funding. The recipients were: Seventh Day Adventist, Church of the Nazarene, Living Water Fellowship, First Christian Church, Tillamook School District’s Backpack Program, the
Tillamook Beekeepers Association, Healthy Families of Tillamook County, Tillamook Family & Youth Services Team, Tides of Change, ARC of Tillamook County, Marie Mills Center, Inc., Tillamook Serenity Club, Compassion Tillamook, Tillamook Early Learning Center, Tillamook Swiss Society, Tillamook YMCA, Tillamook County Outdoor School, The Grinch Gang, Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge #94, Art Accelerated, Bay City Arts Center, Tillamook High School
SAFE, Adventist Health, Oregon Coast Children’s Theater & Youth Art Center, THS Interact Club, Tillamook Farmers Market, TCFA, Rockaway Writers Rendezvous, Tillamook K9 Rescue, Wave Steppers Club and Habitat for Humanity. The largest awards went to Church of the Nazarene and the First Christian Church, which each received $6,000 towards renovations, with the former renovating its children and youth room and the latter its dining room.
Rockaway Beach Kite Festival set to take flight STAFF REPORT Country Media, Inc.
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he 48th Annual Rockaway Beach Kite Festival will take to the skies this weekend, with demonstrations by professional kite flyers and opportunities for everyone to get in on the fun. Festivities begin at noon on Friday, with relaxed kite flying, before competitive kite flying takes center stage on Saturday and yields to a blend of competitive and relaxed flying on Sunday to round out the weekend. The festival is hosted by the Rockaway Beach Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by the American Kitefliers Association, which travels the country to spread the joy of kiting. A menagerie of extra-large, seacreature-shaped kites will fly over the beach all weekend and other demonstrations of kite flying skill will be performed on Saturday and
Sunday, including a lighted, nighttime show, weather allowing. Saturday’s competitive flying will include awards for a variety of accomplishments, ranging from prettiest kite to kite that drags on the ground the longest before becoming airborne. There will also be live music and vendors located at the wayside throughout the festival, with almost 30 businesses signed up to participate from Pronto Pup to the Rockaway Renaissance Artists, Native American Fry Bread, Sharp Henna and many more. Attendees are invited to bring their own kites to join in the action, while children will have the opportunity to participate in classes that will teach them to build a small kite. The festival will take place on Friday, June 14, from noon to 6 p.m., on Saturday, June 15, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Sunday, June 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
COURTESY PHOTO FROM MANUEL COTA
Kites in the sky over Rockaway Beach during the 2023 festival.
Plans progress for housing development in Manzanita WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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he investors developing the 70-acre Manzanita Highlands property are moving forward on a vision to include 170 units of affordable and workforce housing on a 12.5-acre parcel as part of the project. Rick Hinkes from Encore Investments, the firm that owns the property, appeared at the Tillamook County Housing Commission’s June 6 meeting to detail the project’s progress. Hinkes said that he and his business partner have owned the 70-acre property in Manzanita
for more than a decade and had initially focused on building the Highlands at Manzanita, a subdivision consisting of custom homes ranging from $850,000 to more than $3 million. As part of the development, Hinkes said that he and his business partner also wanted to contribute to the community by adding needed affordable housing. To that end, they designated a 12.5-acre portion of the property for multifamily housing, committing to make it affordable for developers to build affordable or workforce housing. Encore has identified two companies to develop the housing, with
IN THIS ISSUE News A2-4 Fenceposts A4, 6 Letters to the Editor A5 Obituaries A7-9 Classifieds B1-8 Our Time 55+ Inside
Home First Green Light and Maker both joining the project. Home First built the recently opened Willet Apartments in Tillamook and plans to build 60 apartments across five buildings in the Manzanita Pines project. 12 of those units would be affordable to residents making just 30%of the area median income (AMI), while the rest would be affordable to residents making between 60% and 80% AMI. Maker is planning a two-phase project, with each to consist of 34 one-bedroom apartments affordable to residents making 80-120% AMI. Both projects received Tilla-
mook County multi-family housing grants in March for predevelopment, with Manzanita Pines receiving $75,000 and Maker Manzanita receiving $50,000. The project also received a major boost when the City of Manzanita was awarded a $2.7-million grant from the state legislature to build new water and stormwater infrastructure for the project. Unfortunately, Hinkes said that the grant would only pay to build new processing facilities and that the developers had been informed that extending lines to the project site would require an additional $1.3 million. Hinkes said that both developers and Manzanita staff are
looking for other grants or possible sources of funding to pay for that work. Hinkes also said that the two developers who are already involved in the project have only accounted for 10 of the 12.5 acres and that he and his business partner are looking for somebody to develop the rest of the land and realize the complete 170-unit capacity. The Manzanita Council also held a first public reading and signaled its intention to pass an ordinance annexing the 12.5-acre parcel into the city’s limits and rezoning it to allow for multi-family housing at its June meeting.
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