Long ago at a local Double Happiness I opened a fortune cookie with this note, “You’ll accomplish more if you start now.” The message was and remained strangely arresting. As I held the little note in my two hands, I drifted back into a dream, decades old. A sequence opened where I was kneeling in a garden that was clearly neglected. Immediately, I realized it was my garden, the dream offered an awakening. As awareness returned, turning to the note, then to our table, I felt gifted. If the opposite of loneliness is presence, we can all abandon wishing. A begging bowl will often remain empty. Danger lies in not stopping. The inertia of what is not seen brings gravity. “You’ll accomplish more if your start now.
Neahkahnie School Superintendent, Dr. Tyler Reed gave an informative and lively presentation last week at the Manzanita Pine Grove Community House, highlighting the financial challenges our school district faces, and the need for a local school levy.
In short, revenues from logging are falling in Tillamook County, and our schools face a $2.7 million deficit. To maintain a high level of educational support for our students, our schools need a new funding source. Please visit the links below to learn more, and be sure to vote YES on Measure 29-184 nknsd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Mailer-4-25-1.pdf nknsd.org/levy_calculator/
The County TLT tax increase now under discussion took me back to a related topic when the Manzanita Council was considering what to do with the Quonset Hut on the Underhill property.
I pointed out that the case for the Q hut being eligible for City and County TLT funds for rehab would be easy given its potential to enhance the Farmer’s Market activities. An indoor space for local artisans and vendors for Saturday market activities including expanded space for the Hoffman Center for arts and performance activities year round would additionally be possible to satisfy the funding requirements as a tourism related facility.
Local benefits included the fact that our Public Works loved the covered storage space the building provided for its equipment. And don’t forget how the EVC told us when the Underhill site was purchased, it would serve as the City site to shelter displaced locals and visitors in the event of disaster. 3,200 square feet of covered space would have been a nice addition to the EVC ability to fulfill this promise.
The costs to repair and remediate the structural issues with the Q Hut were estimated to be $260,000. Manzanita currently has almost $1 million dollars in its Tourism Fund that has to be spent on tourism related projects like the Q Hut and it struggles to spend that existing $1 million with another $285,000 forecast to be collected this budget year. Tillamook County Tourism is also begging cities to apply for annual grants for projects to pass out the growing surplus of funds that it must distribute.
Our Council could have saved an interesting architectural structure that preserved a piece of Manzanita’s history, saved $40,000 in demolition costs and kept a facility that provided all of the above community benefits that was totally paid for by visitors. Somehow the practical and financial logic of that decision escaped our City officials.
This matter reminds me of the quote that citizens should be concerned when leaders who have all the facts and proper information and still make the wrong decision.
Riley Gaines visited PSU yesterday! (It’s unclear if she was permitted to speak…)
Here is Riley Gaines (below) in her own words. I find her to be well-spoken, kind, and, although she is a Christian, very much based in scientific reality. She fights to keep men out of women’s sports. You see, she was the number one college female swimmer in the world, then a man with a penis showed up in the locker room and, after making all the women athletes feel awkward as hell, he then went on the win the college women’s swimming championship! Now he has a gold medal for winning the women’s championship AND he has a penis!!! Talk about accomplishments!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-kinevyxJg
Riley was scheduled to speak at PSU, but members of the trans community would have none of Riley’s logic and reason!
Luckily, there are still some folks good enough and brave enough to be cops in Wokeland and several of the violent protestors were arrested!
Thanks for coming to Wokeland Riley! Wish I coulda heard ya talk!
BONUS!
Here is a geo-engineering conference at University of Washington that might have been of interest to folks! Unless of course you STLL don’t believe that SAI is happening in Tillamook and Clatsop counties…
And remember to look up and investigate the Johnson Near Space Center in Tillamook!
I am giving my full support for Christy Kay’s candidacy for Position 5, North County Recreation District. As Mayor of Nehalem, I have admired and greatly appreciated Christy’s unyielding effort as a business owner and community member to keep our youth and city thriving.
Christy’s collaborative work with other local businesses and the non-profit HUGGS has breathed life into our city at critical times. Much of her volunteer work has focused on recognizing our local teens; providing them opportunities, encouragement, and fun.
Our local teens are one portion of our community who are underserved at our local recreation district, and I am confident that Christy’s contributions can improve this. I also look forward to the great potential that her presence on the NCRD Board will bring toward fostering a closer partnership between the City and NCRD, which has historically existed since the district’s inception.
I am voting for Christy because she is in-tune with the pulse of the community. Christy Kay has the spirit of North Tillamook County and the best interest of the community close to her heart. She will offer much both programmatically and fiscally to support the mission of the North County Recreation District, as well as for the people it serves.
We have been in business here for 10 wonderful years helping with your cleaning needs. I have many years of experience with both private homes and vacation rentals, making sure everything is clean and running smoothly.
We do Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whenever you need cleanings for friends & family visits, for your home or Vacation Rental.
Please call 503-717-2585 to help you with your cleaning needs.
Heritage Apple Project Over the last two years, members and friends of the White Clover Grange have been seeking out heritage apple trees planted by homesteaders in North Tillamook County and spreading their goodness to new local homes! Supported by grants from the Tillamook County Cultural Coalition, scions of these trees have been grafted to new root stock to bear fruit once more. Read all about it here! www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/bloom-spring-2025/sweet-roots/
…where he’s uniting the richest people in the world who’ve ever existed with many working class people?
A: They have all given up on this world. They’ve bought into a kind of apocalyptic fever?”
For me, this has been one of the least understandable pieces of our new extremist age. How can so many disparate people, groups and movements possibly believe they will benefit by signing up for this horror?
In a recent post about digital ‘currency’ there was reference to ‘climate change’ calling it a scam. Most people know it’s not, but lately I’ve encountered a lot more disinformation about climate change. One tactic seems to be acknowledging global warming but then calling climate change a scam, or a belief, or a feeling. It’s not.
Climate change is simply observed and has nothing to do with feelings or beliefs. Historically it changes slowly over thousands of years along driven by global warming or cooling. The problem now is it’s changing rapidly, noticeably affecting life on our planet in just decades and leaving insufficient time to adapt. What we are experiencing is more analogous to dinosaur extinction, except we still have a choice in the outcome.
There’s a good, simple page on the subject at the link below to climate.gov. It was published June 17th, 2015 (pre-Trump). It’s still up there now, but we’ll see for how long since the administration is eliminating what it doesn’t like. If they had any principles they wouldn’t need to silence scientific findings or other points of view.
United Paws of Tillamook is seeking foster volunteers who can open their homes to homeless kittens. Please call us to explore this opportunity further.
In the view of many, and I agree, one of the greatest threats to the freedom of ALL Americans IN THE NEXT YEAR OR TWO is the billionaire-bankers push to get rid of cash. (This is why Trump was installed in my view – to get MAGA to support this as they otherwise would fight the hell out of the anti-Christian attempt to control human freedom via money.)
If that is done, we will all be at the mercy of the richest of the rich, no matter which party we ‘elect’.
It doesn’t matter if you love Trump or hate Trump. It doesn’t matter if you have purple hair, are in a triad, and are a regular smoker of medicinal weed. Maybe you are a born again Christian. Perhaps you are a priest in the Church of Satan. Maybe you think the border should be wide open; maybe you think it should be closed.
All of those differences do not matter to the anti-American anti-human billionaires who have illegally taken control of our monetary system and have been stealing from us for decades.
Once they control our access to money, via digital control (it is NOT digital currency, for it is no longer currency) they control us. End of story. End of America. Hello communism. Hello fascism.
Didn’t take the bird flu shot? No access to your money until you do. (And DO NOT tell me our government would never do that!!!!!!! Cuz they – Western govts – done did that sh*t once before already, in Canada and elsewhere, while Democrats stateside cheered them on and begged Biden to do it here!!!!)
Took a stand against Trump deporting American citizens? You’re cut off from your money!!!!
(Remember Elon intends to turn ‘X’ into a bank. Re-read as necessary, and learn to love your cash. Get rid of Apple Pay. Get rid of PayPal. Stop supporting Amazon. Etc. you know what to do, and the time is now. What a great time to bring back local currencies to Tillamook and Clatsop counties.)
But maybe Oregon Democrats want the government to be in charge of their money? Overall, it seems Dems like being told what to do and how to think by their government, as opposed to those rebellious MAGA folk. But maybe with Trump and Musk in, MAGA will also fall for the ‘get rid of cash’ scam from the billionaire bankers??
But the left seems taken way in by digital everything already. For example, a big con in the digital cash push is ‘climate change’. I know, if you’re MAGA you can see how idiotic and obvious a scam ‘climate change’ has become. But the Dems believe in climate change like a lot of ya’ll believe in Jesus. So convincing them it’s a scam tied to the dissolution of cash is gonna be real tough.
We don’t have to agree on everything to keep America free, but we all need to agree that getting rid of cash cannot and will not happen, or this, humanity’s latest experiment in democracy, is over.
Below is a smart woman talking about all of this stuff, as a guest on the show of the only Republican I know who has apologized profusely, again and again, for supporting the Iraq war. (Actually, I never heard apologies from Wyden or Hillary or any Dem that supported destroying Iraq for Israel.)
Time to VOTE! I don’t normally make public statements about politics, but this year’s Special Election hits close to home.
Firstly – I will be voting YES for the Neahkahnie School Districts’ proposed 5 year option tax detailed in measure 29-184. Our children are our future – and I can’t think of a better investment.
Secondly – I will be voting in support of Doug Sparks for the NCRD Board of Directors (position 5). Although both candidates for this position seem to be wonderful choices – with values well aligned with NCRD’s mission, I have had the privilege of working closely with Doug on the NCRD board for over a year now. When Doug first reached out to me regarding a vacant board position, I felt optimistic and hopeful that he would be a good fit. Since officially joining the Board, his contributions have far exceeded my expectations. Not only is his prior background with Nike a tremendous asset for NCRD, but Doug is a genuine professional with what seems to be a deeply seeded passion for building community and helping others.
(Disclaimer: I am the current Board Chair at NCRD. However the above endorsements are mine alone and do not in any way reflect or imply a formal position on behalf of the district or the board.)
Doug has the expertise and commitment. He listens and cares deeply about community. NCRD will truly benefit from Doug’s continued leadership. – Julie Resnick
Hello BBQ Peruser,
I’m writing to urge you to vote YES for the 5-year Neahkahnie School District Levy on your ballot. Timber revenues allotted to the district are far below what was forecast, and the need is critical. In exchange for the cost of a nice cup of coffee per month ($5.50 for the average property owner– you do tip, right?) you will be helping to: “prevent reductions to teaching and staff positions; maintain current average class sizes; maintain extracurricular and athletics programs; support Career and Technical Education and Dual Credit/Expanded Options courses; and avoid the loss of instructional time through potential furlough days.” (from the District site, nknsd.org/levy/) My understanding is that the funding support would be equal to more than 20 teaching positions in our very small district. I don’t want to imagine the hit our kids and teachers would take without this critical funding. I feel that the average property owner offering the equivalent of a nice cup of coffee to our teachers and district staff once a month is a very good investment, maintaining the quality of a district that factors meaningfully into property values, and Mightily toward the common good. Thanks! Carl Whiting, Wheeler Resident
Told ya so! Look up! Spray days are quite obvious on the coast, from Tillamook to Astoria. They spray a lot more around Portland. But they don’t fly out of Seattle and spray every day. And you have to look up! Bird watchers should be well-aware of spray days; they are very obvious.
The Johnson Near Space Center located at the Tillamook Airport is involved with these guys and the Tillamook County Commissioners should investigate these arrogant anti-American/anti-Oregonian AND THEN SHUT THEM DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GOVERNOR KOTEK SHOULD INVESTIGATE THESE CRIMINALS AND STOP THEM!!!!!!!!
Why do we have to hear about this on a Dr. Phil television show?????
“The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) was responding to an audience member’s question, who said chemtrails (or stratospheric aerosol injections) were her biggest concern when it comes to public health. He added that HHS was not responsible for the alleged decision to spray chemicals into the atmosphere, but he did have his suspicions of who would have done it. ‘That is not happening in my agency,’ RFK Jr declared. ‘You know, we don’t do that. It’s done — we think — by DARPA.’ DARPA is the Pentagon’s secretive innovation agency, in charge of driving high-risk, high-reward research for defense purposes and beyond. Their research is also believed to include advances in medical tech and AI.”
(DARPA does all sorts of nasty anti-human, anti-American work for the billionaire class, at our expense! This includes the ‘covid’ campaign and engineered economic shutdown, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves…)
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon OregonWatchdog.com
Just this week, the Oregon Senate voted to STRIP VOTERS OF THE RIGHT TO VOTE in an election to fill a vacant U.S. Senate Seat — which is current law. Senate Bill 952 would change the rules by letting the GOVERNOR DECIDE FOR THE VOTERS ON WHOM THEIR SENATOR SHOULD BE. With U.S. Senator Ron Wyden looking more frail than ever before and announced plans to run for re-election in 2028 — this bill may be prophetic.
THE GOVERNOR WILL CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATE FOR YOU- Senate Bill 952 strips voters of the right to vote in U.S. Senate replacement elections. Cant vote for the candidate to represent you!!
STEAL YOUR KICKER TAX FOR YOU WITHOUT A VOTE! • House Bill 1177 would by force steal the people’s kicker tax refund without a vote and DESPITE THAT ITS IN THE CONSTITUTION That bill had a speedy hearing so you wouldn’t notice your rights are being debated away. NO MORE KICKER!
• Gov. Kotek drafted House Bill 2528 would empower her agencies to extend taxes and ban products related to nicotine and TO DO SO WITHOUT A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE or the people’s elected representatives. People opposed this idea 9-to-1 and yet it is still being pushed.
• Senate Joint Resolution 30 would slow-down and Increase number of signatures needed to put a citizen measure on the ballot by as much as 33% and also require signature gathering jurisdiction requirements.
SB 687 WOULD REMOVE VOTER APPROVAL of local gas taxes.
• HB 3166 would strip political parties of the ability TO FULLY NOMINATE THEIR OWN CANDIDATE while forcing rank-choice voting on Oregonians despite that the fact that the rank vote scheme was rejected by Oregon voters just months ago in the November 2024 General election!
Friends of North County Recreation District are selling SPRING BOUQUETS on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Flowers will be for sale in downtown Manzanita at the Little Apple Grocery Store. The Spring Bouquets will cost $10 and will be down at the Deli by 10 AM all three days. Friends will be digging dahlia tubers in the next 3 days, and they will be for sale soon. Stay tuned. Thank you for supporting the Friends Program at NCRD. Friends Mission is to support NCRD programs and projects through promotion and fundraising. Friends provides scholarships to encourage inclusion for all. Thank you to our incredible donors and volunteers. See you Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings!
My partner and I committed our lives to working with children and families in public education,
often advocating for children and families who were not easily served in a regular education setting.
Together we worked over 70 years in full-time work in public schools.
You may or may not know that we are blessed to have Tyler Reed as our new superintendent. He is
demonstrating that he is very capable and sincere in working with teachers, parents, and students. He is dedicated and able to elevate what we are able to provide the children here.
But the radical short-fall in timber funding that is now threatening us is real and will have real impacts on the programs and services that our children and families need.
It has always been clear that community well being depends on the quality of support that families receive from our local schools.
The very small request of property owners in the upcoming election is truly needed to preserve what we take for granted. A Yes Vote on 29-184 will enable our wonderful teachers and support staff to continue the great work that we see. Class size, programs and services, it all matters and is now dependent on your voting. We can do this for our children.
Announced by the lengthening days, they arrived, a curious tribe of upbeat swallows. After serious attempts to discourage urgent nesting efforts, deconstructing the bits of mud and moss, all the debris that has been carefully brought together, I smile and surrender to what is unfolding. With the rising sun, hungry little beaks now perch at the edge of a nest, eager for the return of mother and father. Routine is established. One day I open our door and see a baby has fallen out of the nest. Cold and still, it rests on our front porch. The next day yet another has somehow fallen. It was right to stop, remember, to offer time. In the stream of days, the last baby is flying and the collective simply moves on. This morning I noticed their nest remains still intact under our front eves, close to new wind chimes. We are passing through the winter solstice now. The days are beginning to get longer. I smile, fondly awaiting the return of these friends.
the green japanese maple trees on my steep hillside have been at it again, producing 1000’s (yes, this years it’s THOUSANDS) of tiny seedlings.
i don’t know what variety they are, only that they have green leaves, and that they are flung in abundance from seven green japanese maple trees.
any one who wants them may come and get as many as you like. the digging is MINIMAL, only a trowel needed. just give me an email reply (babbles@nehalemtel.net) or call my cellphone 503-812-4637. i live in nehalem.
Vote YES for ballot measure 29-184 on May 20. The Neah-Kah-Ne School District students deserve to have a quality education which includes reasonable class size, enough staff and support personnel, transportation due to the great distance the district covers, excellent education in the core curriculum, art, music, journalism, athletics, career and college post high school preparation.
Students should not go without due to the $2,775,000 shortfall due to the decline in forestry funding. No district can operate year to year with such uncertainty. A new system must be put in place for funding to be stable and reliable because children’s well being are at stake. They are our future and should be treated with the care and concern they deserve.
Until such a new system can be put in place, this levy of approximately a few dollars each month for property owners must be passed so the district can assure the children and their families continued and growing pathways to success. Success for a student in the district means success for us all.
PEACEFUL PROTEST from 4:30-6:30 PM, Thursday, May 1 at the corner of Highway 101 and Laneda and Manzanita Avenues. You don’t have to be there right on the dot, and you don’t have to stay the whole time. Just come, bring your families, your neighbors, your best friends, your kids, a bottle of water, a chair, and a sign if you have one. We have extra signs. There will be 100’s of locations for this protest and thousands of people involved. We are being received very positively. And to let you know a can of food we will donate to the North Tillamook County Food Bank in Wheeler would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Dear BBQ Readers: I have been following the efforts by county commissioners to shift and broaden the sources of funding that our county relies on to provide citizens with necessary services. I appreciate the conscientious work this has required.
The current proposal to increase the transient lodging tax (TLT), which will be on our upcoming May 20 ballot, is an effort to leverage money from tourists and visitors to pay for services caused by their presence here, and that makes sense to me. Due to our visitor population, we have added costs that include road maintenance and public safety services and it’s appropriate for the visitors to pay for that.
As the owner of a short term rental in Tillamook County, I don’t pay the lodging taxes. Those taxes are paid for by the guests who stay at my rental. And while an increase in the lodging tax, especially a forty percent increase, might cause my guests to flinch, I still think it’s fair that they pay it. If visitors don’t pay for these additional costs, then those costs must be borne by all county residents and I don’t think that’s at all fair.
However, there is one aspect of this TLT system that irks me, and that is the state mandated 30/70 split, whereby 30% of the lodging tax dollars go into the county general fund, while 70% must be spent attracting tourists to our area. I know that in our county we have worked hard to allot some of that 70% on facilities that benefit visitors and residents alike, nonetheless, this split creates a hardship on our county budget.
I am willing to accept an increase in our TLT, but as part of this change, I would like the commissioners and the county to commit to putting resources towards pressuring the state to change the 30/70 split. Even a 50/50 split would be a big step forward.
Join me in supporting Cristy Kay for a position on the Board of the North Coast Recreation District (NCRD). Christy has long been an active and dedicated member of our North County community. Her store in downtown Nehalem has provided a venue for music, healing and solace (most notably after the loss of Lee Blackmon). She has been active in organizing monthly Teen Nights at North Coast Pinball. In fact she says that she will advocate for establishing a Teen Center at NCRD and I know she will be a strong advocate and support for community-wide access to all the many programs of our beloved NCRD.
Posted on April 27, 2025 by Editor Tillamook Pioneer By Madame Dana Zia
My dear beloved Earthlings,
The time has arrived with this Taurus New Moon on April 27th, for us to ground. There are so many temptations to spend time in our heads and out of our bodies right now. The temptations are fast, furious and full of forcefulness but they are empty.
What has meaning and soul is being grounded on the Earth right now. We have come through the gauntlet of the Eclipses that were the last two Lunar cycles and are on the other side. All planets are now direct and moving forward. Neptune has moved into Aries and is stirring the warriors in our souls. The weather is warm, flowers are blooming and bees are buzzing. We are being called to action! But first…… let’s remember to ground and bless the Earth we stand on. • The Taurus New Moon is always a blessed time to run our roots into the ground and feel the strength of our Mother Earth. Turn your attention away from the glaring chaos of the world and focus on getting outside and walking barefoot on the Earth. Listen to the birds and the sounds of nature. Breathe. Be. Today is certainly a great time to garden. It is also a time to do something deeply pleasurable with NO GUILT!
Taurus season is also about creation since it is a time that the Earth is in full bloom and life is sprouting from the Earth with zeal. This is a particularly potent time to start a creative project that you have been dreaming up but haven’t taken the time to do it.
The old saying “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” is very fitting of this season. Taurus is shined on by Venus the planet that represents beauty, creativity, love and pleasure. Those are exactly what a Taurus values.
In honor of this New Moon, I picked up rocks at the beach today to paint. I’ve had a vision to paint them and leave them around in public places as gifts. Today I’m going to start it! Walking on the beach, picking up rocks for a creative act of kindness felt so deliciously in tune.
One word of warning, this New Moon has a volatile aspect with Pluto and Mars so walk lightly on the Earth. You will probably get an opportunity to have a hostile encounter with someone, please breathe and don’t react. This is a bridge burning sort of aspect so think before you get “bull headed” and light the blow torch.
I had this opportunity come up today with someone very dear to me. I’m so pleased I knew about this aspect and relaxed into kindness.
Most importantly, relax into an unhurried day filled with the wonders of nature. Do something that is an Earthly pleasure with no guilt. Turn off media, lay down your phone and feel gratitude for our beautiful Mother Earth and the moment.
Hi BBQ land. My name is Drew and I convert 8mm and VHS tapes and DVD’s into digital files you can view on your phones/computers and share on your social media platforms. Saving these old tapes and discs is so important because our kid’s kids need to know and honor the people and places they came from. It is an easy, affordable and local process. Glad to answer any questions. Cheers, Drew.
Deportations by President The history of deportations in the United States reveals significant shifts in immigration policy and enforcement across different presidential administrations. We’ll compare how long each President was in office, the total number of deportations during their time, and the average number of removals per year. By looking at these numbers, we can see how different Presidents handled immigration and deportation. The analysis shows how changes in the country, new laws, and each President’s priorities have shaped these policies. From the Civil Rights era under President Lyndon B. Johnson to the more recent policies during President Biden’s time, this comparison helps us understand how each leader approached immigration. Whether focused on safety, the economy, or human rights, each administration’s deportation policies tell us a lot about the ongoing debate over immigration in America. Information on removal rates comes from the Department of Homeland Security. here is the link to the article: living.alot.com/entertainment/45-weirdest-presidential-facts–17063?s=11&isLong=0&isVertical=1
note: these presidents are not in order by date but the order is the number of deported. Obama deported most illegals by a very large number. Also true, he was responsible for cages for kids.
