We have permanent solution’s.
Offering full exclusion ensuring your home is free from unwanted guests
Message for a free estimate
Crittergetters97130@gmail.com
A special nod of gratitude goes to our Golden Sponsors – Mohler Sand and Gravel, Nehalem Lumber, Home and Sea Realty, Manzanita Fresh Foods, Coast Construction, Manzanita Deli, and Manzanita Lumber (thanks for letting us confiscate your wife, Dave!).
It’s difficult to include all our fearless local artisan and business pie creators, but here goes: Downie’s Cafe Strawberry Rhubarb and Banana Cream Pie (Oh my!), Buttercup in Nehalem for Shepherd’s Pies (which this writer missed by 2 seconds), Offshore Grill for two tasty Peach Pies, a Boston Cream Pie and a Vegetable Quiche crafted by The Roost, two wonderful Cherry Pies from the Bunkhouse Restaurant, two feast pies from the Little Apple Deli, and the biggest test of this writer’s honesty and restraint, a Key Lime Pie (which I almost absconded with) accompanied by a nicely presented Chocolate Eclair Pie.
Also, Wild Grocery and Cafe for their Braised Chicken Pot Pie, and the Smoked Salmon Quiche from the Neahkahnie Smokehouse, both of which were enjoyed a few days later by six of us Grange members who partnered up to achieve the winning bids – delicious dinner and wonderful companionship.
Last but certainly not least, added support from Renee and the crew at Mohler Co-Op, Lunacy Coffee superbly complimenting the Feast Pie offerings, Manzanita News and Espresso, Pelican and Piper, Unfurl, Murrelet Herb and Tea Farm, and the Nehalem Food Mart – you put the ice cream in the “Feast Pie and Ice Cream Table”.
These folks deserve your support during these long winter months – they really stepped up to keep our Community Gathering Venue viable for everyone’s use. We salute you and your passion for doing great things for our Tri-Village area!!
Sincerely,
Your Lovely Parking Attendant at the White Clover Grange
TEEN NIGHT at North Coast Pinball is this Friday February 20th, 6-8PM. FREE PINBALL and Games, Arts/Crafts for ALL TEENS! ALL TEEN WELCOME! (Teens Only)
Please spread the word and send your teens in for FREE FUN
Contact Christy (503) 800-1092 for info/questions or to donate
Imagine
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today, ah
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Winston Lennon
Imagine lyrics © Lenono Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgkThdzX-8
“No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal,
Arming me from fear.”
Emily Bronte
Please check it out and give generously–sowing your own seeds of love.
The Giving Guide and detailed directories of the organizations can be found at www.northcoastbbq.com/local-resources/
The Giving Guide can also be found here:
www.northcoastbbq.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Giving-Guide-2025-26_Final_Spreads3.pdf
Not every organization can afford a paid profile, which pays for the production. So there is a list of contact information for all in the back of the Guide.
Here are descriptions of several of those organizations:
Heart of Cartm
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers
Hoffman Center for the Arts
Heart of Cartm
PO Box 122,
Manzanita, OR 97130
971-389-8414
info@heartofcartm.org
www.heartofcartm.org
instagram: @heartofcartm
Facebook: Heart of Cartm
Creative Reuse Store & Repair Workshop
395 Nehalem Boulevard
Wheeler, Oregon 97147
Mission Statement: Heart of Cartm exists to reimagine, reuse, and repair the resources of our community, prioritizing creative solutions and practical systems that move us toward a zero-waste future.
One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
Heart of Cartm turns trash into possibility. Our programs include the HeartWorks Studio makerspace,
the Creativity Café community workshops, Repair Café events, and the Resourcerers donor circle—
all designed to inspire reuse, reduce waste, and strengthen community creativity. From hands-on art
sessions to local clean-ups and rural recycling education, we help people see materials—and
themselves—as part of a circular, regenerative story.
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers
PO Box 413
Seaside, OR 97138
503-354-8014 contact_us@helpinghandsreentry.org
www.helpinghandsreentry.org
Alan Evans, Founder and President a.evans@helpinghandsreentry.org
Joshua Blomquist, COO j.blomquist@helpinghandsreenty.org
Tonja Hodgkinson, Deputy Director & CFO t.hodgkinson@helpinghandsreentry.org
Brianne Prince, Facility Director 503-354-8014
b.prince@helpinghandsreentry.org
Mission statement: Helping Hands provides hope and care through personal, trauma-informed programs to individuals experiencing homelessness.
One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers provides navigation, emergency shelter, and transitional housing through a Reentry Program for individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Tillamook County through the Tillamook Hope Center. By connecting people with resources and with case management, Helping Hands empowers individuals to build a sustainable life.
Hoffman Center for the Arts
PO Box 678
594 Laneda Ave
Manzanita, OR 97130
info@hoffmanarts.org
www.hoffmanarts.org
Instagram: @hoffmancenterforthearts
Facebook: @hoffmancentermanzanita
India Downes-Le Guin, Executive Director
i.downes-leguin@hoffmanarts.org
Mission statement: Hoffman Center for the Arts provides opportunities for artistic and cultural access, education, exploration, and collaboration.
One paragraph about your organization’s history/work:
The Hoffman Center for the Arts (HCA) is a vibrant community hub in Manzanita, Oregon, dedicated to bringing people of all ages together through creativity and learning. Offering exhibitions, classes, workshops, and special events, HCA creates opportunities for new, emerging and established artists to share their work while fostering connection, curiosity, and exploration on the North Coast and beyond.
Heather Cox Richardson reporting on Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker delivering State of the State address.
This isn’t the first time that our democracy has been threatened by oligarchic interests. Democracy was won out over these attacks from within, and let’s each do everything possible to make sure that democracy wins out once more.
I had never heard of John Peter Altgeld, who was governor of Illinois from 1893 to 1897. He was a governor who instituted changes that benefited the ordinary citizen, rather than pouring more money into the coffers of the wealthy.
I also learned that in only one year “The Trump administration has cost Illinois $8.4 billion.” I wonder what the cost to Oregon has been. We know that in this moment, as I type these words, our Oregon legislature is grappling with a millions-of-dollars budget shortfall due to cuts in federal aid.
It’s time for middle and working-class Americans to again have a fair shot at a secure living. As one example, surely each of us has noticed the escalating costs in grocery stores.
The expression that Pritzker uses, “… proclamations from the Lollipop Guild”, would be more amusing if it were in some comic book story–rather than coming from the very top echelon of our government in real time. Unfortunately, our federal “Lollipop Guild” is anything but benign and amusing. Rather, it is inflicting deep, long-lasting harm to the rights and freedoms that Americans have long been accustomed to. It is inflicting deep, long-lasting harm to the daily well-being of each of us.
om peace namaste
lucy brook
nehalem resident
U.S. citizen
February 18, 2026
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
Today Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker delivered the State of the State address. The underlying purpose of the address is to explain the state budget, but Pritzker, a Democrat, used the occasion to talk far more broadly about the state of Illinois and the nation.
Pritzker anchored his speech by reaching back to the days of John Peter Altgeld, a German-born American who helped to lead the Progressive movement and served as governor of Illinois from 1893 to 1897. Altgeld oversaw passage of some of the strongest laws in the country for workplace safety and protection of child workers, invested heavily in education, and appointed women to important positions in state government despite the fact that women could not yet vote.
Pritzker noted that in his State of the State speech in January 1895, Altgeld talked about “the need to ensure that science would govern the practice of medicine in Illinois; the high cost of insurance; the condition of Illinois prisons; the funding of state universities; a needed revision of election laws; the concentration of wealth in large businesses.” Altgeld expressed pride for appointing women to office and his statement that “[j]ustice requires that the same rewards and honors that encourage and incite men should be equally in reach of women in every field and activity.”
Pritzker said he brought up Altgeld’s defense of equal rights “to highlight one enduring human truth—injustice can become a genetic condition we bequeath on future generations if we fail to face it forthrightly.”
Pritzker then turned to the year that has passed since President Donald J. Trump took office. “To be perfectly candid,” Pritzker said, “as Illinois is one of the states whose taxpayers send more dollars to the federal government than we receive back in services, I was hoping that his threats to gut programs that support working families [were] the kind of unrealistic hyperbole that fuels a presidential campaign but then is abandoned when cooler heads prevail.” But, he said, “Unfortunately, there are no cooler heads at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days.”
The Trump administration has cost Illinois $8.4 billion, Pritzker said, “illegally confiscating money that has already been promised and appropriated by the Congress to the people of Illinois.” Pritzker was clear that this money is not handouts but “dollars that real Illinoisans paid in federal taxes and that have been constitutionally approved by our elected Democratic and Republican representatives in Washington.”
Unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets every year. Trump’s billions in illegally withheld funds inflict a cost on the state’s residents, while Illinois has been “forced to spend enormous time and taxpayer money going to court and fighting to get what is rightfully ours.” Pritzker said: “It is impossible to tally the hours, days, and weeks our state government has spent chasing news of Presidential executive orders, letters, and edicts that read like proclamations from the Lollipop Guild.”
from lucy–NOTE WORDS THAT I HAVE CAPITALIZED HERE: Pritzker noted that TRUMP IS MAKING LIFE HARDER FOR EVERYDAY AMERICANS with tariffs that RAISE COSTS FOR WORKING FAMILIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES; trade wars that are DEVASTATING FARMERS; CUTS TO HEALTHCARE, NUTRITIONAL ASSISTANCE, AND EDUCATION; increased bureaucratic demands on states; and LOW JOB CREATION. The good news, Pritzker said, is that Illinois had managed such crises before and had found a way forward.
He noted the growth of Illinois’s economy and economic stability over the past eight years even as the state had balanced its budget every year and made historic investments in education, child welfare, disability services, and job creation in the private sector. In the past year, Illinois’s gross domestic product was more than $1.2 trillion, up from $881 billion when Pritzker took office.
Looking forward, Pritzker outlined plans to address the top three economic issues on the mind of most Americans: the cost of housing, electricity, and healthcare. He promised to reduce the cost of housing by cutting local regulations and providing more options for financing. He promised to address the skyrocketing cost of electricity first by pausing the authorization of new data center tax credits and then by investing in renewable energy and nuclear power. Finally, he announced that, as of this week, the state had eliminated $1 billion in medical debt for more than 500,000 people in the state by purchasing and erasing it for pennies on the dollar.
Pritzker warned that the benefits of our changing world are increasingly “reaped by a smaller and smaller group of people while middle and working class Americans pay for it. Special interests and large corporations seem to delight in finding ever more insidious ways to extract money from everyday people. Those same companies then react with a mixture of surprise and outrage when they’re asked to rein in their worst abuses.”
“I’m committed to doing everything government can to rein in the worst of the price gouging and profiteering we are seeing,” Pritzker said. “But I implore the titans of industry who regularly ask government to make their lives easier—what are you doing to make your employers’ and your customers’ lives easier?”
Then Pritzker turned to the crisis federal agents created on the streets of Chicago. “A year ago, I stood before you and asked a provocative question: After we have discriminated against, disparaged, and deported all our immigrant neighbors—and the problems we started with still remained—what comes next?” Pritzker said. He recalled that when he asked that question, some people walked out.
“But a year later, we have an answer—don’t we?” he said. “Masked, unaccountable federal agents—with little training—occupied our streets, brutalized our people, tear-gassed kids and cops, kidnapped parents in front of their children, detained and arrested and at times attempted to deport U.S. citizens, and killed innocent Americans in the streets.”
Pritzker identified Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller as the architects of that plan to “drip authoritarianism…into our veins.”
But, he noted, people in Illinois did not accept that authoritarianism.
Pritzker reminded the audience that President Grover Cleveland had similarly tried to “subdue the Illinois population with hired thugs” during the 1894 Pullman strike after the Pullman Company, which made railroad cars, cut workers’ wages by about 25%. When workers struck, Cleveland deputized U.S. Marshals to end the strike. They fired into crowds of bystanders and, according to a Chicago paper, “seemed to be hunting trouble.” Twenty-five people died and more were wounded before the strike ended.
Altgeld had opposed the arrival of federal troops, and his fury at their intrusion still smoldered when he gave his State of the State speech almost six months later. “If the President can, at his pleasure, send troops into any city, town, or hamlet…whenever and wherever he pleases, under pretense of enforcing some law,” Altgeld wrote, “his judgment, which means his pleasure being the sole criterion—then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of…the Czar of Russia.”
Pritzker joked that he wished he “could spend just one year of my governorship presiding over precedented times. I yearn for normal problems,” he said. But these are not normal times.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love—about loving people and loving your country and the power involved in both,” the governor said. “I know, right now, there are a lot of people out there who love their country and feel like their country is not loving them back. I know that.” But he told those people that “your country is loving you back—just not in the way you are used to hearing.”
“It’s not speaking in anthems or flags or ostentatious displays of patriotism. It will never come from the people who say the only way to love America is to hate Americans. Love is found in every act of courage—large and small—taken to preserve the country we once knew. You will find it in homes and schools and churches and art. It is there; it has not been squashed.”
Pritzker called out the love shown by “the bicyclers who showed up in Little Village every day during Operation Midway Blitz to buy out tamale carts so the vendors could return to the safety of their homes,” “the parishioners who formed human chains around churches so that immigrants could worship,” and “the moms in the school pickup line who whipped out their cameras and their whistles,” and in “the face of every Midwesterner who put on their heaviest coat and protested outside on the coldest day.”
That love for one’s neighbor, he suggested, is the country’s most powerful tool against the rise of authoritarianism.
from Lucy–again NOTE WORDS THAT I HAVE CAPITALIZED, “I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party,” Pritzker said. “WE ARE FIGHTING OVER WHETHER WE ARE GOING TO BE A CIVILIZATION ROOTED IN EMPATHY AND KINDNESS–OR ONE ROOTED IN CRUELTY AND RAGE.”
“I love my country,” Pritzker said. “I refuse to stop. The hope I have found in a very difficult year is that love is the light that gets you through a long night.”
Text or call 503.801.2754
When my sister recently had a complete knee replacement, her stories of trying to get to therapy made me think of our friend Susie Trantham. How convenient it would have been to have a therapist come to her driveway! Susie is an avid pickle-ball enthusiast and joy to be around. Is there a need in our community for something like this? We all know the challenges of living on the coast when it comes to access to professional healthcare, especially when driving is challenged.
I am hoping to encourage her to open her mind to our community as a possible goal to develop her business…. she lives in Salem as we speak. What do you think? Thoughts?
For 40 years, author and former newspaper publisher Steve Forrester researched Neuberger’s life. He will discuss his book, “Richard Neuberger: Oregon Politics and the Making of a U.S. Senator,” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21 in the Cannon Beach Library.
Forrester’ s talk is a free presentation; attend in person at the library or watch it on the library’s website, cannonbeachlibrary.org.
A consequential but nearly forgotten figure in Oregon history, Neuberger was, Forrester says, “one of the most significant Oregonians of the first half of the 20th century.”
Forrester was a journalist for 50 years, 33 of those years as editor and publisher of The Daily Astorian. He and four colleagues founded the Willamette Week newspaper in 1974, and in 1978 he operated a news bureau in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his life, Forrester was a page for Neuberger in the U.S. Senate.
The first Democrat to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Oregon in 40 years, Neuberger was an outspoken liberal who supported workers’ rights and civil rights. He shaped Oregon’s renowned conservation policies and developed the state’s modern Democratic party.
Neuberger was also a journalist from an early age, writing for The Oregonian as a teenager and for The New York Times while still in college. While a student at the University of Oregon in 1933, Neuberger, a Jew, visited Hitler’s Germany for seven weeks and interviewed relatives and others about the rising violence toward Jews in the country. Neuberger’s stories about his visit appeared in national publications throughout the United States. His editor at The Nation magazine called it “an epoch-making article.”
“All that I saw and heard in Germany substantiates the conclusion that the Jews are finished for many generations in that country,” Neuberger wrote.
A prolific freelance writer, Neuberger published six books and over 700 articles before his death of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1960, nine months before the end of his Senate term. He was 47.
His wife, and political ally, Maurine Brown Neuberger, was elected to his Senate seat in 1960. At the time, she was only the fifth woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Haven’t put much thought into how to care for yourself and your family?
Come to a WaSH Class! Loads of valuable information!
Let me help you start working on a plan and start your prep processes.
Freezer on top, fridge on bottom. Doors open from the left side. The machine works well. The shelves on the inside against the door in the refrigerator are missing the plastic barriers but you can create your own with a little ingenuity. I’m thinking this modestly sized unit is perfect as a 2nd fridge / garage fridge.
Available for pick up in Manzanita this Thursday the 19th or will be discarded. Email if interested, thanks!
Erdoğan once put it, “Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”]
Katja
katja@teleport.com
Really nice wood desk that needs a refinishing. Two-piece. Also you need 2 people to carry it out.
Glass and steel desk. 60″ wide x 36″ deep and 30.5″ high.
Pick up preferably next Tuesday or earlier can be arranged. I don’t live at the house any longer.
Call/text Patrick 503-488-0587
My post was answered by Tillamook County Commissioner Vice-Chair Mary Faith Bell. I then replied to Commissioner Bell on this site, and she has yet to respond to my concerns from that post.
Since Commissioner Bell addressed the issue on this site, I am replying to her again on this site, and I thank BBQ for the opportunity, as the county’s deployment of A.I. in any form or fashion should be of grave concern for all county residents; whether those concerns are about out-of-control and needless government surveillance, or county administers using Grok or whatever A.I. service to replace human jobs, or any other concerns about the deployment of A.I. There should be absolute up-front transparency about the county’s plans to employ A.I., if such plans exist outside of the library system.
The pro-human anti-A.I. revolution has begun, and I think it right that Tillamook County join that pro-human revolution.
Santa Fe and Sedona have banned the A.I.-driven Flock cameras, and litigation regarding their use has begun is several states.
From article:
“Amid growing public debate over the role of surveillance tech in law enforcement, Flock issues have become a flashpoint. Its cameras, which can track vehicles using an easily-searchable database, have blanketed hundreds of cities across the country. The company presents its product as a simple license plate scanner, boasting “billions of monthly plate reads.” That phrasing alone makes clear that committing a crime isn’t the only way to end up in Flock’s tracking database. One Virginia man found he had been tracked 526 times in just four months after investigating the company. Meanwhile, Flock’s pitch to law enforcement boasts much more aggressive AI capabilities than simple plate scanning, including a “Vehicle Fingerprint” that can track cars even without a license plate by identifying everything from paint jobs to specific objects in a truck bed.”
Oregon’s biggest fraud, Senator Ron Wyden, has championed himself throughout his career as a staunch advocate of an individual’s right to privacy. He couldn’t be more dishonest. He has said nothing meaningful about the wide-spread privacy concerns about A.I. and certainly has not pushed back. Maybe because his donors want A.I., and he values them and their money more than he values the individual privacy concerns of the Oregonians he pretends to represent.
Of Flock cameras, which have been deployed all over Oregon, Wyden was taken to task by voters, and he finally weighed in against the cameras – but not until AFTER they were deployed all over the state. Eugene has stopped using the cameras, and I hope the rest of the state, and indeed the country, does the same. We 99% still wield a lot of power, and the wide-spread push-back against A.I. is evidence of that power.
Radio Cab in Portland, whom I contracted with as a driver for ten years, deployed A.I.-driven facial recognition cameras in all of their taxis over the summer. But these cameras do a lot more than facial recognition. Every time I honked the horn, the A.I. sent a video to my supervisor. Every time I picked up the phone, the A.I. would yell “PUT DOWN PHONE” then send a video to my supervisor. It packages passengers’ entering and exiting the cab, and all of those interactions are saved in a file for the supervisors to watch at any time. The entirety of the passengers rides are recorded and stored FOREVER, or as long as the wickedly anti-human A.I. stains the human experience, as the audio/video of the taxi rides is ostensibly stored in one of those giant Google-esque facilities that hog our electricity and cause the electric rates for us 99% to double, while the 1% who are using A.I. and our subsidy to digitally enslave us and degrade the human experience, get a screaming deal on electricity rates. I was also told that Radio Cab packaged all of my conversations with my passengers in text form and made those conversations available to the supervisors. Of utmost importance, I am told by tech folks smarter than me about this stuff, that there is no such thing as closed A.I., despite some companies’ claims otherwise. So ICE and whomever else that is savvy enough, can hack into any A.I. system.
If you know folks who are living here unlawfully and do not want to be deported, tell them not to ride in Radio Cabs! (It would be prudent for someone to look into TriMet’s use or potential use of A.I. on busses and trains.) If you value your privacy, including your private conversations with your driver, DO NOT USE RADIO CAB! Uber and Lyft, though born of the tech 1%, have yet to require their drivers employ A.I. cameras, and at this time are a preferable option to those who value and individuals right to privacy, as the original founders of Radio Cab, World War Two vets, surely understood.
Behavior modifications A.I. systems like these are what the Chinese Communist Party employs on its citizens, and they couldn’t be further from the ideals of those who fought the fascists and communists during World War Two, after which Radio Cab was born by American soldiers.
Commissioner Bell, you didn’t follow-up and answer any of my questions. These questions are of significant import to your constituents. Here they are again, with an add-on or two:
1. Did the idea to deploy A.I.-driven facial recognition cameras throughout the Tillamook County Library system come from within, or was the idea brought to the commissioners by a tech lobbyist/salesman?
2. How much is the contract worth?
3. Has the county come up with guidance with respect to its deployment of A.I. throughout county government?
4. Have the cameras been turned on yet?
5. Are you willing to cancel the contract and get the A.I. cameras that have already been installed removed?
6. You mentioned that the libraries have had ‘incidents’ that gave rise the deployment of these cameras. How many incidents have there been over the last year? Was law enforcement involved? The main branch is a stone’s throw from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Office and the Tillamook Police. OSP is also close by. Why the cameras when we have these three great law enforcement agencies (and more) in our county?
7. Commissioner Bell, you characterized the libraries as all-inclusive places that are safe spaces for all. Clearly that is not the case now that hackable A.I.-driven facial recognition cameras have been deployed. Please consider removing them and writing language in county code that prohibits the use of such A.I.-driven cameras in their entirety. Would closed circuit cameras, that are NOT connected to the internet and that are DELETED every two weeks, suffice?
And please use this site for a reply, if possible, as many concerned folks are awaiting your response.
Andy Norris
Wheeler
