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What an excellent PROTEST we had today in Nehalem—even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits! About 30 people joined us, and hundreds more showed their support by honking and giving us the thumbs up. Many agreed that this was the most enthusiastic response we’ve received in weeks. Over the past few months, we’ve held more than 16 PROTESTS, and while we wish we could be out every day, it’s not always possible. There are so many positive events happening in North Tillamook County, and we are truly fortunate to live in such a vibrant, supportive community where freedom of speech is celebrated.

Looking ahead, we need to get serious about next week’s PROTEST in Manzanita. Your support is crucial—here’s how you can help: bring a friend, make a sign, donate snacks like banana bread or pumpkin bread for our protesters, or simply spread the word to encourage others to join us. We especially hope to see more teenagers participate; we haven’t seen any at our PROTEST since July 4th in Manzanita. Even if you can’t stay, drive by a couple of times and honk to show your support. Every action makes a difference!

Rain is likely next Saturday, but this week proved that a little weather won’t hold us back. To keep everyone safe at the Manzanita PROTEST, we’ll share important instructions in the next few days—please read them carefully and follow them. These guidelines are for everyone’s safety. If you’re unable to follow the instructions, we ask that you refrain from attending.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Thank you to everyone who braved the weather today! We are grateful for your dedication and proud to be part of this amazing community.

Don’t forget your donation of canned food to our North Tillamook County Food Bank. Go put your donation in your care now. Thanks.

Best,

Patty

The Yin-Yang symbol itself illustrates their interconnectedness, showing that each force contains a seed of the other and they are interdependent and constantly transforming.  

This is pretty true of the dominate political parties in our country. YES! Really it is – and that is good! Remember Opposite but Complimentary is the key!!!

I have to say that as a democrat, my late husband was a republican and my good friend who lived across the way was also a republican, and it didn’t seem to matter. We differed on several things, greatly on the matter of abortion, I was and am pro choice and she was pro- life. YET – we still got along! We just agreed to disagree and then enjoyed each others company, Do you remember those days?

We can still do that – agree to disagree – and still respect and enjoy each others company!! YES WE CAN

SO who or what is dividing us, how do they turn us against each other? Basically it is the media. People my age, maybe 60 plus usually watch the corporate news. The left and the right media usually over exagerate the positives on their side of the aisle and just don’t mention the negatives, which make us all believe that the other side is totally crazy. How can you believe that? They say to me. I could ask them the same question!

There is much going on that is not addressed in the mainstream media. Most people don’t care enough to go deeper into who or what is happening, or even why? I think these people are the ones who get mad at the Dixie who runs the wine shop. (Again – that Dixie is not posting on the BBQ.)

Their are many people who want to know the what, why, where, and who. We usually go to the internet and listen and watch others who have opinions that we are interested in hearing.
So naturally these people are more informed than the others. Sometimes they feel that what they know should be shared because the information involves all Americans and we feel that everyone should know because it involves safety, it might effect our freedoms, and our way of life. If you don’t want to read or hear about these things, then you have the right and ability to tune out, and you can, You don’t have to read what I write – so don’t read it. But to threaten a local wine shop because this very nice lady has the same name as me is a little ridiculous don’t you think? And you know what? If she goes out of business YOU are
The looser!!

Republicans and Democrats – fundamentally opposite – but complimentary
( we help each other come to sensible conclusions)

In August 2024, the City Manager issued a Request For Proposals allowing engineering firms to provide proposals for professional engineering services and construction administration. The request included the unusual requirement that “all proposers must have been in business as their current entity for at least five years”. This effectively eliminated North Coast Civil Design, a local firm with 25 years of  experience including the design, overview, and construction administration services for the Dorcus Lane Reconstruction Project. North Coast Civil Design was viewed to be in existence in their “current entity”  as a business for 3 years thus effectively preventing them from even submitting a proposal for consideration. 

City officials retain Windsor Engineers from Portland, pay them $424,000 for presenting a project to the community for 2,000 feet of road widening, a new 10 ft. wide paved pedestrian path, over 3,000 ft. of new water main, over 1,000 linear feet of retaining wall for the extreme slope along the west side of Classic Street, and stormwater improvements. Unfortunately, key provisions of that design will not now be built and Windsor Engineers was removed from the project with no public explanation. City officials now decide to select North Coast Civil Design to salvage a project that squandered both time and money. No explanation given as to why the 5 year prohibition preventing a submittal a year ago was no longer relevant. 

Classic Street is defined as a Minor Collector street due to the volume and type of traffic it carries and as such is required by City Ordinance to have minimum eleven foot travel lanes. City officials plan to ignore their own Ordinance requirements and maintain the existing 10 foot travel lanes for a considerable portion of the project. The 2 foot wide landscape buffer that was designed to separate vehicle traffic from pedestrians has been eliminated thus maintaining the existing unsafe conditions for bikers and pedestrians. Despite the fact that Councilors take an oath to uphold City Ordinances, when that oath becomes inconvenient, they simply ignore it and hope no one notices.
   
Perhaps the most important element of the project identified by Windsor Engineering was the need for a retaining wall or other suitable engineering measures along the steep slope that forms the west boundary of Classic Street. The Windsor consultants noted the  pavement condition along the west side of Classic Street and confirmed that the underlying base is moving or otherwise failing. There will be no retaining wall built to arrest this movement which will only be exacerbated by the increasing levels of traffic on Classic Street in the years to come. The exact condition of the existing road base is also unknown. Old timers recall when the original road base was put in with substandard materials including old tires and the City then failed to overlay the road base with sufficient asphalt.  

The City continues to pay legal fees and awaits a verdict out of Tillamook Circuit Court resulting from a prospective bidder who alleges the City engaged in an improper bid process. The City Manager claims that visitors pay for most of our infrastructure improvements yet not a single dollar of Transient Lodging Tax money from those visitors has been budgeted for this project to assist funding the construction as recommended by the Windsor consultants to create a long term stable roadway with sufficient width to provide safe conditions for pedestrians and bikers. 

No announcement from the City as to when the new design which bears little resemblance to the one presented last year, will be presented to the public at a meeting for review and questions. Also, a firm cost for the above described project remains unknown and likely will need to be increased if some of the unknowns need to be corrected. After all, what could possibly go wrong? 

Randy Kugler