The Tillamook City Council cut the rate the city charges to 13 water districts that receive water from the city by 41% at their March 18 meeting.
The rate cut put those districts on the same industrial rate schedule as has been charged to the Port of Tillamook Bay since 2020.
The meeting began with the swearing in of Sylvia Schriber, who was selected in February to temporarily fill Doug Henson’s council seat, while he is indisposed with an illness.
After the swearing in, Brandi Harris, a family and psychiatric nurse practitioner at Adventist Health, briefed the council on substance use disorders and resources available to those struggling with them through Adventist.
Harris said that Tillamook County has a higher rate of both drug-induced deaths and homelessness than statewide averages, with three times the rate of homelessness and almost twice the rate of deaths.
Adventist health has been responding to these challenges by trying to make treatment more easily accessible for those who want it, Harris said. She detailed a program by which those seeking medication to assist with cessation can come to the emergency room for treatment up to three times, without incurring multiple emergency room bills.
Harris also discussed how Adventist is working with the sheriff’s department to increase the post-incarceration participation in those same programs.
James Potts, treasurer of the Tillamook Revitalization Association (TRA), delivered an annual report on the association’s work over the past year. TRA is funded by a small portion of the business license fee and aims to boost pride in and rehabilitate Tillamook’s downtown through coordinating activities amongst local business owners.
In the past year, TRA hosted the travelling Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall that came to the Second Street plaza over Memorial Day Weekend, organized the Tilly Treasures scavenger hunt and put on both the Moonlight Madness celebration and pictures with Santa at Pacific Restaurant.
Potts said that the organization’s goal is to host activities at least quarterly and that this year they are organizing a sidewalk art contest and working with Councilor Nick Torres to complete the construction of a Veteran’s Memorial in downtown Tillamook.
The water rate change came in response to a request from four of the 13 districts to which the city sells water in 2021. The districts’ leaderships were displeased that the city was charging them a higher rate than industrial counterparts in the city of Tillamook even though they were responsible for maintaining their own distribution systems.
City Manager Nathan George said that officials from the districts had approached him early in his tenure with the city in 2021 and requested that they be charged the same rate as the Port of Tillamook Bay, which had received a rate cut in 2020.
The rate reduction will cause a 41% decrease in revenues from the districts, or a total revenue decrease of 14% to the city. George said that the revenue decrease was sustainable and noted that the alternative would likely be a total loss of the revenue, as the districts had begun to explore alternate water sources in the event the decrease was not approved.
In addition to the rate decrease, the council also approved entering formal, wholesale agreements to the districts, which had previously received “surplus” water, causing concerns about supply stability. The council also approved a water utility rate study as part of the update, which will be completed at no cost by a nonprofit.
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