Letter: What is a Special District Anyway?

It’s time I shared some facts about what a special district is.

There are around a thousand special districts that exist in Oregon, the majority of which are fire districts. Districts step in with essential services that a city or county cannot provide.

The citizens themselves need to be engaged and volunteer to make that happen. Volunteering citizens are why special districts are established. The facts are that 33% of special districts are volunteer districts, providing personnel for a county to receive the services they need.

Tillamook County Transportation District began with a property tax measure passed, levying 20 cents of tax per thousand dollars of property value. That measure passed thanks to a group of Seniors and business owners in the county who went door to door as “Friends of the Wave.” Leading the “Friends of the Wave” was Bob Kenny a retired man in his 70s, who had recently moved to Tillamook after having worked for a large corporation and who had major health challenges.

Following approval of the property tax levy, in 1998 the County cut the Wave loose from the County to run as an independent Special District. A bus was donated in 1998 after the tax measure passed, and board members were elected who at first volunteered their time and labor to begin the bus service.

Before he had to move away Bob Kenny was honored in 2014 by having the Board Room named in his honor. Back in 2012 he even became interim general manager to run the Wave’s operations when we unfortunately lost a general manager. He continued to keep our District running when it was needed for 6 months until the board hired Doug Pilant as general manager.

From its inception The Wave continued to grow and over time was connected to all adjoining counties with a large fleet of buses and a dial a ride fleet of vans to serve Tillamook residents.

Tillamook county has a wide variety of special districts throughout our county, including fire, water, 911 emergency service, sanitation and others.

Each special district was formed because a city or county government could not afford to pay for a particular essential service for the public.

Fortunately, the Special Districts Association of Oregon is the state organization that serves us well to help establish and maintain essential services when citizens need. Services that citizens depend on that a city or county cannot afford to provide. An example recently in our county has been when, Jay Marugg, Chief of Garibaldi’s Fire Department helped that department become a special district to continue serving the citizens of Garibaldi.

A hero of mine was Bob Kenny for serving as TCTD’s Chairman of Board and founding and leading “Friends of the Wave,” allowing TCTD to take the time and action needed to establish a well-run Transportation Special District to meet the needs of citizens where we live. It’s really up to all of us as citizens to step up and serve where services are needed.

These folks and other county citizens have been willing to serve and more importantly actually work together to make special districts happen.

Respectfully

Submitted by Jim Hoffman

Former TCTD Board member 2005-2021 and former State SDAO Board member 2014-2018

Proud of Tillamook Citizens who volunteer their time to serve.

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