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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2020)
Friday, February 14, 2020 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3 Republican fi eld forms in state House District 32 By EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian Tillamook Mayor Suzanne Weber has joined Vineeta Lower, an educator from Seaside, in the Repub- lican primary in May for a chance to potentially face state Rep. Tiffi ny Mitchell in House District 32. The district covers Clat- sop, Tillamook and parts of Washington counties. Mitchell, D-Astoria, in 2018 replaced Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, who held the seat for 14 years. Weber, a former ele- mentary school teacher and small business owner in Til- Suzanne Weber Vineeta Lower lamook, served on the Tilla- mook City Council before being elected mayor in 2010. Lower, a fi rst-time candidate who narrowly lost to Mitchell in the 2018 elec- tion, announced another run in December on her cam- paign’s Facebook page. Both candidates have cast again for the extreme prior- ities of Portland politicians. I look forward to giving the voters a choice between my decades of experience fi ght- ing for rural Oregon and her legislative record.” Lower, who faced no Republican primary oppo- nents in 2018, was endorsed by Tim Josi, a former Dem- ocratic state representa- tive and Tillamook County commissioner, after he lost a three-way primary race against Mitchell and John Orr. “The last time I ran, I ran as a Republican wanting to turn the seat and ensure con- trol in Salem,” Lower wrote on her campaign’s Facebook page. “I had some great sup- port and learned a lot. How- ever, this time I’m running because I can no longer sit on the sidelines and just watch.” Mitchell has faced criti- cism for her support of last year’s cap-and-trade bill. She has also taken heat for votes to reform the Pub- lic Employees Retirement System and a bill reducing the statewide “kicker” tax rebate by an estimated $108 million. #TimberUnity, a grass- roots group that emerged to fi ght cap and trade, launched an unsuccessful recall cam- paign against Mitchell last year. Seaside woman creates new life By NICOLE BALES The Astorian Melissa Faber moved to Seaside in 2016 for a fresh start. After spending years in and out of jail, she was ready to create a life of sobriety, but things got worse before they got better. Faber moved in with a friend and stopped using drugs, but spiraled again, spending the next year and a half using drugs and living homeless. “It was the hardest time of my life,” Faber, 28, said. “There were nights where I was walking around with nowhere to go and nowhere to sleep with it pouring rain,” she said. She said it felt humiliating. “There’s a point where the drugs wear off and you’re still high and it’s like, ‘OK, I’m doing this for what now,’” Faber said. “I started all this with just wanting to be numb from everything and now I don’t have anything to even feel.” After another arrest, the judge gave her a choice — drug court or prison. She chose drug court, a national program that takes a pub- lic health approach to help defendants who are addicted achieve long-term recov- ery. People who complete the program are statistically signifi cantly less likely to be arrested again compared to people sentenced to prison. Faber, who has been sober for nearly two years, gradu- ated from the program in Jan- uary. While in treatment, she met her husband and they had a baby last year. “You have two individu- als that had a lot of obstacles, had to overcome a lot of chal- lenges from their past and then create a new story for their child and for their fam- ily because they didn’t want to re-create history,” Chris Hoover, a probation offi cer, said about Faber and her hus- band during graduation. “I don’t have words for how proud I am of both of you,” he said. Faber’s drug use started when she was in high school. “Looking back at it now ... I didn’t understand why my mom had put me up for adoption,” she said. “And also, my step-mom was a very controlling person … My dad was blinded and it just drove me absolutely crazy. So, I numbed myself because of those feelings.” R.J. Marx Coral Cook, Brandi Cook and Jon Schmidt, program coordinator for SOLVE, at the Monday, Jan. 27, City Council meeting. SOLVE volunteers honored at City Council meeting Seaside Signal Melissa and Cody Faber Melissa and Cody Faber met during treatment. Faber was adopted by her uncle and his wife after she was born. Although she saw her biological mother a hand- ful of times growing up, she never knew her biological father. She said her biolog- ical mother also struggled with drug use. When she was 8 years old, her adoptive parents divorced, and then her father remarried. She said that’s when things got rocky. Faber said her stepmother mentally and physically abused her from a young age. “It made me so angry. I had so much anger inside of me that I couldn’t direct any- where,” she said. Faber’s adoptive mother moved to Missouri, where she would visit her during school breaks. In Missouri, she had more freedom to do what she wanted, and when she went back to her dad’s house in Arizona, it was more strict, and she began to rebel. Once in high school, Faber began to use drugs, which led to her being expelled from two high schools. Eventually, her father gave her an ultimatum. “He said, ‘You can either go live with your grandmother on the ranch or go to Mis- souri.’ Obviously, I picked Missouri because I was able to do (what) I wanted to do. So I went there, and I made a life. I made a criminal life, but it was still a life,” Faber said. She earned her GED diploma and got a job. “I just barely skimmed through everything that I needed to do to be success- ful,” she said. Faber then started party- ing more and then one night used a drug she thought she would never use. “It was that moment when I was walking to the bath- room … and I knew, ‘OK, it’s all downhill from here.’ I was disgusted with myself that I had tried it,” Faber said. “And from that moment on, I just started getting high on things I never would have thought I would get high on,” she said. When she was 18 years old, she got her fi rst driving under the infl uence charge. She said drug use, arrests and warrants became a vicious cycle. Faber said she got to the point where she wanted to get clean, but didn’t know v how to do it on her own. It wasn’t until she was given the opportunity to get treat- ment through drug court. “Drug court just doesn’t give you another option,” Faber said. “All those years of not wanting to be told what to do and it’s exactly what I needed.” Through treatment, she was able to forgive her stepmother and reconcile her past. Instead of numbing herself, Faber said she had to begin applying all the things she learned in treat- ment to cope with her stress. She said she couldn’t have done it without her faith. “After a while, it was almost enjoyable being part of the community, going to treatment, doing everything I needed to do. There was like a lift in my ego, and all the while, I’m healing from the inside,” she said. She said, in the beginning, most defendants don’t trust drug court has their best inter- est in mind. But then, she said, “you realize they are really trying to change your life.” S ERVING C LATSOP AND N ORTH T ILLAMOOK C OUNTIES Jon Schmidt, program coordinator of SOLVE, hon- ored two of Seaside’s own as 2019 volunteers of the year at the Jan. 27 City Council meeting. SOLVE, a 50-year-old organization with a mission to bring Oregonians together to improve our environment and build a legacy of steward- ship, has held beach cleanups along the Coast since 1984, Schmidt said. “Coral and Brandi both have both been supporting those beach cleanups since the very beginning,” Schmidt said. “When we look at the history of beach cleanups in the Pacifi c Northwest, they are probably the longest-serv- ing volunteers in both Oregon and Washington state.” The Cooks have helped thousands of volunteers take care of Seaside’s beach in the last 35 years, Schmidt said in awarding them both SOLVE honors. “We’re very proud of these two people for their beach cleanups in the com- munity,” Mayor Jay Bar- ber said, as members of the meeting audience shared applause. Bob Woodford NMLS #461522 Sr. RE Loan Officer 503.738.8341 See me at the Seaside Branch! 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