Profiles and Interviews
City Manager Leila Aman
Ms. Aman is excited to start her “dream job” as Manzanita’s City Manager on June 1. Aman’s connection to the North Coast goes back to her childhood. Her grandparents bought a home in Bay City after retiring, near Garibaldi where her grandfather had kept his fishing boat for years. By fortunate coincidence she and her husband, Joe Thurston, purchased their Nehalem home just last November after renting the home of a friend in Manzanita for many years. Everything in Aman’s life seems to be falling into place. As an artist, Joe can work from anywhere; he has converted a pole barn at their new home into a studio. Ten-year-old daughter Maddy starts sixth grade at Neah-Kah-Nie middle school this fall.
Read the full interview starting on page 5 here
Mayor Kathryn Stock
Nike veterans Kathryn Stock and wife Deb Tinnin bought their Manzanita home in 1995 and have since become increasingly involved in the community. Among other volunteer activities Tinnin is a mainstay of the Lower Nehalem Community Trust Community Garden and Stock has been a citizen member of the city’s Budget Committee from 2019 until her 2023 appointment to the city council. Stock’s decision to seek the council and now the mayoral appointments arose from that same commitment to the community.
Read the full interview starting on page 3 here
Council President Linda Kozlowski
In running for a fifth term, Council President Linda Kozlowski had nothing to prove. She has been a successful business owner and community leader. She is currently Vice Chair of the Governing Board of the state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI). She was first elected to the City Council in 2006 and was re-elected in 2010, 2014, and 2018. Why run again in 2022? Kozlowski says that she “was inspired to run to support City Manager Leila Aman, who has the ability to lead Manzanita to the next level.”
Read the full interview starting on page 6 here
Councilor Jerry Spegman
Councilor Spegman took office in January 2021. Jerry and his wife Adele moved to Manzanita only six years ago, yet he ran (reluctantly) for city council only three years later. What brought him to that point?
Spegman grew up in Monroe, NY (population 21,387), 60 miles north of New York City. Like Manzanita, the Town Board (city council) has four councilors and a supervisor (mayor). Lots of city folk passed through Monroe on their way to summer vacations in the Catskills north of town. In August 1969, Spegman (age 13) saw masses of vehicles heading to the Woodstock Festival, also north of Monroe.
Councilor Brad Hart
At its November 8 regular session, the City Council appointed Brad Hart to serve Brad Mayerle’s remaining term through December 2026 after Mayerle resigned in September because of a residence change. Though new to Manzanita, Hart engaged with the community from the beginning, first through the Emergency Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay where he and husband Christopher Mullins were neighborhood leads for the Water Sanitation & Hygiene program. He later worked on EVCNB communications and outreach, eventually joining the Board of Directors as Project Director.
Councilor Tom Campbell
The Manzanita City Council appointed Tom Campell to fill the seat vacated by Kathryn Stock who had replaced mayor Deb Simmons, when Simmons moved away. In both cases, the council followed the process required by Section 33 of the City Charter when there is a vacancy in an elective office.
Campbell grew up in Livonia, Michigan, a western suburb of Detroit. After high school, he moved 125 miles west to attend Kalamazoo College. After graduation, Campbell moved another 2,222 miles further west to Tacoma for law school at the University of Puget Sound, where he graduated in 1984. While working toward his law degree, Campbell met and married his wife, Kris, also a UPS law student.