Open Gorge: The Skamania Dispatch & Klickitattler
Welcome to Open Gorge, your audio bridge to local government, infrastructure, and community news in the Columbia River Gorge.
Hosted by the founder of Open Gorge, Kate Bertash, this podcast brings the in-depth, civic-minded reporting of The Skamania Dispatch and The Klickitattler newsletters straight to your headphones. We break down the public meetings you didn't have time to attend, track local infrastructure projects, and decode the regional policy decisions that directly impact your daily life.
Whether you are a Columbia Gorge resident commuting across the river, following local elections, or tracking where your tax dollars are going, we provide clear, factual summaries of what’s changing and what’s coming next.
Our unified feed covers the entire Gorge. Check the title of each episode to see if we are covering Skamania County, Klickitat County, or regional issues that impact us all. Listen to what matters most to your neighborhood, or stay tuned for the full regional picture.
Subscribe to the written newsletters and join the community at SkamaniaDispatch.com.
Open Gorge: The Skamania Dispatch & Klickitattler
Latest Episodes
[Skamania] 🪨 The 1872 Rule Hiding Under Skamania's Mining Fights
Skamania County has two mining fights going at once. A Canadian company wants to drill toward an open-pit copper mine near Mount St. Helens, and a gravel quarry on the west end could put five hundred truck trips a day onto Highway 14. But under...
[Klickitat] 🖥 Data Centers Come Knocking - Klickitat BOCC 6/30 - 7/21
Four summer meetings of the Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners, in one sitting. The Board maps out how a data center would actually get approved, weighs shrinking where solar can be built, gets its first real short-term-rental numbe...
[All-Gorge] ⚖️ New Rules & a Fire-Year Reckoning - Gorge Commission 6/18 - 7/14
The Columbia River Gorge Commission just rewrote its own open-government rulebook, over a protest from Friends of the Columbia Gorge and a lone no vote. This episode covers what the new rules actually give you, the one-year Burdoin fire rebuild...
[All-Gorge] 🍽️ Splitting the Dinner Check - a Property Tax Explainer
Every spring, reassessment notices land in mailboxes across Skamania and Klickitat, and every spring they get misread as a bill. This episode explains what your assessment actually is: your share of a fixed check, capped by Washington's one per...
[Klickitat] 🚔 Life After Sheriff Songer - Klickitat Primary Round-Up
Klickitat County is picking a new sheriff for the first time in a decade. Longtime Sheriff Bob Songer is retiring, and three career lawmen (John Bruce, Tony Warren, and Dwayne Matulovich) are running to replace him. We walk through two ca...