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.
Episodes
54 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...
[Klickitat] 🚦 A Green Light for the Quiet Zone - Bingen June '26
Bingen City Council had a packed June. The new Hood River-White Salmon Bridge reached sixty-percent design, the city hired an engineer to push its long-awaited railroad Quiet Zone forward, and Olympia's latest housing rules landed on the counci...
[Skamania] 🗳 Meet the Candidates 7/14 - Primary Preview
Your 2026 primary ballot is about to arrive, and the Skamania County Chamber and both county parties put the contested candidates on one stage in Stevenson to preview it. In this special edition we walk the whole ballot: the nine-way race for C...
[Klickitat] 🔥 Smoke, Weeds & Fireworks - Goldendale June '26
It was a packed June for the Goldendale City Council, the county seat of Klickitat County. In two meetings, the council rescued a stalled housing rule by standing up a temporary planning commission, locked in a $221,000 grant to replace the his...
[Skamania] 🌿 Building Near a Wetland - North Bonneville June '26
What does it really cost to build a house near a wetland in North Bonneville? This month the City Council turned a routine environmental-rules update into a debate about affordability and local control. We also cover the North Bonneville Planni...
[Skamania] 📦 A County Locked In A Box - Skamania BOCC June '26
The Skamania County Board of Commissioners rewrote the rules for rebuilding after a wildfire, giving burned-out families ten years instead of one. In this episode of Open Gorge, we walk through a busy June for the Skamania County Commissioners:...
[Klickitat] 🔌 EV Vote & 30% Rule - White Salmon June '26 Round-Up
This month, the White Salmon City Council voted to make every new home EV-ready, and the debate was really about who pays for it. We've also got a denied housing appeal at the Planning Commission, a ten-thousand-dollar snag for the Fourth of Ju...
[Skamania] 🅿️ Rethinking Downtown Parking - Stevenson June '26 Round-Up
This episode: Stevenson's June meant a sewer-ordinance rewrite that's almost across the line, a move to scrap downtown parking minimums, and a Board of Adjustment that granted one hotel parking relief while sending an accessory-dwelling-unit ca...
[Klickitat] 🔒 Missing Care Lands in Jails - Klickitat BOCC 6/9-6/23
This month the Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners moved a public-records job to the Prosecutor's Office, absorbed roughly four hundred thousand dollars in public-health cuts, and heard a sobering update from the county jail, all whi...
[All-Gorge] ⚡ The Nine-Gigawatt Gap - EFSEC June 2026
This month the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council — EFSEC, the agency that permits the Gorge's biggest energy projects — got a sobering look at the region's power math: a forecast that the Northwest could fall about nine g...
[Klickitat] 🏗️ 6 Summer Bridge Closures - Klickitat BoCC 5/26 & 6/2
A major wave of bridge closures is coming to Klickitat County this summer, with six local bridges slated for mandatory repairs and detours. Plus, we look at a looming crisis in the East District Court as state Supreme Court rules complicate the...
[All-Gorge] 🛑 Bridge Test Piles Halted by Insurance Gap - HRWSBA May 27 & June 8
In this episode of Open Gorge, we break down the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Authority meetings from May 27th and June 8th. The Authority locked in a nearly 67-million-dollar operating budget for the coming year, but a critical test pile pro...
[Klickitat] 💧 Protecting the Watershed - Goldendale May '26 Round-up
Goldendale took a massive step this month toward protecting your drinking water by securing over a hundred acres of vulnerable watershed land. Plus, a record drug bust highlights the escalating strain on local law enforcement and our rural cour...
[Skamania] 🕯️ Demanding Answers to Domestic Violence - Stevenson May '26 Round-Up
This month, we are looking at the heavy and the controversial coming out of the Stevenson Planning Commission and the Stevenson City Council. In the wake of a tragic local murder, residents are stepping up to the microphone to demand better dom...
[All-Gorge] ⚡ Scoping Deadlines & Tribal Consults - EFSEC May '26
The state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council hit a major procedural bottleneck this month regarding the proposed Cascade Renewable Transmission line. We break down the May 20, 2026, meeting where local leaders and state officials debated...
[Klickitat] 🐟 Fish Windows & Budget Trapdoors - Klickitat BOCC 5/26 & 6/2
Summer is bringing a wave of mandatory infrastructure repairs to Klickitat County, threatening to temporarily sever key recreational and emergency routes. Plus, we look at how statewide mandates and national labor trends are compounding severe ...
[Klickitat] 🏗️ The Multiplex Fight - White Salmon May '26 Round-Up
In this episode, we dive into the growing friction between statewide housing mandates and local zoning codes playing out over a four-unit multiplex on Wyers Street. Plus, we cover infrastructure headaches for Snohomish Place residents, and how ...
[Skamania] 🗣 Public Pushback Pauses $1,000 Rescue Fine - Skamania BOCC 5/27
The Skamania County Commissioners pumped the brakes on a controversial ordinance that would have fined negligent hikers a thousand dollars. We look at why local search and rescue veterans pushed back during the May 27th meeting.In Thi...
[Skamania] 🌶️A Spicy Mayorial Email - North Bonneville May ‘26 Round-Up
Welcome to the May municipal round-up for the North Bonneville City Council and Planning Commission. In this episode, we unpack a highly misspelled email reprimand from the Mayor that exposes deep friction over meeting decorum, and we look at a...
[Klickitat] 🐓 More Clucking, Less Honking - Bingen May '26 Round-up
In this episode, we break down the Bingen City Council meetings from May 5th and May 19th. We look at how the city is moving forward with a massive 2.2 million-dollar grant to silence train horns downtown, and why a recent water main strike has...
[Skamania] 📧 The "Idiots" Email & Rec Parking Chaos - Skamania BOCC 5/19
In this episode, we dive into a tense Skamania County Board of Commissioners meeting from May 19th. What was supposed to be a standard leadership handoff with the Friends of the Columbia Gorge quickly turned into a public confrontation over lea...