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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
[Klickitat] 🗑️Could Portland's Trash be Klickitat's Treasure? - BOCC 3/31 & 4/7
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Klickitat County hit a massive infrastructure roadblock during the weeks of 3/31 and 4/7. The county was forced to legally reject every single bid across four major public works projects, hitting the reset button on thousands of dollars of deferred maintenance. And, STR regulations are finally updated, with an implementation schedule hitting the calendar. Finally, could trash contracts with bigger cities save the county budget?
In This Episode
- The finalized 2027 timeline for Short-Term Rental enforcement.
- Chasing regional trash contracts to boost county revenue.
- Legacy stormwater challenges and private easements on Adams Slope.
- A major triage upgrade for the county's 911 dispatchers.
Resources & Links
- Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
- April 7, 2026 Agenda Packet
Stay Connected with the Gorge
The Skamania Dispatch and The Klickitattler are community-led projects of OpenGorge.org.
To stay updated on local news, governance, and community events across the region, you can sign up for both newsletters at SkamaniaDispatch.com. For real-time updates and to join the conversation, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/OpenGorge.
Welcome back to your local audio briefing for the week of both March 31st and April 7th for the Click A Tat Board of County Commissioners. We have a lot of ground to cover today since we're doing two weeks' worth of updates, starting with a massive roadblock for county infrastructure. So imagine going to the hardware store to buy materials for four completely different weekend projects, and your card gets declined at the register for every single one. That is essentially what happened to the Board of County Commissioners this past Tuesday. They unfortunately had to reject every single contractor bid for four major public works projects, including the Goldendale Fuel Island, several guardrail upgrades, and much needed stucker repairs for the courthouse. Why? It comes down to paperwork irregularities and cost estimates that were just too high. Public Works Director Jeff Hunter explained to the board that it's much cleaner to legally reject all bids and start over rather than try to untangle messy paperwork. It's a really frustrating delay, especially with our notoriously short Pacific Northwest building season. But it does protect our tax dollars from being misspent. So turning now to housing, we finally have a concrete timeline for the county's new short-term rental rules. The board officially approved a$6,000 purchase of Granica's tracking software. That means the county will know exactly where unpermitted rentals are before they start billing anybody. If you operate a short-term rental in ClickAttack County, expect a notification letter in the mail by fall of 2026. The full ordinance and fee structure will officially kick in January 1st, 2027. So now let's talk about trash and money. The Public Works Department is actively strategizing with their vendor public services. The goal? To aggressively bid on huge municipal trash contracts from places like Seattle and Portland. The idea is to bring big city trash to the Click-Atat landfill to generate enterprise revenue for a local county budget. It could mean big money, but the trade-off is a lot more heavy commercial garbage trucks driving through the gorge. A quick look at a few other items from this week. If you live on Adams Slope, the county is finalizing a new drainage project. It turns out that historical homes up there were built directly over natural drainage corridors. The county is now going to have to ask some property owners for new easements to lay pipes and stop localized flooding. And finally, Clickadack County's 911 dispatch is getting a major upgrade. The board approved the priority dispatch system. This means your local dispatchers will now use a highly scripted, medically vetted triage system from the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, or IAED. It takes the guesswork out of emergency calls and ensures you get the exact same standard of pre-arrival instructions like CPR, no matter who answers the phone. So what's next? Public Works is heading back to the drawing board to restructure and rebid those four construction projects. Head over to the text version of this newsletter for links to the full meeting videos and agenda packets. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, the home of the Schemania Dispatch and the ClickAtabler. We believe that informed communities are stronger communities. To support our work and stay up to date on everything happening in the Gorge, head over to SchemaniaDispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.comslash opengorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.