[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 local workforce shortages in public defense and 911 emergency dispatch. This episode covers the May 26 and June 2 Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners meetings.

In This Episode

• The formal creation of the new Community Development Department
• The purchase of a new motor grader for the East End
• A local resident's push to name "Schoolhouse Creek" and flag illegal fill dumping
• Upcoming deadlines for fire districts on a potential fireworks ban

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Review the raw agendas and minutes at the Klickitat County Website
• Learn more about the Washington State Supreme Court Caseload Caps driving the public defense crisis
• Read up on the national push to reclassify 911 Dispatchers from "clerical workers" to first responders

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.

Transcript

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Hey there and welcome back to the Clickatler Audio Briefing. Today we're looking at the Clickitat County Board of Commissioners meetings from May 26th and June 2nd. Let's dive right into public works because summer construction season is officially here. Public Works Director Jeff Hunter informed the board that six county bridges are slated for temporary closures to allow for bridge jacking and bearing pad repairs. Those include the White Salmon, Whitmore, Bear Creek, Tom Miller, and Horseshoe Bend Bridges. But the biggest impact you need to prepare for is the Lytle Bridge. Closing the Lytle Bridge requires a lengthy, unpaved detour over Fisher Hill. That's going to cause significant headaches for out-of-town rafters, commercial fishing outfitters, and local emergency responders during peak summer recreation and fire season. County plans to put up variable message boards to give folks a heads up, and the closure expected to span over a weekend and last up to 10 days. Why close it right in the middle of summer? The timeline is dictated by strict state environmental regulations known as the fish window, a specific timeframe where in-water construction is permitted so that on either side of it they can protect spawning aquatic life. The county doesn't really have a choice. If they don't do the repairs now, they risk a total bridge failure down the road. Turning now to the justice system, where the county is running into some major structural hurdles. District Court Judge Hansen warned that the board has an impending judge transition in Scamania County that will leave Clickatat without a key court commissioner, drastically reducing defense coverage. This is part of a much larger crisis. Washington State Supreme Court recently slashed the maximum number of cases that a public defender can take, meaning that rural counties like ours suddenly need far more attorneys to handle the exact same workload. In response to the growing crisis across the state, the legislature recently launched Senate Bill 5912, creating an indigent defense task force to figure out how to pay for all of this. To make matters harder locally, the state Supreme Court also ruled it unethical for judges to negotiate pay rates or contracts directly with the defense attorneys. And since the county's current hourly rate is struggling to attract out-of-area talent, the board agreed to have the clerk of the board handle contract negotiations for new recruits to navigate those difficult ethical hurdles. If they can't find enough attorneys, people accrued of crime in our community will go without timely access to counsel, and local courts also may be forced to start dismissing misdemeanor cases entirely. The same SAFing squeeze is also hitting emergency communications. County Administrator Rob Van Cleve told commissioners that the 911 dispatch department is operating with severe full-time vacancies. To cover the gap, they're relying on a temporary vendor contract that expires later this summer. Van Cleve is utilizing a workaround on the organizational chart to allow more trainees to be hired simultaneously. But getting a dispatcher ready for the floor takes a month-long training pipeline. It's a grueling process and it reflects a nationwide breaking point. At the federal level, 911 dispatchers are still officially classified as clerical workers rather than first responders. Because of that, they often lack access to robust mental health resources and pensions available to police or firefighters, fueling a massive nationwide vacancy rate as folks are burning out. Finally, a quick look at the public comment. Local resident Paul Pochness submitted a geographic name application to formerly rename a local stream Schoolhouse Creek. During his application process, he raised concerns about an upstream neighbor illegally dumping culverts and backfill into the fish bearing stream. He says the degradation has resulted in aggressive growth of invasive reed canary grass, posing an ongoing threat to the creek's health. It's a prime example of how grassroots reporting often is our only early warning system for local code enforcement issues. Looking ahead, keep an eye out for a series of upcoming public hearings for the Lade and Scott Short Platz, as well as an upcoming deadline for fire districts to weigh in on a potential fireworks plan. For links to all the documents and state mandates we mentioned today, check out the show notes or head over to the text version of this newsletter. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Schemania Dispatch and the Click of Tattler. 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.