[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 courts.

In This Episode:

• New fifteen-dollar public records fees
• A major fentanyl seizure and county probation renewals
• Airport updates and the grounded courtesy car
• Wildfire preparation and prescribed burns near city limits

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written Klickitattler at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• City of Goldendale official website and meeting agendas: ci.goldendale.wa.us
• Association of Washington Cities (AWC) Behavioral Health Fact Sheet

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the Click a Tattler monthly audio briefing for our Goldendale City Council recap. Today we're looking at a very busy month of May, covering three separate meetings that dealt with everything from protecting your drinking water, the heavy realities of the rural drug crisis. Let's start with the biggest move the city made this month. The council officially voted to spend $245,520 to buy just over 102 acres of land from Western Pacific Timber. Why does that matter to you? Because that land sits right on top of the city's watershed. By purchasing this property, the city secures a 200-foot buffer around spring beds, keeping industrial logging far away from drinking water. Councilor Lauren Meeker summed up the stakes during the meeting. He pointed out that this is the most valuable resource that the city owns and urged the council to map the entire drainage basin so they can snap up any other unprotected areas before they get developed. Turning out of public safety, the city is navigating some intense challenges. Police Chief Mike Smith announced that a multi-agency warrant resulted in the seizure of 300 grams of pure fentanyl powder. He warned the council that the drugs weren't in pill form, but powder, which can be very dangerous to handle. It has an estimated street value of around $24,000. This bus highlights the escalating reality of hard narcotics in our area. Because our region lacks robust behavioral health facilities, the burgeoning addiction frequently falls right back on local law enforcement and the courts. You can see that structural strain in the budget as the council had approved an interlocal agreement of over $23,000 just to maintain county probation services. We've covered in other episodes of this podcast how lack of these resources, drug treatment, addiction services, and other types of supports have actually ended up putting a lot of that pressure back onto institutions that aren't really built to handle it, like the Click Attack County Jail. We'll be doing a deep dive into this issue in future episodes. A quick look at City Hall. You're going to see a new fee the next time you request public documents. The council adopted a $15 flat fee for public records requests. This is a move to help offset the massive amount of staff time it takes to process and redact files. In fact, the police department just had to spend $2,000 on an electronic redaction system because they're dealing with case files that are thousands of pages long. And finally, out at the airport, the city extended airport manager Rick London's contract for another year. But if you're hoping to use the airport's courtesy car, you're out of luck. This vehicle is unfortunately grounded indefinitely. The city hasn't been able to figure out a legally secure way to verify driver insurance, so until they can limit their liability, the car will stay parked. And looking ahead to what's next, the Ordinance Committee is putting the final touches on the new rules for accessory dwelling units, and Temporary Council Subcommittee is gearing up to meet with the Mid-Columbia Housing Authority to explore other affordable housing options. To find a schedule of our next council meetings, or if to look over any of the agendas, head over to the Schemania Dispatch.com written version of this newsletter. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Scamania Dispatch and the Click a Taddler. 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 Schemania Dispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.comslash open gorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.