[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 July parade at the Community Development Committee, and a storm that closed a road. Here's your June in White Salmon.

In This Episode

• The City Council adopts an EV-ready ordinance, 5-0, and wrestles with affordability
• The six-year transportation plan, storm damage on Skagit and Scenic, and a drought summer
• Cluster mailboxes retired, Knowledge Bowl state champions, and a state housing-board appointment
• The Community Development Committee reworks heritage months and hits a $10,000 parade-closure wall
• The Planning Commission denies the Wyers Street reconsideration and eyes the short-term-rental "30% rule"

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• White Salmon agendas, packets, and meeting recordings: whitesalmonwa.gov/meetings
• Submit written public comment: public.comment@whitesalmonwa.gov
• Next up: City Council July 1, Planning Commission public hearing July 8

Community Development Committee coverage draws on a recording from the Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local (CC BY 4.0).

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, and welcome back to Open Gorge. We hope you're looking forward to a lovely holiday weekend. This is your June roundup for the City of White Salmon, and it was a busy month, so let's get our coffee and get into it. We're going to start with the city council because they made a real decision this month, and one that's going to touch every new home built in town. On June 3rd, the council voted five to nothing to adopt what's called an EV ready ordinance or electric vehicle ready ordinance. Here's what that means for you. So if someone builds a new house in White Salmon from here on out, that house has to come pre-wired, so a fast electric vehicle charger can be added later. Notice I said pre-wired. That rule doesn't make anyone buy an electric car and it doesn't even install the charger. It just runs the wiring, a heavier circuit and some conduit into the wall while the house is going up. And the reason the council cared about the timing is cost. Building them that wiring during construction is a lot cheaper than tearing open a finished wall to add it later. ClickATap PUD, the local power utility, told the city it runs about $5,200 to make a typical new house EV ready. Now, this didn't pass without real conversation, and honestly, it's the kind of conversation that I really like about local government. It makes it worth listening to. A resident named Mark Lemley came to the microphone and said, slow down. He'd been through a power upgrade on his own home, and to get the service he needed, he had to replace the transformer on the pole outside, one that serves three houses, that cost him somewhere between six and eight thousand dollars. And he warned the council that transformers are hard to get right now. Lead times have stretched to a year or two and prices have climbed. He said, quote, I feel like it's premature for us to be doing this, unquote. On the other side, a resident home builder named Kate Bennett spoke in support. She said building in the wiring costs four to six times less than adding it later, and that having a place to charge is one of the biggest reasons people actually switch to an electric car. Most folks, she pointed out, charge at home overnight. The counselors themselves kept circling one question all night. Who pays? Councilmember Doug Rainbow worried about folks already living here, so he'd faced a costly retrofit, and he called that a missing piece. Councilmember Morella Mora asked plainly, quote, who is this for? And who's really going to benefit, unquote? And she pushed to make sure the rule wouldn't scare off the affordable housing the city badly needs. Councilmember Ben Giant said he bristled at passing a rule just because it's cheaper now than later. And Councilmember Patty Fink, who brought the idea forward, closed it out. It's first step, she said. In the end, the wiring rule did pass, with carve outs for affordable housing, manufactured homes, and the smallest dwellings. And if you're wondering if White Salmon is out on a limb here, they're not. California is fighting over this very same question right now, and Washington's own building code has been nudging in this direction for a couple of years. We get into all of that in the written edition. The council didn't stop there. They also adopted the city's six-year transportation plan, which is really a wish list of road projects that has to exist on paper before the city can chase grant money to fix them. Public works moved failing roads up the list this last year. And speaking of roads, a big late May storm did some damage, and Skaggart Road is closed right now. The ground shifted and a water main broke, and Scenic took damage too. The engineers are on it. On top of that, the whole state has been in a drought since spring, so the mayor told residents to expect water conservation reminders this summer. The city would rather get ahead of it than scramble later. A couple of quick hits before we move on. The council retired the old cluster mailboxes downtown because after years of trying, the city decided the only way to get everyone free mail is no fee post office boxes. They celebrated the Columbia High School's knowledgeable team, repeat state champions. They mark Pride Month with a presentation from the Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance, and Morella Mora was appointed to a state board on equitable housing, which means White Salmon now has a voice at the table. Moving over to the Community Development Committee, they met on June 15th. This is the committee that handles the city's events and recognitions, and they spent a good chunk of June on Heritage Months. They're reworking how the city names Hispanic Heritage Month, with Marilla Mora leading language, to better honor a community that, as she put it, is not a monolith. That work comes to the council in July. But the moment that probably lands closest to home is the 4th of July. The committee wants to close the street for the parade, and they found out that it would cost about $10,000 to do that. About $3,300 of that is just paying the nine people you need to manage the detours. And the chair Ben Giant called that, and I'm quoting, just ludicrous. So they're hunting for a cheaper path. There's a heads up that matters for the fall. The downtown Halloween event could be in jeopardy unless the city gets a slimmer traffic plan approved by October. Committee also welcomed a new member, Tamara Tippel, who runs the Mount Adams Chamber of Commerce. And they're drafting a resolution to drop park reservation fees, which the city ends up refunding almost every time anyway. And finally the Planning Commission, which met on June 24th. The big item there was a four-unit housing project on Southeast Wire Street that you might have heard about in prior episodes. The owners had asked the commission to reconsider its approval, arguing the city made some legal missteps along the way. But when it came time to act, the motion to reopen the case didn't even get a second, so it failed and their approval is now final. The commission also started looking at short-term rentals downtown. Right now, a rule caps how many of a property's units can be vacation rentals. And the math works out so that a single family home in a commercial zone can't be a short-term rental at all, even though it could be one in a regular neighborhood. That's about 30% of a unit, so if you tried to take 30% of one house, that unfortunately rounds down to zero. So the commissioners think that might be an accident worth fixing, and they'll keep at it. The meeting was also a send-off for Commissioner Michael Morneau, who's wrapping up about eight years of service. So what's coming up? The City Council met again on July 1st, and they'll be taking up those Planning Commission appointments they set aside. So we'll look forward to seeing how that pans out. The Planning Commission has a public hearing on July 8th, a new convenience store on North Maine, and the Community Development Committee's Heritage Month and Park Fee work is headed to the council sometime in July. If you want the full detail, the votes, the dollar figures, and the links to watch any of this yourself, it's all in the written edition. Our coverage of the Community Development Committee draws on a recording from the Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local. 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 ScamaniaDispatch.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. We hope you have a very happy Fourth of July, and thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

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Bye.