[Klickitat] 🗳 The Last Forum - Klickitat Primary Special - 7/21

Klickitat County's third and last candidate forum before the August 4 primary (vote by tonight!) happened July 21 in Goldendale, and the questions were the bluntest of the three. Three sheriff candidates were asked when they last worked patrol in Washington, and one answered "never." Klickitat County Commissioner Lori Zoller was asked to defend the Board of County Commissioners' takeover of the county jail. We also walk the final Public Disclosure Commission filings for both county races, and the Federal Election Commission reports for the open 4th District congressional seat.

In This Episode

• Klickitat County Sheriff: Bruce, Warren and Matulovich on patrol currency, the sheriff's posse, and what "constitutional sheriff" means after Bob Songer
• County Commissioner District 2: Kallinen, Zoller and Klejeski, and the jail question nobody wanted to read out loud
• Why we are not printing the jail settlement's dollar figures, and what a typed record does confirm
• Retiring Sheriff Bob Songer is funding candidates in both county races
• The 4th District open seat, where outside groups have outspent every county candidate combined, several times over
• Why Klickitat and Skamania readers are voting in different congressional races

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Our earlier coverage of the July 9 and July 14 forums: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/your-klickitat-2026-primary-ballot-preview-7-9-7-14-candidate-forums/
• Nathan Wilson, "Meet the three candidates for Klickitat County sheriff," Columbia Gorge News, July 21, 2026: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/meet-the-three-candidates-for-klickitat-county-sheriff/article_2ff1d474-c44f-487b-b2b6-59faa63e30f2.html
• Nathan Wilson, "Tony Warren's tenure at the Bingen-White Salmon Police Department," Columbia Gorge News, July 28, 2026: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/tony-warrens-tenure-at-the-bingen-white-salmon-police-department/article_3aadf406-29b9-49d2-ba26-7659a4898eb3.html
• Klickitat County Elections and ballot drop-box locations: klickitatcounty.gov
• Look up any candidate's donors yourself at the Public Disclosure Commission: pdc.wa.gov
• Federal filings for the congressional races: fec.gov

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Open Gorge. I'm recording this on Monday, August 3rd, which means that if you're hearing it today, Tuesday, August 4th, you have until the end of the day to get your primary ballot in. It's due by 8 o'clock tonight. So you can go to a nearest drop box, a mailbox works if it can get postmark, but it will not be counted if it stays on your kitchen counter. So go ahead and get that in. Today, the third and last candidate forum on ClickAttack County is what we're covering. That was July 21st in Goldendale. Then we're going to cover the money because the final filings are in. We covered two earlier forums in Dallas Port and White Salmon. One was Blunter, and the audience wrote questions on cards, and a volunteer read them out. At one point the moderator read one, paused, and said, quote, Well, there it is. Have fun with that one, unquote. So let me give you the single best question of the night. It went to all three sheriff candidates. When was the last time you personally worked patrol in the state of Washington? John Bruce answered first. His was, quote, short and sweet answer, never. To be fair, he explained himself. Thirty-five years in Texas, chief and frisco, then two and a half years as police chief in Richland, riding along with officers, but no patrol shift in this state, and he said so plainly, rather than dodging. Tony Warren answered next. His answer was, quote, two hours ago. He is the sitting investigation sergeant at Click Attack County Sheriff's Office, and he said he still covers patrol shifts because the department is short staff. Dwayne Matilovich said, June 5th, 2023. He has 19 years of law enforcement in this county behind him, but for the last three years he's worked for the railroad, where he's now foreman in three different crafts. Now one question sorts the race. Bruce is asking you to hire a manager, Warren is asking you to promote from the inside, and Matilovich is asking you to bring back someone who did the local job a long time and then stepped away. Second, the sheriff's posse, the volunteer group Bob Songer built. All three support keeping it, but two would change how it works. Bruce would make sure posse uniforms do not resemble deputy uniforms and would announce that change publicly. Matilovich went further, he said, quote, I do not want them looking like law enforcement. I think it's a liability to them, and I think it's a liability to the department, unquote. He would point the posse towards wildfires and floods and put enforcement with a strength and reserve program instead. Warren, the only one currently working alongside the posse, was the most protective. He sees small tweaks and suggested some public concern, maybe misunderstanding rather than misconduct. The county might need, he said, quote, a little community education as to what a deputy is and what a posse member is, unquote. Third thing, somebody asked, would you be a constitutional sheriff like Bob? And this is where three of them genuinely separate. Warren went the furthest. He said if the state passes a bill that is not good for the citizens of Clickitak County, quote, I have no issue telling them where they can go. I have no issue with not enforcing those things, unquote. Bruce kept the posture but moved the decision to the courts. He said the office would examine new laws and challenge the ones that need challenging. Matilovich drew the line the tightest. He said, quote, the fight is the judicial side on the executive branch. Where discretion is allowed, I will use it wisely, unquote. And in his closing, he said he would honor his oath by enforcing laws as written and relying on the courts for interpretation rather than his own bias. Three very different answers, all on the record. Now the commissioner raced District 2, three candidates, all Republicans, so the primary is effectively the contest. The hardest question of the night went to the incumbent, Lori Zahler, and I will read it the way it was read out. Quote, why did you do a hostile takeover of a jail instead of talking to the sheriff about it? Unquote. Zahler rejected the framing. She said there have been months of discussion about jail problems, and things fell off a cliff after a death in custody produced a lawsuit against the commissioners. The board had to act to limit what taxpayers would owe, and the settlement came in with conditions, operational control, an outside jail commander, and an outside review the other side's attorneys approved. She said the jail today is fully staffed, in compliance, and within budget. Now here I want to be careful because we can confirm the shape of that. On May 5th, Commissioner Ron Irig briefed the Trout Lake Community Council, and those are typed minutes and not a recording. He described a wrongful death suit about three years ago, a settlement requiring a yearly jail audit and more on-site medical care, and a jail that had just added three employees after years of running short. He also confirmed the food service moved to the State Department of Corrections program at about half the old costs. We'll dig into that as they become available. Zoller described a claim in the tens of millions negotiated down a long way and said the food contracts save money. Those are her characterizations, and they may well be right, but we'd rather be a week late than wrong, so we will get those settlement documents. One more from that race, an audience card claimed deputy positions have not grown in 20 years, while the county has. Nobody pushed back. It's one side of an old argument, and the first question I would ask of whoever wins. Okay, now let's go to the money. Final filings from the Public Disclosure Commission. In the sheriff's race, Tony Warren has raised about $16,600, and only 5% of his own. Dwayne Matilovich has raised about $12,800, and 44% of that is his own money. John Bruce has raised about 9,000, 26% of it his own. Here's the part I didn't expect. Retiring Sheriff Bob Songer is funding candidates in both county races. He and his wife gave $1,200 to Tony Warren across five dates, and Songer separately gave $500 to Andy Callanan for County Commissioner. And in a county where one man has held the sheriff's office for 11 years, it's about as close to an endorsement as the paperwork gets, and it runs in both races. Second surprise, the incumbent commissioner is being outraised. Followers raised about $4,700 and 77% of its her own money. Callanan, a first-time candidate, has raised more than twice that from other people. And then there's the top of the ballot, which I want to say slowly because I think it trips people up. Clickitat County votes in the fourth congressional district. Skimani County votes in the third. Those are different races, different candidates, and we cover them in the same newsletter, so I'll try to keep this as straight as I can. Clickatat's fourth district seat is open because Dan Newhouse is not running again. Eleven candidates filed, Amanda McKinney is raised the most, about 980,000. Jared Sessler is second, and about half his money is loans from himself. The real number is the outside money. Independent groups have reported spending about $2.12 million supporting Amanda McKinney. That's more than twice what her own campaign raised, and it is more than every county candidate in Klikatat has raised put together several times over. Another $166,000 has been spent against Jared Sessler, some have it reported as recently as July 31st. Over in Skamania's third district, Marie Gloosencamp Perez, by comparison, has about $2 million in the bank, and John Braun has about $1.1 million. Braun has banked more than half of everything he raised, which is what you do when you think the general is the real fight. Ballots are due at 8 o'clock Tuesday tonight, so go vote. We'll have results coverage after the count. With that, you've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Schemania Dispatch and the Click of Taddler. We believe that informed communities are stronger communities. 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. We'll talk to you next time.