HEADLINES & HISTORY SINCE 1879 Goldendale, Washington
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2024
Vol. 145 No. 35
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SUPPLY EXCEEDS DEMAND: An informal two-year study of some controversial material at the Goldendale Library reveals little demand for the material.
Some Goldendale Library content has virtually no interest JORDAN MAYBERRY FOR THE SENTINEL A two-year private project has focused on ascertaining how content comes into the Fort Vancouver Regional Library (FVRL) system, with conclusions that have caused concern among many frequenting the Goldendale Library. The Goldendale homeschooling community in particular has made active pushes to regulate books it deems inappropriate for young children. The discussion has not just focused on the suitability of this material to their target audience, but even more so on how this material appeared in the Goldendale Library in the first place. Under the FVRL system, volumes and media are circulated within the system, with material for each individual location throughout the FVRL libraries dictated by the board, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington. While the Goldendale Library has seen much benefit from its participation in the regional library system, not limited to funding, facility upgrades, and increases in social programs, it has seen criticism from many who feel unrepresented when it comes to some volumes, especially those that contain explicit sexual content. One local resident speaking on condition of anonymity created a project that would verify how in demand new stock was to local readership, a project that lasted two years. “The start of my project began by accident,” the person explains. “In 2022 I was at the library with my younger siblings and noticed multiple pro-LGBTQ children’s books, multiple with explicit content not fit for children to be reading. In an effort to temporarily remove these books from the shelves, I checked them out. Because of Fort Vancouver’s automatic renewal policy, I actually held them for quite some time, and I eventually had to return them after a number of months when a couple of the books had been placed on hold by another library patron. The amount of time that I was able to hold onto the books interested me, since I normally could not keep a book that I was interested in reading, such as any sort of classic literature, for more than two renewal cycles before the book was requested from me. “After this initial stint I decided to seek out these types of books and see how long I could check them out before any other user found enough interest to place the books on hold for themselves. In the interest of time, I’ll just recap the most recent example of this. At the beginning of this year, I checked out 12 books from the Goldendale Library that were classified under the library’s catalog as being ‘proLGBTQ,’ a majority of which were from the juvenile section.
I then observed as eight months went by until just recently when the single adult fictional novel from this batch was ordered by a library patron, forcing me to return the book. I then drove all 12 of the books out to White Salmon library, where only two of the 12 made their way back to Goldendale in the last month—and also where almost none of them actually remained in White Salmon, instead going further west towards larger libraries where this content is more popular. “I have run this same test just over five times in the last two years, and pulling data from those trials, I have found that around 90% of these books were never placed on hold by anyone close enough to the Goldendale Library to require me to return them within a time frame of 4 to 8 months, and only around 13% of the total books get recirculated back up to Goldendale once returned at a different location. “This data has led me to make the following conclusion: the community surrounding the Goldendale Library has no interest in material concerning LGBTQ education. There is, in fact, extremely little demand for this material when it is not blatantly put on display, in which case it is more likely that a child innocently picks it out than a parent. Very few actually miss these books when they are gone, and the library completely and unequivocally determines the flow of these books into our library despite the overwhelming lack of patron demand. I hope that the board will put this data to good use and will make appropriate changes to better serve the desires of this community.” A condensed version of this documentation was presented as a public comment to the FVRL Board in the most recent annual Library Board Meeting, held on August 19. The report did not meet with unanimous agreement among commenters at the meeting, some of which expressed their opinion to retain these materials in the Goldendale Library in order to preserve an openness to ideas. Some added that control of what is deemed explicit content and children’s exposure to it should be parents’ responsibility, and not the libraries. As one public commenter put it, “Public libraries are, by their very definition of the phrase, public. They should remain public. We should retain full access, no censorship, no banned books, and leave the onus of what is right or not right for our children to read up to the individual parent.” Regardless of opinion, the data overwhelmingly suggests that the volumes are not in demand in Goldendale. Irrespective of that finding, there remains a belief among some that demand should not be a key determinant in providing content.
‘90% of these books were never placed on hold’
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GRAPES LEFT UNSOLD: Klickitat County has supplied a quarter of all grapes in Washington State sold to wineriries. But a sharp decline in demand and a sudden change by a major buyer has left vineyards in the county in uncertain times.
County vineyards facing major market adjustment JORDAN MAYBERRY FOR THE SENTINEL One of Klickitat County’s major exports, grape production, is currently navigating rough waters due to a market correction. The County Department of Economic Development has investigated the issue and is planning accordingly for the county’s future. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source discloses, in recent years Klickitat County “has produced 25% of the state’s grapes for wine production and distribution. A survey was done in which growers were contacted because not only did prices for grapes tank, but also there were issues with the restructuring of contracts for some of their buyers that caused grapes just to sit out in the field. They had to be cut up or dug.” Ste. Michelle is self-described as one of the largest wine companies in the United States. Based in Woodinville, Washington, it controls nearly 30,000 acres, much of which is in Washington State but some of which also extends into Oregon and California. However, as the market for wine grew beyond its own capacity, a glut in the market became an inevitability. As of last year, Ste. Michelle announced that it would not take in almost 40% of the contracted grapes, leaving farmers with mass amounts of supply left on the vine. Now, with Ste. Michelle’s acquisition by a private equity firm, contracts for grape production are shifting away
from Klickitat County. “The contract restructuring, specifically the major one that’s out there and already been published, is St. Michelle,” the source elaborated. “St. Michelle’s is located in Benton County, but all their grapes came from [Klickitat County]. They ended up getting bought out by a venture capitalist firm, and it’s already been made public that they’re moving out to Oregon.” Klickitat County, along with neighboring counties, contributes significantly to Washington State’s grape production. The source noted, “There are a lot of local producers—Yakima County, Benton County, Clark County—but Yakima and Klickitat, I would probably be willing to say, make about 50% or more than that.” The current situation is partly due to an oversupply in the wine industry: “I think it was also the sentiment that there’s also just a general glut in the wine industry; there are too many people growing grapes. There’s a lack of diversification. This was something that has been sort of inevitable for the past couple years.” Data indicating signs of a market correction were apparent long before the current issues surfaced. “When [Klickitat County] did its 10-year economic development strategy seven years ago, there was a conversation with the owners of Maryhill Winery. They
said when they first started as a winery, around 2000, 2001, they counted wineries in Washington and Oregon, and it was in the double digits, around 90 or something. And in the last 25 years, there’s been an explosion. The number of wineries in Washington State grew to around 900.” In addition to industry-specific challenges, broader economic trends have affected grape sales. A general economic slowdown has led to a decline in the consumption of refined alcohol, particularly among younger demographics. “In recessions, the consumption of luxury alcohol decreases,” the source explained. “You also see what younger people are drinking. They’re not just drinking less and less wine. They’re drinking less and less alcohol in general.” A visit to a microbrewery in Olympia recently revealed similar comments. The brewmaster there said the same thing that’s happening with wine is also happening with specialty alcohol as well. It’s industry-wide. The future of grape production in Klickitat County is not all bleak, though question marks have arisen as it faces the challenges of market corrections and shifting industry dynamics. The impact of these changes in the industry is being felt, and it is upon the resilience of local producers to traverse the waves.
‘There’s a general glut in the wine industry.’
Commissioner town hall meeting coming RODGER NICHOLS FOR THE SENTINEL
Klickitat County Commissioners announced their first town hall in months at their August 20 regular session. It’s scheduled for Thursday, September 26 at 7 p.m. both in person at the commissioner’s meeting room and online. It will be about as open a forum as possible. Commissioners will take questions on any topic; there will be no moderator screening questions, and commissioners will rotate which of them answers first on each question. It’s billed as an hour-long session, but if questions keep coming, they will extend it for up to another hour. In another major development, commissioners voted to enact a moratorium on the construction of battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities in the county. And a prohibition on storing lithium batteries, which sometimes burst into flames. They also decided to add those prohibitions to county zoning, which would make it more difficult for the Energy Facilities Siting Council (EFSC) to approve any such facility.
The vote was worded to take effect immediately and authorized staff to prepare the formal documents for approval. That came after it was reported that a person approached the planning department the previous day inquiring whether they could get a quick application filed before any changes took effect. The laws are explicit in saying whatever rules are in force at the time of an application are what the application will be reviewed under. The vote was a two to one split, with Commissioner Jacob Anderson voting nay. Commissioners also set the time for a public hearing concerning the proposed rezone of 58 acres in the Snowdon area. The request was to rezone the property from 20-acre minimum lots to 10-acre lots and to divide the property into five lots. In January, the county issued a determination of non-significance under the State Environmental Policy Act guidelines. That ruling would allow the process to continue. Several local residents appealed that ruling, and that appeal will be heard September 17 at 1 p.m. in the commis-
sioner’s room. The hearing will include a decision on whether to allow the zone change. Public Works Director Jeff Hunter, who updated commissioners on a number of projects around the county, said work on replacing the vents in the county jail was under way and about a third of them had been replaced. The design of the old vents allowed an inmate to attach fabric to them and hang himself. In his report to commissioners, HR Director Robb Van Cleave said his department would be setting up interviews for the new jail director position. “We have six applications to date,” he said, “and we’ve had 1,270 people actually click on the posting and review it. So it’s getting a lot of reviews, just not a lot of applications; I expect we’ll get more towards the end of the posting period.” A five-person panel will do the interviews. It will include the three commissioners, Van Cleave as HR director, Jose Briones, the consultant sent by the insurance company, and White Salmon Police Chief Mike Heppner.