READ ‘THE RETURN’ PAGE B5 Goldendale, Washington
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025
Animal shelter moving ahead slowly
Vol. 146 No. 26
Dallesport Water District gets funds
Here Comes the Sun
RODGER NICHOLS FOR THE SENTINEL
MELISSA UHLES
Carina.org. They know about it but can’t guide people through it.” She’d seen firsthand that seniors in town needed help. Sometimes she’d witness them struggling at the grocery store and trying to run basic errands. In addition to help with shopping, she suspected many people
Things are potentially looking up for the Dallesport Water District. Commissioner Lori Zoller reported at the June 17 BoCC session on her meeting the previous week with Klickitat PUD with some good news about a long-awaited decision. “The Landfill Gas grant in the full amount of $185,000 was granted to the Dallesport Water District, so they can fulfill the obligation under their five-year plan to the state to improve their ATEC system,” she said. The ATEC system is what filters iron and manganese from Dallesport water. She said the original request had been for $145,000, and the extra would hopefully cover price hikes since then. A previous offer came with four conditions, which were rejected by the Dallesport Water System. Zoller added the county Public Works department would help the district with the procurement process and installation. Klickitat County residents who live in the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area could face delays in processing land use applications. That’s because the county is the only one of the six counties (three in Oregon and three in Washington) with land in the National Scenic Area that did not enact land use ordinances mirroring those of the National Scenic Area Management Plan. In the other five counties, county planning departments process the applications for the portion of the Scenic Area inside their boundaries. That gives those departments more control and a bit of leeway. Since Klickitat County did not follow suit, all Scenic Area applications in the county have to be made to the Gorge Commission staff directly. This came to be a problem in previous years, when budget cuts shrank the Commission to the point where they did not have the staff to process Klickitat County applications in a timely manner. That resulted in delays of more than a year. That’s when the Washington legislature stepped in. Conditions in the bi-state compact that created the agency require that it be funded equally by Washington and Oregon, so the folks in Olympia couldn’t increase their contribution without convincing legislators in Salem to match it. Instead, they chose to give funds directly to the county. Those funds were earmarked to pay the salary of a planner to process Scenic Area applications in Klickitat County. But earlier this year, when the Washington House of Representatives voted to cut all funding to the Gorge Commission, it also cut the special funding for the Scenic Area dedicated planner. At the same time the Washington Senate voted full funding for the Gorge Commission and the special fund for the planner. A conference committee between the two houses was able to compromise on a 25 percent cut for Gorge Commission funding but did not restore funding for the planner. Klickitat County Commissioners considered funding the position at their June 17 meeting, but in their own budget crunch decided against it. The result: as of July 1, Scenic Area applicants in the county will have to apply directly to the Gorge Commission staff. And with budget cuts at the Gorge Commission, wait times will likely start to stretch out again. Commissioners did receive some good news that the grant to build an animal shelter for Klickitat County that was scheduled to expire in just a few days at the end of June has been rolled into the next biennium. That gives the county until the end of June 2027 to use the money. Jail Administrator Bill Frantz reported progress as well.
See Seniors page A8
See County page A8
FOR THE SENTINEL
A few weeks ago while researching solutions to nuisance dog issues in the county, information about a new animal shelter coming to fruition came to light. In 2022, then-Rep. Gina Mosbrucker secured $824,000 in funding for an animal shelter. Since this was three years ago, it prompted questions about what had caused the delay on the project. The determination laid out in Mosbrucker’s Legislative Community Project Form was that it would be less expensive to build a new shelter than to refurbish the one that was shut down in 2020. Unsafe conditions had forced its closure five years ago. The secondary mission put forward in Mosbbrucker’s funding request form was to create a foster and adoption program for unclaimed dogs. The Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) was named as the organization that would be in charge of coordinating with county officials as well as working with the county’s planning and permitting offices. Additionally, KCSO would be tasked with working with the City of Goldendale. The initial funding request also mentioned that, in addition to the building, it would cover the cost of two animal control officers. The project form also laid out a 10-year plan, structured as follows with redundancies occurring in some years: • Year l is to secure funding, setup animal shelter board, set-up a 50l©3 non-profit to receive donations, start recruiting volunteers, locate a site for the facility andstart construction. $350,000 • Year 2 is for construction of the facility, setup Interlocal Agreements with the cities, recruit two (2) animal control officers, purchase vehicles, fundraising to offset the cost of the program. $300,000 • Years 3 through 8 are identical, which is to fund part of the (2) animal control officers, fundraising will offset the cost of care for the animals. $25,000 • Year 9 County and Cities will fund (2) animal control officers, fundraising will offset the cost of care for the animals. $0 • Year 10 County and Cities will fund (2) animal control officers, fundraising will offset the cost of care for the animals. $0 So how have things progressed so far? During the Board of County Commissioners meeting on June 17, Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer once again brought up the animal shelter as an action item. Afterwards, I had a conversation with the Sheriff to learn what slowed the forward momentum on this project. He indicated that the Sheriff’s Department had to work in tandem with the county commissioners in order to begin to make progress on the animal shelter. While insinuating that politics with some of the commissioners had caused “the can to be kicked down the road,” Songer also acknowledged that the county commissioners had approved the property by the airport as a potential location for the animal shelter. He mentioned that the concern with that particular location was that hook-ups for water, sewage, and electricity would increase the cost of the project, whereas a location that already had hookups would cost less. It had also been suggested that using volunteers at the beginning of the process might help move things along more quickly, but not everyone was able to agree on that strategy. According to Songer, the current County Commission chair, Ron Ihrig, is hoping to work in partnership with the City of Gol-
See Shelter page A8
$1.00
LOU MARZELES
SOLSTICE SUNRISE: A hardy group of people assembled at the Stonehenge Memorial Saturday before the crack of dawn to celebrate the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. A man in a white robe led the ceremonies. A guitarist serenaded with soothing instrumental tones. Maryhill Museum Executive Director Amy Behrens spoke about Stonehenge, emphasizing its history as well as the significance of the land for Native Americans. The sun finally rose as the group circled a fire and cast slips of paper with past troubles written on them into it to burn them away
CONTRIBUTED
CLEVER TROPHIES: The Goldendale FFA created these trophies made from auto parts that will be given away at the Community Days car show. They’re in front of Clinton Baze’s 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle.
New car club to host car show ZACHARY VILLAR FOR THE SENTINEL
There’s a new car club in town called the Old Hwy 97 Cruisers. It’s a community-driven club for car enthusiasts where they gather to take part in events like cruise-ins, where they all drive their cars to meet at a certain location, and car shows where they park their cars and show them off. The club’s president, Clinton Baze, said that he’s currently working on registering the club as a 501©(3) non-profit with hopes of being able to raise money for the community. “The community is really supporting it, and we’re supporting the community as much as we can,” said Baze. When the car
club has raised enough money to make a donation, they would like to donate to the high school FFA organization or to fire victims who’ve lost their homes. “We’re here for the community,” continued Baze. “We want to do what we can to help out.”
The Old Hwy 97 Cruisers have already had one event, a cruise-in to Perez Collisions of Goldendale back in April with a turn-out of about thirty cars and their drivers, some of whom came from as far as Vancouver and Spokane to attend. There was a club meet-and-greet that day, a community barbecue, giveaways, and a silent auction. The club’s next event will be to host the car show at Community Days in Goldendale, which will take place July 11 and 12. As with their previous meeting, they will have a silent auction, and every participant will have a chance to win raffle prizes. Right now the only requirement to join the club is to have a vehi-
See Car page A8
Connecting seniors to inhome care services MELISSA UHLES FOR THE SENTINEL Goldendale has a large population of retired seniors, and some are in need of in-home care. Corena Shevchenko knows this firsthand. She was an inhome caregiver for her brother. Recently, she stumbled upon a website that matches senior clients in need with those looking for caregiving jobs. She wanted to let people know of its existence because the site, Carina. org, appears to be invaluable,
but she noticed hardly anyone from Goldendale was using it. Shevchenko said, “I want seniors to get the information they need. It’s heartbreaking to see someone struggling in their home. I’ve always had this compassion for seniors. So many need help in their homes, and they just don’t get it. I’ve gone to the Senior Center on Main Street and talked to them about