GOLDENDALE — Klickitat County Commissioners received mostly positive information at their Oct. 15 meeting. With the cooling temperature and fall rains, they approved Emergency Management Director Jeff King’s request to rescind the burn ban across the county in all three burn ban zones. That change took effect at one minute after midnight that evening.
In the morning workshop, Columbia Gorge Regional Airport Manager Jeff Renard said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had visited the airport two weeks ago.
“The piece that they’re most excited about is that they invested in that ramp project at $3.4 million and gave us those four taxiways, and inside 24 months, we’ve got buildings going up against every piece of blacktop,” he said.
By comparison, he said, the FAA had financed similar blacktop projects at other Northwest airports without generating any new activity. The agency’s goal is to help airports become self-sustaining. New buildings on airport grounds represent steady income, which contributes to that goal.
“I told him that we’d be back looking for some more blacktop very soon,” he added, “because we’ll have everybody built out. And that’s exactly what they want to see.”
And a bit of networking Renard did a couple of years ago, meeting the King County airport manager, paid off big time for Klickitat County. As commissioners thumbed through his report, he announced that he was able to make a deal for about $250,000 worth of equipment for $8,000.
That haul includes a 24-foot wide snowplow and a 22-foot broom with a 200-mile-an-hour blower for blowing the snow and gravel off the runways and taxiways.
“This is a game-changer for the airport,” he said. “It used to take us most of a day to open up the airport. With this equipment, we can have a runway and a taxiway open for Life Flight in about 20 minutes.”
Renard said the equipment may be used, but it in excellent shape, with $10,000 worth of tires on the snowplow. It may have taken two years to get there, but to trade $8,000 for a quarter million dollars worth of hardware was worth the wait, he added.
The afternoon session included a public meeting that approved three short plats and a boundary line adjustment.
The only cloud in all this sunshine was when commissioners expressed concern that the Washington Counties Risk Pool might announce a significant insurance rate increase at their conference next week in Vancouver.
Under the consent agenda, commissioners approved:
• A public meeting for approval of BLA 2025-12 Beyerlin.
• Advertising for contractors for the Snowden Road Overlay, CRP 386.
• A public meeting for approval of boundary line adjustment BLA 2024-21, Smith.
• Purchase of a Silverado by the Sheriff’s Office.
• Purchase of a Tahoe by the Sheriff’s Office.
• A statement of work to upgrade the emergency management network by IT - Right System.
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