By Rodger Nichols
For Columbia Gorge News
GOLDENDALE — The Klickitat County Commission meeting on April 27 saw a slight change to its format, inserting a nearly two-hour childcare workshop between its morning work session and afternoon formal session.
The workshop attracted a number of attendees via Zoom, including District 17 State Sen. Paul Harris. Lynn Mason of Rural Solutions opened by recounting a visit to Families First, a model childcare center in Boardman (see story at columbiagorgenews.com). The impetus for the trip came from White Salmon resident Gabrielle Gilbert, a longtime advocate and regular contributor to the commission’s weekly public comment period.
Brenda Profit, the director of that center, presented a detailed overview of its successful public-private partnership funding model, which relies on an “enterprise zone” and corporate sponsorships to subsidize costs. She told commissioners that investing in child care may be an expense up front, but it is a money generator in the end.
“Childcare actually pays for the investment,” she said, “because now you put more people to work. More people are paying property taxes; more people are paying sales taxes.”
Gilbert wrapped up the session with a discussion on the regulatory and bureaucratic barriers faced by individuals trying to open home daycares in Washington.
County sheriffs bill
In the afternoon session, there was one note of interest on a controversial bill that establishes new eligibility requirements for county sheriffs, curtails responsibilities that can be assigned to their posses and clarifies what occurs when sheriffs lose state certification (see story, columbiagorgenews.com).
John Bruce, who is a longtime law enforcement officer and a candidate for Klickitat County Sheriff told commissioners, “I just wanted to update you that tomorrow there will be an emergency hearing over in Thurston County on one of the lawsuits against the new law from Senate Bill 5974, because the law is supposed to take effect on Thursday. We’ll see whether or not next week, for filing week, we have to do an additional certification.”
On April 29, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Schaller did rule SB 5974, the “Sheriff Removal Bill,” unconstitutional and granted a preliminary injunction to prevent it from going into law. In all likelihood, Attorney General Nick Brown will appeal, but for now, it’s blocked.
Other business
In other action, commissioners noted they lost one person in the administrative department. Rather than replace that position with a full-time employee, they decided to resurrect an intern program.
“They did it for a number of years,” said County Administrator Robb Van Cleave. “It was very popular with the offices and the departments, very productive for the young folks who used it, and they gained a lot of workforce training and experience. It was a very worthy program and was unfortunate that we discontinued it.”
Commissioners were assured there was money available to pay the intern from the unused portion funds for retiring employees.
And it feels way too soon for a burn ban, but Jeff Hunter gave commissioners this report in his new role supervising emergency management: “We heard from the three east side fire chiefs, and they would like to start the burn ban for the east side of the county on Saturday, May 16,” he said. None of the commissioners objected, and the matter will be on the agenda next week.
•••
Read the April 21 meeting story, and much more at columbiagorgenews.com.
Commented