County amends code to establish judicial equity

These services would include hiring a district court judge from the county to try a case in a municipality where an existing judge could not be impartial.

Commissioner Jake Anderson has been working with the cities of Goldendale, Bingen, and White Salmon to determine a fair and equitable method of determining the cost of these services, he said.

The previous code, which includes the resolution established in 1993, 1.16.090, stated that for a municipality requesting these services, the method for determining the current year’s annual charge would be based on an average of the previous three years’ use of court time (expressed as a percentage of all case filing attributed to the municipality) multiplied by the total cost of the judge’s annual salary and benefits.

An example provided in the county code describes 15% multiplied by $35,000, equaling $5,250 cost per year for the municipality requesting the service.

This previous code only considered the time and work of the judge rather than the time and work the court clerks and staff put in during these case filings.

The newly amended ordinance allows a municipality to request these services but only be charged the average percentage of the total court filings over the last three years multiplied by the total expenses of the adopted budget for that district court from which the municipality receives services.

“There were a lot of discussions,” Anderson said. “Like us, our municipal partners are in financial straits, and I think this is a fair and equitable way of determining the value.”

Commissioner Dan Christopher said that this has been in conversation for the better part of the last year.

The unanimous vote came after an open public hearing to which no comment from the public was offered in support or opposition to the vote.

Most of the comments occurred during the general public comment period earlier in the meeting. Those commenters asked the commissioners to pressure Sheriff Bob Songer to reactivate the Hannah Walker case; Walker was found deceased in October. The first comment came from Hannah Walker’s mother, Aia Walker.

“No one from the county has responded to my request for information, and I want to understand why the DNA found under my daughter’s fingernails was never tested against a sample from the man she was with the day she died. I am wondering if I can request communication with the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor,” Walker said.

Typically during the public comment period, the commissioners wait until after all the public comments have been voiced to respond. In this case, Christopher responded to Walker, explaining that there is little the commissioners can do to help her.

“To help you understand the process, the Klickitat County Board of Commissioners has no oversight of the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office, or the coroner,” Christopher said. “They do not report to us, and we have no management or authority over them in any way.” Christopher explained that the meeting was not the venue to ask questions about the case because the board did not know the answers.

“We don’t have the authority to help you get the DNA sample because we’re not familiar with the case, and cases do not come before us,” Christopher said.

Christopher said much of what he knows about the case is what he has read in the newspaper.

“There does seem to be a lot of suspicious questions that need to be answered, but I can’t help you get to those answers because it’s not something that pertains to what the county commissioners are allowed to do,” Christopher said.