GOLDENDALE — The long-running budget dispute between Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer and the Klickitat Board of Commissioners flared up at the Oct. 2 budget workshop. Though reported elsewhere as "shouting," the actual recording revealed an exchange in which voices were definitely raised, but not to the shouting level. Here's a transcript of a portion of the conversation:
Sheriff Bob Songer: I wouldn't want to sit in your seat, be honest with you. I wouldn't want to be a county commissioner. But in the Constitution itself, your first response The responsibility under oath is protection of the citizens. That's the first responsibility. You get off on sidetracks and all that kind of stuff. As far as social programs and all of this stuff, it's nice, but that shouldn't come number one.
Commission Chair Ron Ihrig: If I may?
Bob: You may.
Ron: You've been given money for deputies. Why haven't you hired? Tell me why.
Bob: That's because you don't ...
Ron: You keep coming at us. We give you money for deputies. Why haven't you hired deputies?
Bob: You have not got a clue, Ron. You know what the process of hiring a deputy? You don't know.
Ron: You're four months past the line. You could have had a beginning started.
Bob: We are.
Ron: I don't know if you are. If you are, you talked about you may make an offer to one. You've had these, we doubled the funding four months ago, Bob.
Bob: Yeah, four months into the budget, we delayed us from hiring them in the first place.
Ron: If you would have hired them, do you think we would not have backed you?
Bob: Well, I'm not sure that ...
Ron: You never asked.
Bob: Oh come on.
Ron: No, I'm done playing the game.
Bob: Yeah, so am I. So am I, Ron, and we'll find out who comes out the end.
Ron: Hire your deputies, please.
Bob: Give me the $136,000 back, please.
Ron: What's that got to do with the three open deputy positions you have? That's what I'm interested in.
Bob: It's because of the budget. I want to get whole where we was before two years ago. You talk your stuff, you give us $240,000 back. Oh, we give you an extra $80,000. That is BS because that whole thing came out of the $382,000. You guys cut us.
Ron: I didn't cut you.
Bob: No, she did. [Indicating Commissioner Lori Zoller, who served on the BoCC the previous term.]
INAUDIBLE
Bob: No, you don't need to apologize, because I'm not apologizing.
Commissioner Lori Zoller: When we had a conversation earlier on, the $240,000 was moved where it needed to be moved, because it was there, and then the $80,000 was added. That was because there was a calculation done that that gave you enough that you could continue your payroll Mr. Culp all the way through, it would get you to the end of the year. That was the calculation on the budget, and I have a question, Mr. Culp has been receiving a paycheck?
Bob: Correct.
Lori: Since January, he has.
Bob: Right.
Lori: With that budget, you've been paying Mr. Culp and you will pay him to the end of the year?
Bob: Correct.
Lori: But what I understand there is enough or more than enough to continue your budget, as is, to the end of the year. So he's included in that. So all we were asking was because of the org chart change, because jail change, you changed and you put all the positions in place that we would have those discussions about funding those for 2026. We made it whole so you can continue and you have money in the budget to hire deputies. We just wanted to talk about new positions in 2026 just like we are every other year.
Bob: Yeah, I don't know where you folks, good point.
Lori: Yeah.
Bob: Why don't we have the $136,000 back? Make us whole on the $382, it's good.
By this point, voices had returned to normal. Commissioner Todd Andrews asked a question about how many positions had been applied for, and the conversation continued on a non-contentious basis.
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