In place of the usual repetition of pro- and anti-Sheriff-Songer sentiments expressed at Klickitat County Commissioner’s meetings, Goldendale resident Bruce Shelton offered a unique perspective at the May 14 edition. He identified himself as a former Klickitat County Jail inmate, and said he had been incarcerated several times across the country.
“This jail we have here? It’s wonderful compared to a lot of jails that are around,” he said. “The guards pay attention, any time I’ve been in. They listen; they try to help. If you are willing to reach out and say, ‘I need help,’ they do...I’ve been surprised and impressed.”
He said that he has tried to help fentanyl users quit, but that withdrawal symptoms were so painful that people suffering from them are not in their right mind and can only think about ending the pain instead of reaching out for help, as in the case of the prisoner who killed himself.
He added that he thought moving prisoners to NORCOR would be a long-term and expensive commitment for the county.
Bob Yoesle of Goldendale provided another unique thought about the potential of the proposed health monitor bracelets for prisoners. “Technology is great,” he said, “but technology can have its problems, especially if you’re a new adopter. You need to know exactly what you’re getting into and the long-term costs.” He reminded commissioners that the City of Goldendale had replaced the streetlights with LED lights, but the company that manufactured them went out of business and took its proprietary software with them. The city had to replace all the lights and find new software.
He also wondered if the county had paid for Songer’s trip to the Constitutional Sheriff’s Convention in Las Vegas.
Songer himself was present and spoke twice. In the first instance, he assured people that he had paid for his Vegas trip out of his own pocket.
“Not one county dime was spent,” he said. “Let’s make that clear.”
He then asked Commissioner Jacob Anderson and Chair Lori Zoeller if they had contacted the Democratic Party in line with a pair of petitions supporting the closure of the local jail. One of those was a petition presented that morning by Jenne Patterson with 285 signatures.
“You both have a political agenda,” he said. “You know it, and you can deny it until hell freezes over, but we know what the truth is.”
Both commissioners later denied any involvement with the petition.
Songer also said that he had contacted the NORCOR chair and a board member whom he identified as Sherman County Sheriff Brad Lohrey, and said they agreed with him that to close the jail would be “the worst mistake Klickitat County ever made.”
As a point of fact, Lohrey was on the board for a number of years, but the current board consists of county commissioners from Wasco, Hood River, Sherman and Gilliam counties. The chair, Commissioner Scott Hege of The Dalles said he hadn’t been contacted and said he understood that Songer had instead spoken with two county sheriffs.
Songer also reiterated the charge that commissioners had cut his medical budget so they could claim he was running over budget.
The sheriff gained a second three minutes of commentary when Andy Smith invited Songer to join him in his allotment for a Q & A session. He asked whether training was required for the jail staff. Songer replied that there was mandatory training “plus training we can afford,” and that commissioners had only budgeted $7,000 for the year. “Obviously, if you want to minimize liabilities, you need to pay for the training,” he said. “The first thing we’re going to get chewed on is the lack of training, if there’s an issue that comes up.”
Undersheriff and former jail chief Carmen Knopes said that she wanted the public to understand that people who are convicted of a felony become part of the Department of Corrections.
“If there was a transfer of inmates to NORCOR in the State of Oregon,” she said, “those inmates would not be allowed to be in Oregon, because DOC cannot just go over and pick up an inmate out of state. They’re required to request a waiver of extradition.”
She said that their office sends one to five felony inmates to prison each month.
Several people asked for more information on the jail budget, and one inquired what steps the sheriff would take to fix any problems if the jail wasn’t closed.
Christopher was first to respond. “You have the I-Hate-Sheriff-Bob Fan Club, all wanting to close the jail,” he said. “They don’t need any information; they don’t need any proof; they don’t need any documents; they don’t need to see a budget. ‘Bob’s bad; close the jail.’
“Then you have the I-Like-Sheriff-Bob Fan Club that says, ‘Jail fine; keep the jail open.’ I wish this board would have handled this differently, so that it wouldn’t have the political stench that I believe it has.”
He said he believed it was in the county’s best interest to reach out to a larger
county such as Benton County or Yakima County, or the Sheriff’s Association and have them do a check on the jail.
“At this point, being so politically charged, I think this is the only way to save it,” he said, adding that he couldn’t get the board to approve it because he thought they would be afraid of the answer.
With so much talk about the sheriff’s budget, Christopher provided budgeted totals for several years: $5,007,000 in 2019; $5,265,000 in 2020; $5,447,000 in 2021, $5,283,000 in 2022 because taxes dropped in the previous year due to Covid, and $5,293,000 in 2023.
He did not have the 2024 budget figures, but the budget posted on the county’s website shows $5,250,000, a reduction of $43,700 or 0.8%. The Sheriff’s Department was not alone. Every department budget was cut as revenues fell, with some line items eliminated completely or reduced by more than 90%.
Earlier Pastor Larry Gourley said he was concerned about the legality of two commissioners running meetings while Christopher was absent, with Anderson making motions, and Zoeller stepping down briefly from her position to provide the second.
“We don’t get along,” Christopher said, “But what they did was proper, absolutely.” Two people constitute a quorum on a three-person board, and he said this was the way the board could conduct business if the third member is on vacation or sick. He added that if there was an issue that could be divisive, the two should hold it over for the third’s return, but he saw nothing in the motions that passed in the two weeks he was on vacation that should have been held over.
Anderson also touched on the budget, saying that property tax and sales tax revenues cover only part of the budget, and state law allows the county to raise property taxes only one percent per year. “We've been making up with the landfill [revenue] and that that's tapped out now, especially as landfill dollars are going down.”
With shrinking revenues, budgets have to shrink. “These are the hard decisions and the hard issues we all should be part of,” he said. “This is the situation we're in and it's not going to get better in the in the upcoming years.”
And he was emphatic about one point: “The County Commissioners did not cut the medical budget of the Sheriff's Office. The County Commissioners came forward and said you need to bring forward a budget of this amount...it was the Sheriff's Office who amended that.”
Zoller responded to the question about whether the county could deny the solar power company’s request for a franchise to install power poles and related items on Knight Road by saying they had the power to do so, but that the company could apply for a permit. Without a franchise agreement, the county would be left responsible for any costs if the road were to be changed and the poles had to be moved. Denying the franchise might also open the county up for a lawsuit by the company, since franchises had been granted to other applicants.
She also emphasized that the commissioners had not cut the Sheriff’s medical budget.
And she responded to questions about costs and benefits of different options regarding the jail, saying that the document on the subject is still in draft form and not available due to confidentiality issues.
“It does it does touch employees. It does touch legalities. It does touch budgets,” she said. She said the staff is worn out from talking to every outside source to get information on all aspects of the decision.
“As soon as it becomes public, you'll be able to see all of it, too,” she said. “So you'll have that in your hand and you'll understand costs and you'll understand everything that they've looked at.”
IT department head Randy Christiansen presented information on the potential purchase of wristbands that would monitor the health of inmates. He said it would be a technical presentation, without a recommendation for or against the product.
The 4Sight company that produces the Overwatch monitors was founded in 2020, he said, and has 25 employees. The version that the insurers of the Washington State Risk Pool are willing to pay for is a second generation of the device. The main difference, he said, was how it communicated with the Internet. The first generation used Bluetooth, and the second uses wi-fi. The monitors would communicate with a gateway device like a wi-fi router that would be hardwired to an Internet connection.
“My biggest concern is the wireless connection,” he said. “The jail has concrete walls and steel doors.” He wondered if the signal from the bracelets would be able to reach the gateway.
He said the second-generation model was introduced in January and has only been installed in prisons in Missouri and Las Vegas, but three counties in Washington have ordered them since the risk pool decided to fund $25,000 worth.
Christopher said the county needed more information and suggested reaching out to locations where the system was already in place, and asking the manufacturer to set up a demonstration to see whether the device signals could reach through the jail walls. He also said this should be done quickly, whether the jail would stay open or not. “If we can save one damn life in that time, we should,” he said.
Under the consent agenda, commissioners approved:
• An amendment extending the agreement between the county probation department and the state’s Department of Correction to allow D.O.C. to use the probation office space at the Pioneer Center on the second Tuesday of the month.
• A notice soliciting applicants to fill a vacancy on the Affordable Housing Advisory Board.
• A notice of request for proposals to conduct work from a Department of Ecology planning grant.
• An amendment extending the time to negotiate changes to the scope of the Department of Ecology’s budget regarding the Switzler Reservoir SEPA Review project.
• An amendment extending the term of the agreement between the county’s public health department and the Department of Commerce for a $70,000 Public Services Community Development Block Grant on behalf of Washington Gorge Action Programs.
• An amendment to the agreement between the state Department of Health and the county Public Health Department changing the scope of work for several programs administered by County Health
• A contract bond between Klickitat County Public Works and All Seasons Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. for $81,203.35 for the Klickitat County Courthouse HVAC Replacement Project 2024.
• A camp host agreement between Public Works and Benjamin Kofoed to remain as host for Guler Mt. Adams County Park from the time the park opens until Oct. 31.
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