Thursday Klickitat Co. Board of Commissioners workshops not available to view online; public may attend in person

The regular meeting then begins in the afternoon, starting with public comment. The other part of their new schedule began Thursday, Jan. 9, with a workshop meeting that was open to the public but not broadcast via Zoom to the wider audience. The commission intends to do so every Thursday.

When some people in the public comment period said they were concerned that not providing Zoom coverage of the Thursday workshop was restricting public access, commissioners emphasized that the Thursday workshops are open to the public. Commissioner Todd Andrews explained the commissioner’s reasoning:

“This is so department heads and employees could come and not be nervous as we’re brainstorming and talking some of those ideas,” he said. “Then Tuesday mornings, you can sit there and listen to us hash out these ideas that we gathered on Thursdays, and then have public comment. That public comment would be more informed, and further educate us on people’s beliefs, and then we would vote on it.”

Commissioners also shared that they plan to return to holding town hall meetings in different locations throughout the county.

Much of the regular session was involved with answering questions from the two new commissioners about the consent agenda of 20 items. Several of the agenda items had as many as 20 sub-items, each appointing a person to a board or committee. Commissioners were also assigned to liaise with various organizations.

Just the list of titles of the 20 consent items on the agenda items runs 1,300 words.

Most were routine housekeeping measures, but a couple merit special attention. One was an amendment extending a lease with James Dean Construction for a quarry site in the county for two years. The number of acres involved was not specified, but the lease fee was $100 per year.

And another set a bid opening Feb. 11 for the second phase of the Columbia Gorge Regional Airport business park improvement project, a major expansion.

An item that is expected to be on the Jan. 23 consent agenda will be one appointing people to an advisory committee on battery energy storage systems (BESS), associated with wind and solar projects. Though a formal resolution will be made at that time, a list of appointees has been made public. It appears that 19 people applied to be on the committee, and 11 were appointed, along with 10 ex officio members.