BCC discusses possible speed bumps for Humboldt

During the council’s meeting at the beginning of March residents of Humboldt Street conveyed their concerns with the business operating in a residential neighborhood. A few of the expressed concerns were increased traffic along the residential street, and drivers exceeding the speed limit.

Bingen Mayor Betty Barnes was hesitant on the city’s behalf to finance speed bumps before shedding light on the current situation.

“I would like to see, before going and investing funds in something, what is the impact for sure,” explained Mayor Barnes. “As we all know, people speed on our residential streets,” Barnes admitted, her focus is to find evidence of increased traffic before opting to the installation of speed bumps.

In the meantime, Barnes explain-ed the county would be installing traffic counters. “We had a call in to county [Klickitat County Sherriff’s Office], and they’re going to lay down some counters,” explained Barnes, who added the counters were believed to track vehicle speed as well.

There was some talk of instead painting a sign on the street encouraging drivers to slow down with such phrasing as, slow or speed limit 25 mph.

City Council member Catherine Kiewit then relayed her conversation with the owner of the smoke shop, Ty Young, back to Mayor Betty Barnes, City Administrator Jan Brending, and other council members saying his intentions aren’t to disrupt the community.

Kiewit told the city council that Young wished to cooperate with the city and iron out any apparent issues. “He just wanted everyone to know that if they had any issues with specific things that he didn’t want it to feel like, that people needed to come to the city,” said Kiewit.

“He could tell his employees to not drive so fast, or whatever the complaint is. He would like to be notified, and he really wants to work with the neighbors and he’s [agreed] to having a meeting with the neighbors,” said Kiewit.

Kiewit agreed during the council’s last meeting to spearhead a meeting between neighbors and the business owner in order to strike common ground and keep an open dialogue between the business and those living on the same street.

“There’s just been sort of a disconnect,” said Kiewit, “the neighbors feel like they’ve been sort of blindsided and then he feels like he talked to everybody, and then this newspaper article got published and he kind of felt like, again, there was some tension there. He doesn’t want there to be conflict.”

“He needs to be able to share his thoughts and we can explain, ‘oh that’s why things are the way they are,’” said Kiewit.

Brending told council members she contacted the Yakama Nation and voiced comments and concerns of property owners in the Humboldt neighborhood, and also expressed the city’s interest in being notified of any public hearings regarding the property the smoke shop is located on.