Video courtesy of Nancy Kusky of Goldendale TV. Please subscribe to her YouTube Channel.
The Goldendale City Council met last night. City Administrator Larry Bellamy started the meeting with the announcement of an award from the Washington State Department of Ecology.
“This is an outstanding award for 2020, recognizing the exemplary effort and work accomplished by the City of Goldendale and the dedicated team at the City of Goldendale wastewater treatment plant. Thank you for protecting and keeping Washington’s waters clean.”
Police Chief Jay Hunziker reported on an unresponsive man found on the 600 block of South King Street on the evening of December 2nd. He said the man did not respond to attempts to revive him and was pronounced dead at the scene, that the family had been notified, and the name would not be released, pending an autopsy. Chief Hunziker was very clear about one aspect of the situation:
“Through our investigation, no criminal activity was found. It’s floating out there on Facebook and social media and other places, but again there’s nothing to indicate that we have anything other than maybe natural causes.”
Local citizen Ken McKune expressed concern with Klickitat County’s plans to tear down the current annex building, once all the offices have moved to the new building. He urged the council to urge the county to consider declaring it surplus and sell it to a developer for office space or storefronts.
Later in the meeting, Klickitat County Commissioner Dan Christopher explained why the county will be demolishing the building:
“It does have a bad roof, it’s full of black mold, it’s full of asbestos. Multiple million dollars to fix it. We would spend taxpayer money to fix it, then sell it for pennies on the dollar.
About half of the offices have moved to the new building, Christopher said, and the other half would do so within a month.