The Goldendale City Council met last night. Among the items on the agenda, councilors heard a report from Klickitat County Commissioner Dan Christopher, who is als the founder of the nonprofit Goldendale Area Enrichment, which works to better the community, and is sponsoring a Goldendale Community Cleanup Day on Saturday, June 3rd:
“We have partnered with Republic Services to facilitate this thing up in two phases. One phase is Republic Services has generously offered to accept one load of trash, up to three yards, at the Goldendale transfer station from each household in the city, again at no charge. Phase 2 will be members of Goldendale Community Enrichment, working with anyone willing to volunteer to pick up trash at the curb for any Goldendale resident without the means of hauling their own trash. We will also be doing this free of charge.”
He asked anyone who owned a truck or pickup and wanted to help to show up at the Klickitat County Courthouse by 8:45 am on June 3rd. He said Republic Services, which operates the trash services, has agreed to provide lunch for up to 60 volunteers.
City Administrator Pat Munyan reported that there was an uptick in land use applications, whether for variances, conditional use permits or short plats. He said it was his understanding that this was happening a lot more frequently than in the past and was a sign of economic growth.And with good weather, public work crews are busy:
“Public work crews are now spraying weeds and they’re actually patching potholes as well inside our roads, and while there is still moisture in the ground, trying to get all the roads graded and alleys graded.”
Goldendale Police Sgt. Mike Smith reported that the city had recently experienced an increase in drug-related incidents in city parks and councilors agreed that the city should install signs prohibiting camping and drug use in the city parks to give the police more enforcement authority, and Councilor Steve Johnston suggested that the city implement some ordinances providing prohibitions against drug use, in face of state changes liberalizing their use. He said a number of other cities n the state are not waiting for the special session of the Washington legislature starting today to deal with the situation and have enacted similar legislation.