Klickitat County Commissioners met yesterday, and among the items on the agenda, passed two resolutions – one to enact interim zoning controls regarding the bulk storage and warehousing of lithium batteries. The other to enact interim controls in regard to the siting, installation, or development of battery energy storage systems known by the acronym BESS.
The vote was not unanimous. Commissioner Jake Anderson voted no on both resolutions, saying among other things that the resolution didn’t define battery energy storage systems.
But it was the presentation of a preliminary budget by Fiscal Services Manager Jennifer O’Neil that could have more reaching impact. Here’s what she told commissioners:
“Before you in those binders is the statutorily-required presentation of our preliminary budget. Total expense, I get: $67,780,000. Total proposed revenue, $62,998,000, leaving a difference of $4.7 million dollars.”
Commissioner Anderson tried to reassure voters:
“One thing everybody I think should know is that no matter what, we will be able to provide this year. We’re not in a situation that other counties are in, because we do have cash reserves, because we’ve been doing that for a long time and building up out piggy bank one year at a time.”
And that brought this response from Commissioner Dan Christopher:
“Being a fiscal conservative, I believe you live and balance your budget out of your checking account, not digging into your savings account because you refuse to cut HBO from your cable bill. If you can’t afford your cable bill, you need to cut HBO from your cable bill before you get into your savings account to pay for it. The Savings Account is e-mer-gen-cy reserve.”
There will be much more when they commission gets into the nuts and bolts of the budget. In doing so, they need to keep in mind this comment from Jake Anderson:
“We’re in a different world today than we were for the last 20 years – and we need to recognize that.