Klickitat County Commissioners set a new record for an afternoon session yesterday – opening the meeting, voting on a noncontroversial boundary adjustment and closing it again, all in just 7 minutes.
The morning session also took care of business in a tidy fashion, opening at 9 and closing before 11.
In response to a comment about short-term rentals, Planning Department Director Scott Edelman said that Klickitat County did not have an ordinance regarding them.
“If they’re not addressed in the code, they’re considered a residential use. Our code does not address them. Without an ordinance in place, I don’t know that we have any basis to enforce on those at this point. But I do think that an ordinance would be good. Not just for revenue, because I think that revenue would probably go toward a part-timer position to monitor those because they come with, obviously, standards in place that would have to be monitored to make sure that the neighborhoods are protected from the potential adverse impact, as well as safety concerns.”
In response to a question about budgeting for the transition of the jail from the Sheriff’s Department to a new Department of Corrections, HR Director Robb Van Cleave said that the new department has already been assigned a department number for the 2025 budget.
As for this year, he said a date for the transfer has not yet been set.
“At the point of the transition, where it covers the transfer of property, vehicles, budget, authority, contracts, forms, collective bargaining, all of that happens in the final resolution, and that would be the point at where the budget would officially be moved from under the sheriff to the Department of Corrections for 2024.”
He also told commissioners that the county now had a total of 11 applicants for the new jail administrator position.