Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
The big item at last night’s Goldendale City Council was the passage of a comprehensive plan for city parks, which had been in the works for three years, involving the City of Goldendale, Klickitat County Economic Development, the Central Klickitat Parks & Recreation District and the Public Works Park Committee.
The goal was not only to create a strategic plan, but to satisfy the requirements for state and federal grants. It also came out at the meeting that the last parks plan was completed in 2000, 26 years ago.
There was some pushback from councilor Theone Wheeler, who said the committee had worked on an aspirational statement to commit to an unspecified future project involving acknowledgement of the local tribal culture, and was startled to find that missing in the final document.
“I worked with all of you over a year. I even brought lawyers and other people down from Yakima Nation, and I thought that we had a better plan of like how we were going to represent our First Nation people here. But when I read the end result, everything that we had talked about except the history portion, which you and I communicated on directly – that made it in, but everything else disappeared.”
That concern was addressed by Keaton Curtis from Klickitat County Economic Development Office:
“Everything that’s in the plan can be used in order to pursue projects honoring and commemorating tribal history, interpretive signage, any sort of outdoor recreation opportunity that can include tribal culture and history, that’s all certainly available with eligibility to the granting programs and certainly something that can be included in a grant application, even if it’s not explicitly included anywhere in the plan.”
With that assurance, the plan was unanimously approved.