Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media.
The Klickitat County Commission met yesterday. One of first items of business was a report from Zac Kennedy of the county’s lobbying firm Potts & Associates, bringing bad news from Olympia:
“The budgets are out; it is gonna be ugly. On that note, I would fully expect a special session this year. So, June, July, wouldn’t be surprised to see them come back. I don’t know if they’ll do it right after this session, but it is kinda ugly.
He said leaders weren’t accepting any new amendments on bills that had passed the first legislative house and on to the next. He explained that if different versions of the companion bills passed in the House or Senate, they would have to go to a conference committee to round out the details.
Kennedy said both parties fear bills that end up in a conference committee will never make it out of that committee.
Sheriff Bob Songer made an in-person report to the commission, and after reciting incident statistics, made this announcement:
“Based on the fact that the two county commissioners at the time, Lori Zoller and Jake Anderson claimed the employees of the jail and sheriff for neglect in Ivan Howtopat’s suicide in the Klickitat County Jail on May 20, 2023, I’m requesting the public records disclosure of the investigation and findings on Ivan Howtopat’s suicide that was concluded by an outside agency, the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office.”
Songer also said he would request the records of the evaluation of the jail and sheriff’s office by an Island County, Washington prison supervisor.
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