Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
There was some good news for drivers in Klickitat County. Public Works Director Jeff Hunter told county commissioners that the department had received a $2.6 million dollar public safety grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. County Engineer Seth Scarola explained:
“We applied for 5 projects as a group, and we were awarded all 5 of them. One of them is a Pine Creek Bridge. It has no rail, this will add a rail to it. The white plastic edge lines. We’ll be adding that to Bickleton Highway, a portion of Bickleton Highway, and Centerville Highway. Inlaid plastic pavement markings project. This is on Roosevelt Grade Road. And then there’s guardrail upgrades on Alderdale and Trout Lake Highway outside the fire damage. And then another piece of curb warning signs on Bickleton Highway in the Rock Creek Grade area.”
Those are all 100 percent grants with no match required. The county also got a grant for a sidewalk from the fairgrounds into Goldendale. That one came with a 30 percent county match.
In the afternoon session, commissioners approved the an annexation into the Rural 7 Fire District. Chief Tony Browning noted that the district is one of the largest in the state:
“We’re currently at 601 square miles. We have 11 fire stations, we run about 100 volunteers. The timber companies have been selling the ground north of us into the Simcoe Mountains. A lot of people have been buying that up, and our boundary lines do not cover those folks. It’s fair to our taxpayers to not have to cover people that aren’t paying, so we figure it’s officially time to annex that boundary.”
Those 601 miles equal more than 384,000 acres, and the proposal would add just over 50,000 additional acres. Nearly 2/3 of the property owners petitioned to join the district. Being in a fire district definitely lowers insurance costs.