Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Klickitat County Commissioners heard several bits of good news at their meeting yesterday. One of them came from Public works director Jeff Hunter, who said there was a change order on the courthouse painting project that would add $84,573 to the cost of the project without requiring any additional funds from the county:
“We’re adding extra stuff because we got good enough prices; we had some savings, and this is grant money. Instead of turning it back and using our money to paint all the light poles and all that, we talked to the granting agency. They said, ‘That’s close enough. You can paint.'”
That way, Hunter said, when they finish painting the exterior, everything will be painted. He noted that it had been 28 years since the courthouse had been painted, and suggested they not wait that long in the future.
Courtney Cooke, the county’s chief probation officer, thanked commissioners for a long-awaited addition to their staff:
“We filled a vacancy that we have had for four years – a case manager. Darrin Wakefield is who we hired. He came to us from the jail facility. He worked four years in the jail, and it has allowed him to adapt to his responsibilities with our office extremely fast. In fact in his second week on the job, he had to do an independent court docket day.”
She said the judge had complemented him on the occasion.
And commissioners did decide to make one major shift in response to the growing volume of public records requests, which some groups have weaponized to harass government offices. They will take responsibility of coordinating and responding to those requests away from the HR department where it was an unfunded burden on otherwise busy staff, and create a new full-time funded position in the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. In order to remain budget neutral, commissioners chose not to fill a position in their own office that was budgeted for, as Chair Ron Ihrig put it.
“We have a position in the commissioner’s office, as a support position that we’re giving that funding, that F.T.E. position to that position. We’re also have some funding coming from county roads.”