The Skamania Dispatch

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Latest — 24 Jul 2026

🪨 The 1872 Rule Hiding Under Skamania's Mining Fights

Skamania has two mining fights at once. But under the copper one sits an 1872 law that quietly decides who gets paid for the metal: nobody. Here's how a Grant-era giveaway still shapes what our county can ask for, what other places have won anyway, and what to ask before July 30.

More issues

🖥 Data Centers Come Knocking - Klickitat BOCC 6/30 - 7/21

Four weeks of the Board: a data-center permitting roadmap, a Planning Commission move to shrink where solar can go, the first hard short-term-rental numbers (143 properties), a Seattle-sized trash bid, and sharp questions on the "hiring freeze."

🎂 Turning 40 on a Tight Budget: Gorge Commission 6/18 - 7/14

The Gorge Commission adopted its first full rewrite of its open-government rules in decades. Plus: the one-year Burdoin rebuild scorecard, a commissioner's dissent on silence about two energy projects, and a new spider with a Sahaptin name.

🍽️ Splitting the Dinner Check - a Property Tax Explainer

Your reassessment notice feels like a bill. But it's really your share of a fixed check that WA law lets grow just 1% a year. What does that mean? Here is how property taxes actually work, with real numbers, just in time for election season.

🗳️ Your Klickitat 2026 Primary Ballot Preview - 7/9 & 7/14 Candidate Forums

Bob Songer is stepping down after three terms, and three career lawmen want his badge. Where Bruce, Warren, and Matulovich stand, who is funding them (the sheriff himself among them), the wide-open commissioner race, and why the sheriff's contest is the only one that drew its own forum.

🚦 A Green Light for the Quiet Zone - Bingen June '26 Round-up

Bingen's council saw the new Hood River-White Salmon Bridge at 60% design, hired an engineer to push the rail Quiet Zone forward, stood up a free e-bike library at Daubenspeck Park, and learned which of Olympia's new housing rules it does (and doesn't) have to follow. Here's your June.

🗳 Your 2026 Primary Ballot, Decoded: Inside Skamania's Candidate Forum - 7/14

The Chamber and both county parties put the 2026 candidates on one stage days before ballots drop. Here is who showed, what they said about timber, taxes, and mail-in voting, who is funding them, and the dates you need for the August 4 primary.

🔥 Smoke, Weeds and Fireworks: Goldendale's June '26 Round-up

Goldendale named a temporary Planning Commission to rescue its stalled ADU rule, locked in a $221,000 grant for the library elevator, and spent fire season arguing over dry weeds, a smoky downtown burnout event, and Fourth of July fireworks. Here's June, meeting by meeting.

🌿 Who Pays to Build Near a Wetland? - North Bonneville June '26

North Bonneville advanced its Critical Areas Ordinance, paid off firefighter dues unpaid since 2022, and sent tourism dollars to summer events, all while City Hall ran short-staffed. Plus: a voucher-review fight, a library squeeze, and a zoning hearing coming July 7.

⛏ A Mine, a Closed School, and a County "Locked in a Box" - Skamania BOCC June '26

Disaster survivors get ten years to rebuild under new county rules. Plus: a $5M storm road program, a mining company circles the Green River Valley, the timber fight sharpens, Carson hurts through the detour, and Skamania starts talking visitor fees.