🎨 A Door Through the Mural - Bingen August '26 Round-Up

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🏛 Bingen August 2026 Municipal Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Bingen City Council (meetings of August 4 and August 18, 2026).

The Bottom Line: Bingen's city attorney is leaving at the end of the year for two judgeships, the city has filed a breach-of-contract complaint against the owners of a downtown building who cut a door through a mural that local kids helped paint, and the flood recovery ledger is finally starting to close, though not for the two businesses whose owners have been the loudest.

The Vibe: Housekeeping with a few live wires in it. Council spent August signing forms, approving a budget amendment and blessing a nearly finished crosswalk, then spent its longest conversation of the month deciding how gently to enforce its own contract.

🔎 What Changed

• City Attorney Chris Lanz told Council on August 18 that he is resigning as city attorney and prosecutor at the end of 2026, having been appointed District Court Judge in Skamania County and Superior Court Commissioner in Klickitat County.
• Council adopted Ordinance 2026-08-788 amending the 2026 budget, and authorized the WSDOT paperwork that obligates construction money for the Alder and Cedar sidewalks.
• Two of the five downtown flood claims are now fully settled. Chips and Mugs got "No update."
• Eda O'Connor was seated as the 2026-2027 student council member. Her father, Councilor Ryan O'Connor, abstained.

⚠ What Escalated

• The city filed a breach-of-contract complaint against Big Fish Properties, LLC over a mural on its downtown building, and then spent the meeting looking for a way not to press it.
• WSDOT sent Bingen a construction agreement for the new SR-14 crossing with another city's name on the front of it. Lanz caught it at the table.
• The fence code that was supposed to be simple is now on its third month of drafting and has moved to committee.

🧭 What's Next

• September 1, 2026: Council's published agenda for this meeting carried the final RRFB progress estimate, a mural update on Big Fish Properties, Resolution 2026-009 cancelling certain checks and warrants, and an item titled "Upcoming Council Vacancy." Those outcomes belong to the September round-up.
• September 8, 2026: The city's Riverview certificate of deposit matures. Loney told Council on August 18 that she had placed it in a 12-month term at 3.6%, rather than the 3.56% Council voted for on August 4.
• September 15, 2026: Regular Council meeting.
• December 31, 2026: Lanz's last day as city attorney and prosecutor. As of the August 18 record, no successor has been appointed and no recruitment process appears anywhere in the minutes.
• No date set: an on-site meeting between Councilor Grinstead-Mayle, Mayor Ramsey and the owners of Big Fish Properties. The city's permanent 20 mph speed-reduction request to WSDOT was also still unfiled as of August 4.

Bingen City Council

⚖️ The city attorney is leaving

The single most consequential thing said in Bingen in August took about four sentences of the August 18 minutes. City Attorney Chris Lanz told Council he is resigning as city attorney and prosecutor at the end of 2026, "due to his new roles as both District Court Judge in Skamania County and Superior Court Commissioner in Klickitat County." He then introduced a possible replacement, an attorney he has worked with in the Skamania County Prosecutor's Office. The minutes spell her name two different ways in the same document, Elise Howard in the attendance list and Elisa Howard in the body, so we are not going to pick one for her.

Why this matters more than a personnel note: Lanz has been the voice the city's hardest year has been routed through. He is the one who told a packed July 7 meeting that because litigation had been threatened, "we have to make no comment," a position we covered at the time in The Flood Bingen Can't Talk About. He is the named reviewer on the county dispatch agreement, on the WSDOT crossing agreement, and on the fence code. He is also the person who caught the error described further down this page. A small city's attorney is not interchangeable, and Bingen has roughly four months to replace one who knows where every live wire is buried.

The record contains no recruitment process, no timeline, and no Council action. It contains an introduction.

🎨 A door through a mural

In June 2025, then-Mayor Catherine Kiewit told Council there would be "a community youth painting opportunity as part of the WAGAP mural on Saturday, June 7 from 12 to 2." We covered it that month as a small piece of summer programming.

On August 18, that mural came back as a breach of contract. Administrator Krista Loney brought Council a memo with photographs, the breach-of-contract email, and the signed agreement, showing that Big Fish Properties, LLC had removed a substantial portion of the mural on its building to install a door. Councilor Dale Grinstead-Mayle displayed an image of the original artwork to show what had been taken out, and an image of the planned door treatment.

Columbia Gorge News reported the details the minutes leave out: the building is the former Washington Gorge Action Programs building, the contract bound the owner to maintain the mural as a permanent fixture for the life of the art and not to remove it without city consent, and the city offered three ways to cure the breach. Hire the original artist to repaint it. Repay the $15,000 the mural cost. Or have the owner's own artist create a replacement, subject to city approval.

What the minutes capture, and the news story does not, is how quickly the room moved toward accommodation. Grinstead-Mayle relayed that Austin Krentz of Big Fish Properties had told him personally that former Mayor Kiewit "was made aware that a door was planned for that space." Loney said she had spoken with Kiewit, who told her "a location for the door was never finalized or committed to." Grinstead-Mayle agreed the door location was never written into the contract, and that they are in breach.

Then the sympathy arrived. Councilor Ryan O'Connor said the City should be flexible "so as not to discourage other businesses from wanting to install murals." Councilor Craig Trummel agreed and raised the optics, "especially after the downtown flood." Grinstead-Mayle noted that the managers have "been upstanding community members for a long time." Mayor Kelsey Ramsey said one of the cures he had offered was to have someone whose husband is an artist repaint it. The meeting ended with Grinstead-Mayle agreeing to set up an on-site meeting with the Mayor and the owners.

No deadline was set. No enforcement step was taken. The city has a signed contract, a documented breach, a $15,000 number and three stated cures, and it adjourned toward coffee.

🚱 Downtown flood recovery: the ledger shortens

Mayor Ramsey's standing update on August 18 was the shortest since the item was created. Studio CBC: all claims settled. Multi-Use Ventures: remediation and reconstruction claims settled, with loss of business income, "which includes rent from businesses in the building," submitted to the city's insurance pool and under review. Carmen's Kitchen: loss-of-income paperwork submitted and under review, with reopening now depending on building owner Tom Wooding's construction schedule. Two weeks earlier, on August 4, it depended on his settlement, so that constraint has at least moved from money to build time.

Chips: "No update." Mugs: "No update."

Those two lines are the story. Diane Murphy, co-owner of Chips, and the Murphy family alongside her are the people who filled the July 7 meeting and who have pushed hardest in public all summer. In August they got two words each. Mugs, for its part, is not coming back to that address at all. The city's own August 4 minutes state flatly that "Mugs was never going to continue in this space," and record that Studio CBC will take over the unit in addition to its downstairs space. Our archive holds two different accounts of why Mugs closed, one dating it to the flood and one to a pre-flood loan default and repossession, and we have never been able to settle them against each other. We are not going to settle them here either.

For scale, the August 4 minutes recorded lost wages received to date of $82,361.72 for Carmen's Kitchen and $71,440.96 for Chips. The August 18 minutes contain no dollar figures at all, so those are the most recent numbers on the record, not updated ones.

🚧 A crosswalk finished, under budget, on someone else's paperwork

The Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon at the SR-14 crossing is essentially done. Progress Estimate #2, approved August 18, covers 98% of the work, and Loney reported the project came in about $2,000 under budget. She had already invoiced the Transportation Improvement Board. The last 2% was set to go into a final estimate at the September 1 meeting, along with final costs from contractor Grade Werks and construction administration through the city's engineers, Gray and Osborne.

The paperwork was the interesting part. Council also had to authorize a WSDOT Construction and Maintenance Agreement, whose purpose is to establish that the beacon may be installed on a state highway inside city limits, and that all costs to install, repair or remove it are borne by Bingen. That is a permanent maintenance obligation the city is taking on for a piece of state highway safety equipment.

The agreement had been sent to Bingen in May and reviewed by Lanz then with no concerns. At the table on August 18, Lanz pointed out that "the City of South Bend is the named City at the top of the agreement." South Bend is a different Washington city altogether. Council authorized the Mayor to sign a revised version.

On the same corridor, WSDOT held a ribbon-cutting on Thursday, August 27 for the SR 14 Bingen Access Improvements project, the $34.3 million job that put the new Juniper Street underneath the BNSF tracks and built the roundabout at SR 14 and Elm Street, with the historic pond boat at its center. WSDOT counts nearly 12 years of planning and one year of construction. Council's own August business on that project was smaller and more domestic: the glass for the boat sculpture has been ordered, and WSDOT has asked the contractor about pulling electrical through the conduit out to the island. On the recording, the open question was whether the city would end up with an actual outlet at the boat rather than hard-wired signage, so that Bingen could put Christmas lights on it later. Councilor Eric Schroder suggested solar panels.

💵 The budget amendment with no number in it

Council held a public hearing on August 18 and adopted Ordinance 2026-08-788, amending the 2026 budget. Loney presented a memo, the ordinance, a changes-only budget and a full budget, and the minutes record that Council "reviewed all changes to the budget and then verified that the full budget balanced down." No one testified at the hearing.

Per the minutes, the majority of the changes were bookkeeping: correcting beginning account balances from estimates to actual figures, and adjusting the estimated 2026 ending balances to match. The substantive addition was salary and benefit costs for the two new Public Works employees onboarding August 31, the hires that replace James Hicks and Mike Solomon, both of whom retire in spring 2027 after shadowing their successors through the winter.

We cannot tell you what the amendment cost. The minutes state no total, no fund-level change and no salary figure. Those numbers exist in the Council packet, which the city has not posted. We would rather say that than reach for a number from somewhere else.

Two smaller money items from the same night. Bingen's books balance but do not balance to its bank statement, because of a check for $621.50 that was somehow both cashed and rejected; Loney expects it to correct in September. And the certificate of deposit Council voted on August 4 to roll at 3.56% was not the one the city got: the rate changed on the day of the vote, and Loney selected a 12-month CD at 3.6% instead. Better outcome, no ratifying vote on the record. Per the recording, the CD holds about $149,566, though that figure appears in no typed document.

🚒 Fire, police and the month's small print

Bingen Fire ran 36 calls in July, 7 in Bingen and 29 mutual aid, spread from Lyle to Skamania County to Glenwood, including a small structure fire near Northwestern Lake. That puts the department at 190 calls so far in 2026. Chief Carl Spratt told Council several other agencies had requested help Bingen could not send, and that he expected to be called out to the Grasshopper Fire that evening. Asked how the call-outs work, he described dispatch ringing around neighboring counties to assemble a task force, with crews going as far as Union Gap and Spokane. On the recording he added the part that explains why a small department has to say no: you do not know in advance whether you are gone overnight or for two weeks.

The Bingen-White Salmon Police log for July shows 90 calls in Bingen, 168 in White Salmon, 258 total.

Council also seated its student member for the school year. Eda O'Connor submitted the only letter of interest, and Councilor Ryan O'Connor, her father, said he had no concerns about serving alongside her and then abstained from the vote. Columbia Gorge News reports that she is a Columbia High junior, a class representative and a Food Bank volunteer, and that the seat is non-voting.

Council also authorized the Mayor to sign Klickitat County's Radio System Use and 911/Dispatch Services Agreement, which arrived from the county already signed. The new language this year is a confidentiality and data-access regime: city personnel handling dispatch data must sign confidentiality agreements and file an annual compliance attestation. Both Lanz and Chief Spratt reviewed it without concerns. The minutes state no dollar amount for the agreement anywhere.

And after three months of drafting, Bingen still does not have a fence code. On August 4 the permit trigger moved from six feet to seven, after Trummel pointed out that the International Building Code the city has already adopted sets its threshold at seven. O'Connor proposed adding language that "all fences must be built to code, fences over seven feet must have a permit and must be inspected." Trummel wanted the code to say plainly that a fence knowingly built in city right-of-way can be removed at the builder's expense, citing The Society Hotel, which built its fence in city right-of-way and signed a document acknowledging it may one day have to move. Loney will add a permits section and take the rest to the Building Committee, which Councilor Trummel said would meet for the first time on August 19. The ordinance still has no number.

⚠️ Editor's Notebook: Broader Context

• A four-month clock on the city attorney. The vacancy lands in the middle of the flood claims, an active breach-of-contract matter, a fence code still in drafting, and the periodic Growth Management Act update Bingen owes the state by the end of the year. In a city of Bingen's size the attorney is also the prosecutor, so one departure moves two roles. The person introduced on August 18 was introduced by the departing attorney; the record shows no Council action and no selection process.
• Who pays for state highway safety. The WSDOT Construction and Maintenance Agreement is the standard instrument for putting city-owned equipment on a state route, and its standard bargain is that the state permits the installation while the local agency accepts perpetual cost. Bingen now owns the maintenance of a beacon on SR-14 forever, on a grant-funded capital project whose construction money came from the Transportation Improvement Board.
• A boilerplate error is a real risk, not a joke. WSDOT's agreement naming the City of South Bend is the kind of template error that is funny until a document with the wrong party on it gets signed and someone has to work out what was agreed. It was caught because a lawyer read the first page in the room. That is what the office Bingen is about to vacate does.
• Enforcement is a choice, and Council made one. Nothing obliges the city to press a breach of contract to a remedy. But the mural was a public art asset the city paid $15,000 for and that community members, including children, helped paint. Deciding not to enforce is a decision about what the city's word is worth next time it signs one of these.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• RRFB (Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon): the pedestrian-activated flashing light at a crosswalk. Bingen's is on SR-14.
• TIB (Transportation Improvement Board): the state board that grants money to local transportation projects. Bingen invoices it as costs are incurred.
• Obligating funds: the step where a granting agency formally commits money to a specific project phase, so the local agency may spend it. WSDOT Form 140-101 is the prospectus, Form 140-041 the local agency agreement.
• Beginning and ending fund balances: the money each city fund starts and finishes the year with. Budgets are adopted using estimates, and a mid-year amendment replaces the estimates with the actual figures once the books close.

📋 How to Join & Learn More

• Bingen City Council meets the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m., in person at City Hall and on Zoom. Current dates and Zoom links are posted at the city's Agenda Center.
• Agendas, minutes and Zoom links are posted at the city's Agenda Center. Adopted ordinances, including 2026-08-788, are posted under Ordinances.
• Written public comment can be sent to administrator@bingenwashington.org or (509) 493-2122.