🚰 "Are We Going to Sell Our Water to the Data Center?" Goldendale July '26 Round-up

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🏛 July 2026 Goldendale Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Goldendale City Council (regular meetings July 6 and July 20)

The Bottom Line: Goldendale's code has allowed accessory dwelling units for years, in a single paragraph that pointed at development standards the city never adopted. Now it has an actual chapter. Most of the standards drew questions rather than opposition. What the council fought over, across both meetings, was one clause requiring somebody to actually live on the property.

The Vibe: Contested, and openly so. "Usually we're all in agreement and that's great," a speaker said during the ADU debate, "but when we're not it's great too."

🔎 What Changed

• Ordinances 1557 and 1558 passed both readings. Goldendale now has a real ADU chapter in its municipal code, GMC 17.68, plus definitions for accessory dwelling unit, living area, and short-term rental.
• The council authorized a five-year master agreement with its airport engineer and a first task order to design the drainage work that a wider runway depends on.
• Resolution 757 adopted, for the first time, a written policy naming who may sign at the city's bank. The mayor said the signers themselves are unchanged.
• The council approved its June bills: $167,117.07 in payroll and $571,299.36 in claims.

⚠ What Escalated

• Two councilors asked the council not to open the advertised public hearing, for different reasons. One said the ordinance drafts did not match what the ordinance committee had agreed to; the other said the drafts should have come to the full council first. The council opened it anyway, over two nays.
• The owner-occupancy requirement drew an overreach charge from one speaker and a defense from others that it is the only thing standing between single-family blocks and out-of-town landlords.
• Water affordability arrived as public comment, with a resident tying brown lawns to fire danger and asking whether the city plans to sell water to a data center.

🧭 What's Next

• August 3, 6:00 PM: Next regular council meeting. The East Broadway parking review is due back, and the typed minutes for both July meetings should appear in that packet.
• Late summer into fall: The Critical Areas Ordinance update returns to the council, with a SEPA public hearing still required.
• Unscheduled: The ordinance committee takes up the ADU questions that adoption did not settle, including tiny homes and pre-approved plan sets. The mayor agreed to approach other Gorge jurisdictions about working on this jointly, though he said Klickitat County's planning department has no such plans at the moment.

Goldendale City Council

🏘 Housing & Land Use: The ADU Code Lands

Goldendale spent the first half of 2026 unable to pass an accessory dwelling unit ordinance for a reason that had nothing to do with ADUs. State law requires a planning commission to review a zoning text change, and every member of Goldendale's had let their term lapse. In June the council worked around it by designating the staff-level Subdivision Review Committee as an interim planning commission for up to six months, which we covered in June's round-up. July is where that workaround paid off. The interim commission recommended adoption, the city issued a SEPA determination of non-significance on June 22, and the ordinances went to a public hearing on July 6.

Here is what the new chapter does, drawn from the ordinance text in the July 6 packet:

• Where: ADUs are allowed in the R-1, R-2, R-3, SR, and C2 zones. Not on a lot that already holds multifamily housing, including a duplex, and not on property in commercial or industrial use regardless of zoning.
• How big: Living area between 400 and 1,000 square feet, with decks capped at 250 square feet.
• How many: One single-family residence and one ADU per lot. Detached units need 10 feet of separation from the house.
• Lot coverage: May be allowed to exceed the standard 50%, up to 70%, if the applicant demonstrates adequate site drainage and stormwater management.
• Look and access: Exterior "similar in style and building materials to neighboring properties." Shared driveway with the main house unless the owner gets a second curb cut approved.
• Not allowed: Short-term rental of an ADU. Recreational vehicles are barred as ADUs by the companion ordinance, 1557, in the amended definition.
• Can't be split off: A lot with an ADU cannot be subdivided or segregated in ownership to put the ADU on its own lot.
• Strings attached: The owner records a restrictive covenant with the Klickitat County auditor before a certificate of occupancy issues, and the ADU takes the primary address with an "A" after it.
• The contested one: Either the primary residence or the ADU must be owner-occupied at least 183 days a year.

That last provision, section S, is where the July 6 meeting spent most of its time.

Before the hearing opened, two councilors asked the council not to open it, and their objections were not the same. One said the drafts in front of the council were not what the ordinance committee had agreed to, the specific complaint being that increasing the supply of affordable housing had been demoted from first among the stated purposes to second. The larger complaint was about process. "What we agree upon is it should be the exact same language, exact same thing that comes forward, even if it's weeks later," one councilor said, adding that if attorney review changes something, "then that should go back to committee." The worry was about what else might have moved. "It also gives me pause about the rest of the documentation on this topic."

Here the record is worth reading closely, because the demotion had not happened. In the new chapter, 17.68.010, affordable housing is purpose number one. The "number two" version sits inside Ordinance 1557, in the block of existing code that the ordinance quotes verbatim before amending it, and a quotation of current law is not something a committee can rewrite. One councilor pointed at the right document that night: "I find that all the objectives are met under 17.68.010 purposes." Two weeks later Building Official Robert Thompson walked the council through it directly. "1557 is the old ordinance how it read," he said. "We can't change that, because that's how it needs to read, and we're amending the definitions." The ranked list does not survive adoption at all: 1557 replaces that section with a bare definition. The second councilor's objection was a different one: the drafts should have reached the full council before a hearing was advertised, so the whole council could weigh in and send any changes back to committee. That councilor also asked for a fuller explanation of subsections O and S, especially S. The council voted to proceed with the hearing as advertised, over two nays. When the swap came up again later that night, it drew no support.

Then came section S. One speaker called the owner-occupancy requirement overreach, arguing that a person who buys a house intending to rent it out should be able to do that, and that the clause would make it impossible on any lot with an ADU. The defense was demographic. Goldendale is roughly half rentals, a speaker said, and "half of those are owned by corporations and they don't live here guaranteed and they're one of our biggest problems as far as maintenance is concerned." Another argued the clause was the only way to reach the problem at all: "now we're going to have two renters at the same place."

A compromise surfaced and went nowhere. Rather than requiring occupancy, the city could require the owner to live in town or name a local property manager. It was called logical and an easy change, and it was never moved.

The objection that actually changed the ordinance came from the police chief. If an ADU is rented separately from the house, Chief Mike Smith asked, how does a dispatcher tell responders which unit to go to? "How are we going to determine to be able to get there when there's a domestic violence in this ADU versus the house?" The draft made an additional address conditional on one being "needed." A speaker proposed making it mandatory instead, and Smith agreed: "I think that's a great, yeah. I think it was just a wording." On July 20 a speaker called the address revision "necessary and appreciated." It is the only change to the ordinance that anyone described aloud between the two readings. The redline the city said was attached that night was never part of a posted packet, so the adopted wording of that subsection is not in the public record.

Both ordinances passed first reading on July 6, with the recording putting 1558 at 5 to 2. Two weeks later, with Steve Johnston absent, Councilor Loren Meagher asked to hold them another two weeks, both so Johnston could weigh in and so the city could look at pre-approved permit-ready ADU designs and possible collaboration with other Gorge jurisdictions. Adopting that night, she said, would effectively close off that chance. The council disagreed on timing but not on substance. Adopt now, keep working it in the ordinance committee. Both ordinances were adopted on second reading. The recording states no vote count either time.

Two residents spoke at the July 6 hearing, and they did not agree with each other. The first was opposed, and his argument was about what kind of housing this produces. "Just creating a shed, a sheet shed out back and renting it out is quantity. And that's not the same as quality." He recalled a Goldendale with an aluminum plant, a timber industry and a sawmill, and said of a neighbor already renting out part of a house, "that's not the neighborhood I thought I was buying in." The second speaker asked how the size limits compared to real houses in town. Building Official Robert Thompson answered that the ordinance runs 400 to 1,000 square feet, and that the city's minimum living area for a single-family house was, he thought, 864 square feet, varying by zone. That figure is in the recording only, offered as his recollection, and no typed city document on file carries it. The speaker then came down the other way: "I would encourage, let's see what we can do. I know that a lot of kids are coming home," he said, and it "would be nice to have the ability to build smaller homes." On July 20 the first resident returned with an alternative: create a separate district with smaller lot sizes rather than scattering ADUs through existing neighborhoods, and keep the water and sewer system's capacity in mind.

✈️ Airport: A Wider Runway Starts With a Culvert

On July 20 the council authorized a five-year master professional services agreement with Precision Approach Engineering, the city's airport engineer since 2020, and a first task order under it.

The end goal is widening the runway pavement from 40 feet to 60 feet, plus widening the graded runway safety area beside it. Goldendale Municipal Airport is not required to meet Federal Aviation Administration standards, Corley McFarland of the firm told the council, but WSDOT recommended that path and it matches the airport's own layout plan.

The interesting part is the money. This phase started as a $360,000 ask to WSDOT. Near the end of its year, WSDOT came back with about $71,000. So the work got repackaged to fit: Task Order 2026-01 covers culvert design, an updated wetland delineation to replace one that has timed out, and preliminary siting analysis for wetland mitigation, possibly on land off the airport. The actual wetland mitigation, which the widening will require, moves to a future phase. The task order was authorized at not to exceed $75,000, against a $71,250 WSDOT grant and a $3,750 city match.

Councilor Danielle Clevidence used the contract review to confirm that any sub-consultant the firm brings in is inside its fee rather than billed on top, and flagged a mislabeled exhibit in the sample task order.

💧 Water, Rates and a Data Center Question

The Department of Ecology told the city that the Goldendale Wastewater Treatment Plant won the 2025 Wastewater Treatment Plant Outstanding Performance Award. "Of approximately 300 wastewater treatment plants statewide, yours was among the top wastewater treatment plant operations in 2025," the letter read. Mayor Dave Jones read it into the record on July 20 and said it is the sixth year running.

Drinking water was a harder conversation. A resident told the council that even with a senior discount, he cannot afford to water his yard. "No wonder people's yards are turning brown and drying up and blowing away. Nobody can afford the water." He connected it to fire danger as much as appearance, then asked the question directly: "I guess if we go with data centers, that's even going to make it worse. Are we going to sell our water to the data center?"

Mayor Jones answered: "No, we have no plans on doing that here in the city."

That is the first time a data center has come up in this council's record, and it is worth noting where the question comes from. Klickitat County has active data center inquiries, which we covered in Data Centers Come Knocking. The city's answer, for now, is no.

On rates, Councilor Meagher had asked on July 6 what a rate study costs. The answer came back on July 20: the city's water and sewer rate study by FCS Group cost $33,000. Meagher clarified that the real question was narrower and cheaper. Not a new study, but what it would cost to revisit the existing one and check whether the rates the city set are still where the projections said they would be. The rates were raised steeply after going a long time unexamined, Meagher noted, and suggested RCAC, the Rural Community Assistance Corporation, may offer help on rate work. On July 6 she had also asked whether any forest-health work is planned in the watershed the city has been buying into; the mayor said he would take it to public works.

🚧 Public Works and a Sidewalk Nobody Can Get Down

Crack sealing is finished and crosswalk painting was set to follow. The East Broadway parking review, which the council asked for after long conversations about parking on that street, was delayed by a miscommunication with Pioneer Surveying and Engineering and is due back at the next meeting.

The new item is accessibility. A resident brought Councilor Meagher a complaint that temporary outdoor dining enclosures downtown leave too little sidewalk for a wheelchair or a walker, and that two trips to the city had produced only the answer that the permits were compliant. Meagher told the council she was sure the problem was "resolvable through our staff and with the business owners downtown," but that a sidewalk where "a wheelchair or a walker can't get by" is an issue.

The discussion landed on the mechanics. The permits do require a setback, described in the meeting first as four feet and then as 44 inches, and staff said they have measured and the businesses are complying. The pinch comes from the street trees plus vehicles that park over the curb line and into the walking space, which no permit condition controls. What got floated instead was designing the problem out: permanent outdoor dining structures built around the existing trees and benches, rather than temporary enclosures reassembled differently at every event. A separate comment that night described two flatbed crew cab pickups on the 100 block of West Main narrowing the street to a single lane, and recalled a since-removed sign that limited overall vehicle length in front of an old cafe downtown.

🚔 Public Safety: A Quiet Fourth, by Local Standards

Police Chief Mike Smith reported 317 calls for service in June with 15 arrests, and said the department has been averaging about 15 arrests a month. That is pushing the jail budget higher than the city would like, because the city pays inmate medical and prescription costs, a pressure this council has been tracking all year.

The Fourth of July brought 14 fireworks complaints and one citation, issued to a person whose firework started a fire on July 3. Enforcement is hard when the evidence is a noise, the chief noted, and by comparison with fires elsewhere in the county the holiday was mild for how dry it was.

The fire department ran five trucks at the demolition derby and three more on visible patrol, and took four calls: a smoke alarm at the Goldendale Community Library, a gas leak, a car fire on Main Street with fireworks inside it, and a dumpster fire at 4:00 a.m. on the fifth. By July 20, Fire Chief Noah Halm's report was one line. The burn ban is on.

🏗 Building and Code Enforcement: The Numbers Behind the Weeds Fight

Building Official Robert Thompson delivered the quarterly report the council asked for in June, and it puts numbers on an argument that has run since June.

Permits are up. Seventy-six so far this year against 56 at the same point last year, and $44,768.96 in permit fees against $22,798.97, driven by mechanical permits, reroofs and a couple of larger projects. Thompson also described developers buying dilapidated properties, replacing the houses, and offering five-year rent-to-own contracts that build a down payment.

Code enforcement cases are down overall, 48 this year against 58 last year, but vegetation cases are up by about ten, 32 of this year's 48 against 22 of last year's 58. Thompson tied that to getting ahead of fire season. Councilor Steve Johnston had pressed the council on unmowed lots at both June meetings: the typed June 15 minutes, which arrived in the July 6 packet, record him asking the ordinance committee to make code enforcement notices time-sensitive no later than the end of April and to raise the fine to at least $500. Compliance has been good from most owners, Thompson said.

🎉 Community Days, and a Centennial Nobody Can Confirm

Community Days ran July 10 and 11 with the first full Main Street carnival in more than a decade. The parade's grand marshals were to receive a new ceremonial key to the city, which the mayor described on July 6 as exactly that: "It doesn't actually open anything."

The mayor's July 20 report was mostly an operations story. A bad oil spill on Columbus on Friday would have stopped the lawnmower races, so the police and fire chiefs moved the event to Court Street and coordinated with the county while public works spread absorbent and swept the street, then came back at 11:00 p.m. to sweep it again so the parade route would be clean Saturday morning. The mayor said he tried to write down everyone who helped organize the weekend and stopped at a list that ran past 100 names.

Councilor Andy Halm reported a Goldendale Pride event at the courthouse the previous weekend, drawing 250 to 275 people, with confirmed hotel stays and attendees from Seattle, Toppenish, Yakima, The Dalles, Hood River, and visitors from Texas who saw a Facebook ad while staying in Arlington. The Goldendale Pride Alliance thanked the city for its tourism support. Councilor Brian Paul, who worked the weekend with the Klickitat County Sheriff's Posse, said visitor feedback was very positive.

One loose end from July 6: a volunteer committee told the council the new downtown sound system is finished and covers about three blocks, that the city has not paid for it yet, and that they are working on a transmitter at the lodge so speakers there pick up the mayor's microphone too.

The same resident who could not afford to water his yard also disputed the premise of the whole celebration. Goldendale has been calling this the 100th Community Days. He said two Goldendale residents started the event in the early 1970s, not 1925. The recording renders their names as Francis Allen and Alma Anderson, and since neither appears in any typed record we are not treating those spellings as confirmed. The mayor traced the centennial figure to a Goldendale Sentinel "looking back" feature, sourced from the Klickitat County Historical Society, reprinting an article that dated the first Community Days to 1925. He said he has since heard conflicting accounts and invited local historians to sort it out.

⚠️ Editor's Note: Broader Context

The interim planning commission is on a clock. Resolution 756 designated the Subdivision Review Committee as Goldendale's planning commission for no more than six months, dissolving earlier if a real commission is seated. That window closes around December 2026. Ordinance 1558 got its required GMC 17.66.030 recommendation from that interim body, which is exactly what it was created to do. Anything else needing a planning commission recommendation runs against the same deadline.

Goldendale is a "partially planning" city, and that shapes the fight over section S. Councilor Meagher circulated a comparison of full Growth Management Act cities against partially planning ones like Goldendale, and Klickitat County. Under the GMA, a fully planning jurisdiction generally must allow either the primary residence or the ADU to be rented. So an owner-occupancy clause lifted from a GMA city's code does not transfer cleanly. Councilors disagreed in the room about what other cities actually require, one saying every city she checked had the requirement and another saying GMA jurisdictions must allow one of the two units to be rented. The council has separately been weighing whether to opt into full GMA planning, which would qualify the city for REET 2 revenue at the cost of administrative burden and local control. That question did not come up in July.

One meeting this month has no paper. The July 6 materials are complete: a 32-page packet with both ordinances, the resolution, the claims register and the typed June 15 minutes, plus two recordings. For July 20, the city never posted an agenda, packet or minutes, and none exists upstream. Everything reported here from July 20, including the airport contracts, the Ecology award, the rate study figure and every quote, comes from the meeting recording alone. The same is true of the July 6 department reports: the police, fire and building numbers below were spoken aloud, and the packet carries no written version of them. So does the redline that carries the ADU code's final adopted wording. The typed minutes for both July meetings should appear in the August 3 packet.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• SEPA determination of non-significance: Under the State Environmental Policy Act, the city reviews whether a proposal will have a significant environmental impact. A "DNS" says it will not, which lets the proposal move without a full environmental impact statement.
• Restrictive covenant: A condition recorded against the property title at the county auditor, so it binds whoever owns the place next, not just the person who applied.
• Runway safety area: The graded, cleared ground alongside a runway, meant to support an aircraft that leaves the pavement.
• Master agreement and task order: The master agreement sets the terms and rates for a multi-year relationship. Each actual piece of work is then ordered separately under it. Signing the master agreement does not by itself commit the city to a project.
• Partially planning city: A jurisdiction that follows some, but not all, of the Growth Management Act's planning requirements. It changes which state housing rules apply.

📅 How to Join & Learn More

• Next regular meeting: Monday, August 3, 2026, 6:00 PM, Goldendale City Hall. Meetings are held in person and by Zoom, with call-in available at 5:45.
• Agendas, packets and past minutes: City of Goldendale agendas and minutes
• City Council members and contact information: City of Goldendale City Council
• Public comment: The council takes comment on agenda items near the start of each meeting and open comment on any topic near the end, three minutes each, in person or on the Zoom line.

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