🕯️ Demanding Answers: Community Responds to DV Tragedy - Stevenson May '26

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🏛 May 2026 Municipal Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Stevenson Planning Commission, Stevenson City Council

The Bottom Line: Infrastructure preservation and community safety dominated the discourse this month, with residents actively organizing to block a controversial commercial campground and demanding strict regulatory oversight on a potentially hazardous industrial wastewater permit.

The Vibe: Tense, mobilized, and protective. A tragic local murder spurred intense scrutiny over the county's domestic violence response and renewed demands for LGBTQ+ protections, while looming threats to local infrastructure had residents demanding swift, protective action from city leaders.

🔎 What Changed

• Planning Commission Seat Filled: City Council formally appointed Tracy Gratto to the Planning Commission (Seat #5), overriding an earlier move by the Commission to table the decision.
• Sewer Ordinance Updated: City Council passed the first reading of the revised sewer ordinance, introducing financial incentives for voluntary connection.
• Proclamations Adopted: The city formally declared June 2026 as Pride Month, recognized the 36th anniversary of the ADA, and celebrated the upcoming U.S. 250th anniversary.

⚠ What Escalated

• Systemic Safety Concerns: The May 15 murder of Candice Malave led to intense public questioning regarding the efficacy of local law enforcement's domestic violence intervention, given a documented history of 14 prior complaints, during some of which the murder victim herself was arrested.
• The Hop-Farm Campground: Pushback against the CUP-2025-003 application reached a boiling point, drawing formal legal opposition from Skamania Lodge and strong signals of denial from the Planning Commission.
• Wastewater System Threats: Community alarm grew rapidly regarding LDB Beverage’s request to modify its industrial discharge permit, with residents citing past damages to the city's $15 million treatment plant.

🧭 What’s Next

• June 1, 2026: Deadline for public comments regarding the proposed EFSEC transmission line.
• June 4, 2026: End of the 30-day public comment period for LDB Beverage's discharge permit modification.
• July 2026 (Expected): Final readings and potential adoption of the revised Sewer Ordinance.

Stevenson Planning Commission

🏕️ Conditional Use Permits & The Hop-Farm Campground

• The Commission postponed the public hearing on the controversial hop-farm campground (CUP-2025-003) to a future date.
• Nearby residents and Skamania Lodge’s legal counsel (Ezra Hammer) voiced heavy opposition.
• Opponents cited fire risks, improper SEPA exemptions, and incompatibility with residential zoning.
• A majority of present commissioners expressed their intent to eventually deny the application.

When developers and lawyers clash over local zoning, the battle usually comes down to three acronyms: CUP (Conditional Use Permit), SEPA (Environmental Review), and LUPA (The Appeals Process). While the applicant is trying to bypass heavy environmental reviews by claiming the campground is a 'minor' exempt project under state law, neighbors are demanding the city look closer at the fire risks. If the city denies the permit, the developers' only recourse is a LUPA lawsuit in Superior Court, a costly legal threat that often forces small towns to tread very carefully.

🌳 Public Works & Environmental Protections

• Residents demanded the city heavily scrutinize a permit modification request by LDB Beverage.
• The business is seeking permission to dump specific organic matter directly into the municipal sewer system.
• Commenters reminded the Commission that similar industrial discharges in the past necessitated a $15 million system upgrade.
• Separately, a resident requested the city adopt a formal tree policy to protect old-growth trees within the city's right-of-way.

Public memory is long when it comes to expensive municipal repairs. The intense community scrutiny placed on a single business's discharge permit demonstrates a highly protective stance over the city's recently upgraded Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW). Smaller municipalities often struggle with the legislative balancing of economic development, which often requires accommodating industrial business needs, against the strict state environmental mandates that heavily penalize treatment plant failures.

"I had to dig [plum trees] out of the yard so I wouldn't mow them. I don't kill anything anymore. And so if anybody needs some trees, I've got trees for you. And hawthorn trees, too... and maple trees." — Public Commenter advocating for a city tree protection policy.

Stevenson City Council

🕯️ Responding to a Domestic Violence Tragedy

• The Sheriff's Office reported the apprehension of Levi Delena within 10 hours following the tragic May 15 murder of his estranged wife, Candice Delena, at the White Cap Apartments.
• In the wake of the murder, and revelations of 14 prior domestic violence complaints between the couple, residents attended the meeting to demand the implementation of specialized mental health and domestic violence crisis response training for local law enforcement.

The murder of Candice Malave has exposed deep, agonizing fault lines in the county's handling of chronic domestic violence. With court records indicating more than a dozen prior law enforcement contacts, Malave's family and local residents are openly questioning why repeated pleas for help failed to prevent a tragedy. This grief is translating directly into civic demands for protective policy and better training for local law enforcement.

"This is a small town and I feel like my cousin didn't get the help from the police and other people that should have been helping her throughout this time when she was begging for help. And now she's dead." - Nicole Malone, Candice Malave's cousin

Pride Proclamation

• Council formally adopted a proclamation declaring June 2026 as Pride Month.
• The proclamation followed direct advocacy from residents requesting explicit equal treatment and protection for transgender and intersex individuals, reflecting a broader community push for safety following recent local tragedies.

The adoption of this proclamation was not just a procedural formality; it was heavily tied to active community advocacy. During the public comment period, residents like Lucy Lauser spoke passionately about the need for this proclamation to be more than just "empty words." Lauser connected the push for LGBTQ+ protections, specifically for transgender and intersex individuals, to the broader community grief over the recent local murder of Candice Malave, pointing out that violence and rigid societal systems harm everyone. The proclamation ultimately served as a civic response to residents demanding a safer, more protective environment for vulnerable neighbors in the wake of local tragedy.

🚽 Public Works & The Sewer Ordinance

• Council held the first reading of the heavily revised sewer ordinance.
• Revisions explicitly state that homeowners with existing, approved, and functioning on-site septic systems (OSS) are not mandated to connect to the municipal sewer.
• Council debated offering a one-year System Development Charge (SDC) waiver to financially incentivize voluntary connections once a sewer line becomes available.
• A resident also urged the Council to reject any proposals that would shift Conditional Use Permit (CUP) decision authority away from the Planning Commission to the City Council.

The revised sewer ordinance is an attempt to thread the needle between public health infrastructure goals and private property rights. Mandating sewer connections for properties with perfectly functioning septic systems is politically volatile and economically burdensome for residents. By pivoting from a mandate to an incentive, using a one-year SDC waiver, the city is attempting to absorb the initial connection cost to encourage compliance. The primary structural hurdle will be calculating how many waived SDCs the utility fund can absorb before it impacts the financing of the $15 million treatment plant debt.

🚧 Regional Infrastructure Threats

• Public commenters relayed alarming information from a recent town hall regarding the Cape Horn Bridge on Highway 14.
• Commenters urged the city to maintain pressure on the state regarding the proposed EFSEC transmission line in the Columbia River.

"Senator Harris was here in the town hall, and he said that there's talk about not replacing the Cape Horn Bridge... DOT is estimating that one to five people will die when that bridge collapses." — Public Commenter Rick Jessel

🛠 Jargon Buster

• OSS (On-Site Septic System): The technical term for a private, residential septic tank and drain field.
• SDC (System Development Charge): A one-time fee charged to new developments or new connections to buy into the existing capacity of a city's infrastructure (like water or sewer).
• POTW (Publicly Owned Treatment Works): The formal regulatory term for a municipal sewage treatment plant.
• SEPA (State Environmental Policy Act): A Washington state law requiring local governments to evaluate the environmental consequences of a proposed project before issuing permits.

How to Join & Learn More

Stevenson City Council: Meets the third Thursday of the month at 6:00 PM at City Hall.

Stevenson Planning Commission: Meets the second Monday of the month at 6:00 PM at City Hall.

• City of Stevenson Website & Agendas
• Submit public comments to City Hall or via email prior to noon on the day of the meeting.