🐂 Running of the Bull - Goldendale August '26 Round-up

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🏛 August 2026 Goldendale Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Goldendale City Council (regular meetings August 3 and August 17)

The Bottom Line: August was the lightest month on Goldendale's calendar this year. Two meetings, the only votes were two resolutions handing a pair of old fire vehicles to rural districts. The substance was in the reports: a $285,000 hole in the retail sales tax, and a resident's complaint that ended with the council unsure how one of its own permits works.

The Vibe: Unhurried, and candid about it. "That's one of the quickest meetings, huh?" someone said as the August 17 gavel came down at 6:24 p.m.

🔎 What Changed

• The council surplused two fire command vehicles, a 1994 Chevrolet and a 1967 Jeep, to Klickitat County Fire Districts 1 and 15. Both votes were unanimous.
• Retail sales tax came in at about $303,000 against about $588,000 at the same point in 2025, the first quarter this year where the budget story is revenue rather than timing.
• The city filed two Transportation Improvement Board applications, for a reconstruction of Mill Street and an overlay on Railroad Avenue.
• The Critical Areas Ordinance and the parks comprehensive plan both entered 60-day state environmental comment periods.

⚠ What Escalated

• Two weeks after the accessory dwelling unit code passed, Councilor Steve Johnston asked the ordinance committee to revisit the city's ban on single-wide mobile homes.
• A resident asked the council to bar four-legged livestock from R1 zones with no exceptions, including 4-H. The discussion turned on a permit several people at the table could not fully describe.
• Fire season kept pulling Goldendale crews out of the county, mostly to fires that do not reimburse.

🧭 What's Next

• Tuesday, September 8, 6:00 p.m.: the next regular meeting, moved off Monday for Labor Day. The packet carries consent items and reports only. The one after is September 21.
• October, approximately: the Critical Areas Ordinance returns once its comment period closes. A public hearing is still required.
• November 6: the Transportation Improvement Board meets, and the Mill Street and Railroad Avenue decisions follow it.
• Unscheduled: the ordinance committee takes up single-wides, manufactured and tiny homes, and the 4-H livestock permit.

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Goldendale City Council

💵 The Sales Tax Hole, and Where the Room Thought the Money Went

Sarah Kaczmarek of TDJ CPA presented the second-quarter review by Zoom on August 3. General fund revenue was down about nine percent from the same point last year, and she was direct about the cause. Property tax was essentially flat, about $642,000 against $653,000. Business and occupation tax was up, about $463,000 against $385,000. The drop was almost entirely one line: retail sales tax, about $303,000 this year against about $588,000 last.

Asked what drives a fall like that, she gave two possibilities and declined to pick between them. "If consumers are uncomfortable or worried and they might want to hold off on making a large purchase, that tends to impact the retail sales that happen for your city," she said. "Or it could be you have more people leaving the area and making more purchases outside of the city." Her advice was to find out which before trying to fix it.

The council had a theory ready. One member said colleagues "are going to Oregon to do most of their shopping and their bulk shopping. And some of them are actually driving as far as Hood River just to go to Walmart," citing a box of cereal at $7 or $8 in Goldendale against $4 or $5 across the river.

Then the room corrected itself, which is the useful part. "Along those lines, there is no tax on food," another member noted. That is right. Washington exempts food and food ingredients from sales tax under RCW 82.08.0293, and taxes prepared food, soft drinks and bottled water, which is the distinction the speaker drew on the spot. So the cereal is a real household expense and a real reason to drive to Hood River, but it is not what moved the sales tax line. Whatever put a $285,000 hole in that number, groceries are not it.

Two other figures. The street fund is running at 178 percent of budgeted revenue on one item, the roughly $500,000 Darland Street reimbursement the city expected in 2025 and received in 2026, against $65,000 budgeted; Kaczmarek said it will keep surfacing every quarter until the council amends the budget. Cash reserves recovered to about $635,000 after the April property tax collection, up from a little over $200,000 at the end of the first quarter.

One line item drew a question it has drawn before. The general fund still carries an animal control expense, and the city has no animal control officer. Kaczmarek gave the same answer the council got in March: it is property and equipment insurance, split across departments. "Animal control is getting dinged for some insurance," the chair said.

🐑 Barnyard Ruckus in the Neighborhood?

The August 17 meeting had one public comment, and it was a prepared statement. Mark Harmon, who told the council he lives inside the city limits, asked it "to maintain a strict and absolute prohibition against four-legged livestock within the R1 low-density residential zoning," naming sheep, and asked that it hold "under any condition or exception, including educational or 4-H projects." His argument ran on noise, sanitation and animal welfare. "Unlike a rooster that may crow in the morning, sheep do not stop," he said.

He cited chapter 6.08 of the city code as the framework that "sensibly allows residents to keep backyard chickens under strict distance rules." That checks out. GMC 6.08 is titled "Livestock, Fowl, Wild Animals and Animal Traps," and its fowl section caps a household at six laying hens, requires them fenced or housed at least 25 feet from a habitable building, and bars free-range chickens.

What happened next is the part worth reading closely. A councilor noted the city already regulates livestock and acreage, "and it's all stated in ordinance, but there is a permit for the 4-H that bypasses all of our ordinance stuff." That was the working understanding at the table: the ordinance is one thing, and the 4-H permit is something outside it that overrides it. "I think it goes back to the permitting rather than the ordinance," one said, "because the ordinance is already in place."

The code answers that differently. The 4-H exception is not outside the ordinance. It is the final subsection of it. GMC 6.08.040(H) reads: "Exception: For any 4-H or FFA project or modification from the above conditions, the mayor and department heads may approve a variance from the above rules for a temporary period of time." The fowl section carries the same clause at 6.08.050(G). The permit does not bypass the code. The code creates it, and names the mayor and department heads as the people who grant it, which is why the mayor was in a position to promise a count.

The chapter also answers the time question the council kept circling. Every livestock keeper is already supposed to have filed a management plan permit, approved by the mayor and department heads, good for a calendar year ending December 31 and renewed annually. The 4-H variance sits on top of that and runs "for a temporary period of time," which the code does not define. That undefined period is the real open question.

There is one more thing in chapter 6.08 that nobody raised on either night. Section 6.08.035 reads, in full: "Roosters, stallions, bulls, swine, wild and exotic animals are strictly prohibited." Four days before this meeting, the police department was chasing a bull through town. No record says where that animal was kept or whose it was, and the two subjects never met in the same conversation.

The council's decision was to go find out. The mayor took an assignment: count the 4-H permits issued this year, circulate the application form to the ordinance committee, and talk to a local 4-H leader through the WSU Extension office. An enforcement voice at the table put the caseload in perspective, saying he had handled about three complaints of this kind in 25 years, and that most animal calls in Goldendale are barking dogs: "I just enforce permits. I don't give the permits."

One councilor framed the tension without resolving it. "The gentleman that spoke made a pretty good point when he moved into an R1 neighborhood. He probably didn't account that there was going to be livestock right next door." Someone added that the ordinance backs that expectation. The reply: "The thing that doesn't back it is the permit."

🚒 Fire Season, and Two Rigs Sent Up-County

Goldendale's fire department spent the first weekend of August out of the county. Chief Noah Halm reported that the state was looking for local resources for initial attack, and that one of the city's command pickups and one of its captains went out as a strike team leader alongside four engines and a tender from Klickitat County.

The city record never names the fire. It was the Red Sky Fire, which started near Union Gap in Yakima County on August 1 and had state mobilization authorized that evening at 600 acres and growing. The two strike teams the state ordered came from Kittitas and Klickitat counties.

Goldendale will not be paid much for it. The chief explained that the command vehicle earns mileage and little else, and that federal help flows through a state-mobilized fire inside Klickitat County rather than one next door. The roughly $10,000 the department expects this year is for the Lyle Hill 2 Fire, state-mobilized on June 28 near Lyle, at the request of the county's own Fire District 4. Same department, same trucks, two fires, and only the one at home reimburses.

Halm's read on the season was specific: California sent an incident management team to Spokane. "So that's how bad it's going right now in Washington State." Councilor Danielle Clevidence asked firefighters to be safe "with all the fires around us."

On August 17 the department did something else entirely. Goldendale Fire, Rural 7 and Dallesport Fire, with the sheriff's office, Goldendale police and the State Patrol, went to Wishram for the line-of-duty death of one of its firefighters and ran a procession back to Goldendale. "People probably heard it come through town," the chief said. "But that's what it was."

Both formal votes were fire business, and both were unanimous. Resolution 758 surplused a 1994 Chevrolet 2500 command vehicle, bought used and valued at $2,000–$3,500, to Klickitat County Fire District 1 in Trout Lake. Resolution 759 surplused a 1967 Jeep M715, valued at $2,000–$4,000, to Fire District 15 in Wahkiacus; it came to Goldendale from the Civil Defense, by the chief's recollection in the 1970s or 1980s. A councilor thought the city was letting go of something worth more: "I was surprised you couldn't get more than $2,000 out of it. That's vintage." The chief's case was use rather than price. On the Jeep: "It's a little slow. But it's really good."

👮 A Bull, a Reverse 911, and a Busy July

Police Chief Mike Smith reported July as the department's busiest month of the year: 374 calls for service and 17 arrests, more than any other month this year.

Then, on August 13, in the middle of fair weekend, livestock including a bull got loose downtown. The department used its reverse 911 system to push a shelter-in-place message, because the animals "were very aggressive." The chief credited the Thiele family, who turned out with horses and ropes, with getting it under control without anyone being hurt. The damage was some fences.

🏘 The Next Housing Front

On July 20 the council adopted its accessory dwelling unit code after a two-meeting fight, as we reported at the time. Two weeks later, Johnston opened the next one.

He asked the ordinance committee to revisit the city's ban on placing single-wide mobile homes on city lots, and was explicit that the reason is the reason the ADU code exists: affordable housing. His account is that the ban began in the 1990s, driven "largely aesthetics" plus the build quality of trailers made in the 1970s, and that neither reason survives. Modern units have "two by six walls," pitched roofs for snow load and standard siding, "built just like a stick built house," a variety of aesthetic design options, and a new 14 by 60 foot single-wide "costs you 50, 60 grand at least."

Chief Halm supplied the first fire-safety data point on this record, and it cut Johnston's way. A newer single-wide on Woodland Road caught fire this year and "it actually held a fire actually pretty good." Older units are the problem: a 1970s or 1980s trailer "would just rip through there like nothing," with one-by walls and "cheap aluminum wiring."

The council folded the request into the follow-up list the ADU debate already generated, so the ordinance committee now has mobile, manufactured and tiny homes in front of it alongside pre-approved plan sets and regional collaboration. Johnston clarified he means any private lot, not only ADU sites. He raised a second zoning problem the same night: two long, narrow parcels on East Broadway, where two old houses have recently come down, are split R1 at the front and R3 at the back, leaving one owner who cleared his lot unable to do much with it. The council floated a variance rather than a rezone, on the reasoning that a rezone binds whoever owns the property next.

🚧 Streets, Parks and the Airport

The city filed two applications with the Transportation Improvement Board, for a reconstruction of Mill Street and a grind-and-overlay on Railroad Avenue. Both are the highest-scoring roads on the six-year street plan, and construction targets 2027 if funded.

Riding inside the Mill Street application is the fix for an intersection the project has been stuck on for years. Mill and Second has a line-of-sight problem, and the long-assumed solution involved the city acquiring property to straighten the road. The Department of Transportation offered a cheaper one: make it a four-way stop. Johnston's reaction was the honest one. "It's almost too simple of a fix to be believable."

The decision date is not in the city's record, but it is in the board's. TIB's 2026 call for projects closed applications on July 31, anticipates awarding $149 million, and announces results after its November 6, 2026 board meeting.

World War II Park had a busy month. The public works crew began prep on the pickleball conversion on August 3, funded by the $15,000 gift from Cypress Creek Renewables that the parks fund received in June, with no completion date because the crew is fitting it around other work. Then on August 15 the Saturday farmers market moved there from the chamber of commerce site on Broadway, having outgrown its space. The mayor said it runs through the end of the year as a trial, with vendors along the sidewalk: "They're not renting the entire park." What the city gets, if anything, was not stated.

On August 5 the mayor toured the airport with airport manager Rick Lundin, Corley McFarland of Precision Approach Engineering, and representatives of a firm the record calls Airside Solution, covering the runway widening plus airfield lighting and navigation aids. "More is being done up at that airport in the last couple years than in the previous decades," he said. He also reported, in one line, that there had been an airplane crash at the field with no injuries.

🐕 The Dog Shelter, Reported Two Ways

Councilor Brian Paul reported both nights on the county dog shelter he has been working on with Sheriff Bob Songer and Karen Elings. On August 3 the final draft of the dangerous animals and dog pound provisions went to the county commissioners. On August 17 he told the council the county is "moving forward with the dog shelters," with permitting to come and an extension on the grant money already received.

The city's own minutes are more careful, and they are the version to trust: "There has been progress towards a county dog shelter with permitting expected to clarify the project in coming months." That matches what the county did. The Klickitat County commissioners' minutes for August 11 record their public works director asking to extend the shelter grant into next year, undertaking to compile a list of risks, and the board setting a September 3 workshop. They record no decision.

🏛 Housekeeping

August 3 opened with two mayors for the day, Jaycee and Andi Barnes, who won the Community Days scavenger hunt built each year by a volunteer group the council called the Scavenger Hunt Society, with the city and the Goldendale Community Library. Jaycee read a statement to the council: "I like to have the carnival on Main Street again. My favorite rides were the zero gravity and the cyclone. My scavenger hunt was so fun."

Attendance produced the month's only split vote. With two members absent on August 3, the council excused Nathaniel Hill unanimously, then separated out the second name at a member's request after the mayor said only one of the two had been in touch. Loren Meagher's excusal passed 3 to 2, with Clevidence and Andy Halm voting no, and Clevidence had made the motion herself. A speaker noted for the record "that there was no notification." The council has been circling an attendance policy since October 2025, when an excusal passed only 4 to 2, and the question went to the ordinance committee that November. Nothing has come back.

City Administrator Sandy Wells told the council the critical areas work is "pretty much done" and should return in about October.

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⚠️ Editor's Notebook: Broader Context

• A permit written into the ordinance is not a loophole in it. The council spent the end of August 17 treating the 4-H permit as an outside force acting on its code. Chapter 6.08 puts the exception in the code and hands the discretion to the mayor and department heads. The council does not need new authority to change how these permits work. It needs to decide what it wants the standard to be, and the base livestock permit already renews every December 31st.
• Sales tax leakage and grocery prices are different problems. Both are real, and residents feel them together at a checkout in Hood River. But Washington does not tax groceries, so the trip that saves money on cereal does not show up in the line that fell $285,000. Identifying what did is the work Kaczmarek recommended before the city tries to fix anything. It may be the result of a number of factors acting together, and finding ways to measure it will be the next critical step.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• Surplus (as a verb): the council action declaring city property no longer needed, which is what lets the city hand it to another public agency. Both August resolutions cite RCW 39.33.010, the state law on property transfers between public bodies.
• TIB: the state Transportation Improvement Board, which funds local street projects on a competitive annual cycle. Small cities compete in their own programs.
• SEPA: the State Environmental Policy Act. Before adopting a plan or ordinance with environmental effects, a city runs a comment period and, usually, a public hearing.
• Small livestock: in Goldendale's code, miniature ponies, sheep and goats. Horses and cattle are "large livestock," with different acreage rules.

📅 How to Join & Learn More

• Next meetings: Tuesday, September 8 and Monday, September 21, both 6:00 p.m., Council Chambers, 1103 South Columbus Avenue. The council normally meets first and third Mondays; September 8 is a Tuesday because of Labor Day.
• Remote access: Zoom or phone at 415-762-9988, meeting ID 373 290 5204, call-in from 5:45 p.m.
• Agendas, packets and minutes: the city's agendas and minutes page, which also carries video of each meeting.
• Public comment: taken twice, at the start on agenda items only and again near the end on any topic, three minutes each. The code discussed here: Goldendale Municipal Code chapter 6.08.