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

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🏛 June 2026 Goldendale Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Goldendale City Council (regular meetings, June 1 and June 15).

The Bottom Line: The council kept a stalled housing rule alive by standing up a temporary Planning Commission, locked in a $221,000 grant to replace the historic library's elevator, and spent much of the month wrestling with fire season: dry weeds, an unpopular "burnout" event at Ekone Park, and the yearly Fourth of July fireworks question.

The Vibe: Practical and a little frustrated. Big-ticket items passed cleanly, but the same nagging problem kept resurfacing, the city's slow, state-limited tools for forcing negligent property owners to cut their weeds before something burns.

🔎 What Changed

• The city's Planning Commission is defunct, so the council named a staff committee to act as an interim Planning Commission for up to six months, clearing the way for a long-pending accessory dwelling unit (ADU) ordinance.
• Goldendale was awarded a $221,000 Community Development Block Grant to replace the 40-plus-year-old elevator at the Goldendale Community Library, and adopted the grievance procedures the grant requires.

⚠ What Escalated

• A car "burnout" event near Ekone Park on Saturday, May 30 drew a sharp public-health complaint. Fire season also reignited a long-running fight over weed and nuisance enforcement.
• The first-quarter budget showed a year-to-date deficit in the city's main operating fund, which the city's accountant attributed to seasonal timing rather than a structural shortfall.

🧭 What's Next

• Written comment on the library elevator grant closed June 10; Community Days runs July 10 and 11 with the first full Main Street carnival in over a decade; the next regular meeting is July 6.
• The ordinance committee will decide whether to rebuild a citizen Planning Commission or switch to a mayor-appointed "planning agency" before the six-month interim clock runs out.

Goldendale City Council

🏛 Governance: A Stopgap Planning Commission to Save the ADU Ordinance

• On June 15 the council adopted Resolution No. 2026-756, designating the city's existing Subdivision Review Committee as the interim Planning Commission for a period not to exceed six months.
• The committee is a staff body (mayor, city administrator, city engineer, public works director, building official, fire marshal, and public health officer) under Goldendale Municipal Code 16.04.080.
• The trigger is the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) ordinance the ordinance committee has been drafting. Under state law, a zoning-text change has to be reviewed by a planning commission, and Goldendale no longer has a functioning one.
• The interim designation dissolves automatically once a quorum of Planning Commission members is appointed.

This is the next beat in a housing story we have followed for months. Last month, the ordinance committee was finalizing the ADU rules for a full council vote; this month, the council hit a procedural wall: the body legally required to vet a zoning change has collapsed. The resolution states the commission "has become defunct due to expiring terms and difficulty finding new members," and in discussion City Administrator Sandy Wells put it more bluntly: "We have three members that are expired. One member has passed away and one member has moved out of town." Rather than let the ADU work stall, the council handed the review duty to staff on a temporary basis. The open question is structural: Wells floated converting from a citizen "planning commission" to a mayor-appointed "planning agency," which state law also allows and which could be staffed by employees or the city attorney instead of hard-to-recruit volunteers. That choice, a change in the code's language, now goes to the ordinance committee. For a small city, it is a revealing trade-off between civic participation (volunteer commissioners) and simply getting the work done (appointed staff). ADUs have been a regionwide flashpoint: the Columbia River Gorge Commission spent late 2025 debating so-called "cheater ADUs" in the National Scenic Area, a separate track from Goldendale's own city ordinance.

📚 Public Facilities: A $221,000 Grant to Replace the Library Elevator

• The council held a public hearing on June 1 for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) of $221,000 to replace the elevator at the Goldendale Community Library.
• Mayor Dave Jones confirmed the grant had been awarded; the public hearing was the final required step in the process.
• The council then adopted Resolution No. 754, adopting the CDBG grievance procedures the grant program requires.
• Written public comment on the project was open through 5:00 p.m. June 10.

The mayor framed the project around the building's history. The Goldendale Community Library is a 1915 Carnegie library on the National Register of Historic Places; the city owns the building and land and has leased it to the Fort Vancouver Regional Library to operate since 1973. The three-story building's elevator is "well over 40 years old," and, as the mayor noted, "crucial for disabled access." The grant math is tight: councilors were told the elevator itself is projected at roughly $200,000 to $201,000, with the remainder covering the administrative and grant fees the city collects to run the program. Resolution 754 is the kind of procedural housekeeping these grants demand: to spend federal CDBG money, the city has to have a formal way for residents to file complaints about the project. When Rodger Nichols, a resident of The Dalles, asked during open public comment at the end of the June 1 meeting whether the money was actually in hand, the mayor was direct: "we were awarded the grant. Part of the granting procedure is to have this public hearing." (The hearing itself closed at 6:04 p.m. with no public speakers.)

💵 Budget: A First-Quarter Deficit, With Caveats

• The city's contract accountant, Sarah Kaczmarek of TDJ CPA, presented the first-quarter 2026 financial review on June 1.
• The current expense fund (the main operating fund) showed a year-to-date deficit, which Kaczmarek attributed to two timing effects: property taxes arrive mainly in April and October, and a large insurance payment of roughly $200,000 was paid in one chunk early in the year.
• Retail sales tax came in noticeably lower than the same quarter a year earlier.
• The street fund looked unusually flush because a Darland Street project grant reimbursement of about $480,000, originally expected in 2025, did not arrive until 2026. The city had budgeted for only about $65,000.
• Kaczmarek reported cash on hand above the reserve estimate, and told the council she expected the picture to improve by year end.

A first-quarter deficit sounds alarming, but the accountant's point was that the first quarter always looks lopsided in a city with Goldendale's revenue rhythm: the big property-tax and insurance events land at opposite ends of the calendar, so January through March shows heavy spending against light income. The more durable signal is the softer retail sales tax, which Councilor Nathaniel Hill flagged directly, asking what had changed year over year. The $480,000 Darland Street reimbursement is a reminder of how grant timing can whipsaw a small budget: money spent in one fiscal year but reimbursed in the next can make a fund look like it grew several hundred percent when little has actually changed. (Some of the finer figures in this section come from the meeting's spoken presentation rather than the printed packet, whose budget tables did not scan cleanly; treat the round numbers as directional.)

🔥 Fire Season, Smoke, and the Weeds Problem

• Both meetings opened under fire-season pressure. On June 1 the fire department ran mutual aid on a truck fire that spread to grass near Wishram (milepost 95). By June 15, Chief Noah Halm reported multiple fires and red-flag conditions; councilors also discussed a large wildfire burning north of town along Highway 97.
• A car "burnout" event held at Ekone Park on Saturday, May 30 became a flashpoint. Resident JT Halverson told the council the smoke filled his home and harmed his health, and argued the event was unlawful and should never have been permitted in the middle of town.
• Councilor Steve Johnston pressed repeatedly on unmowed weeds and overgrown lots, calling the city's enforcement record inadequate and warning about the fire risk of dry vegetation near homes.
• Council discussed, but did not change, how the Fourth of July burn ban interacts with legal fireworks sales. The council gave the Lions Club (represented by Jay Olson) consensus to sell fireworks at the Goldendale Market Place, contingent on providing insurance.

These threads (the burnout event, the weeds, and the fireworks) are really one story about a dry town trying to manage fire and smoke risk with limited tools. The public comment was the sharpest of the month. Halverson, who lives downwind on Northeast High Street, did not hold back: "That is unconscionable. Put that in the middle of town," he told the council, adding that he "lost 30% of my lung capacity" and that "we don't issue a permit to do an illegal act." On the recording, one speaker on the dais, unnamed in the machine transcript, conceded the scheduling overlap as a personal oversight: "it shouldn't have been scheduled" with a youth ball game underway downwind at the same time. The same speaker pledged the city "would make strides" to keep future events off dates when children's little league or soccer is being played. (The typed minutes do not record that exchange.)

The weeds fight is the more structural one, and it is not new: code enforcement and city safety were on the council's agenda as far back as last October. Johnston, who has raised it "not once, not twice, but a whole bunch of times over a period of years," called the current approach a failure: in his words, "the way that ordinance has been administrated and enforced is a joke," and, on the stakes, "somebody's house burns down because of negligence on the city's part, we're going to be in trouble." The catch is that the city's hands are partly tied. Staff explained the enforcement ladder: a notice letter, then a seven-day fire-danger grass letter co-signed by the fire chief, then city-hired mowing, then a lien the city only recovers when the property finally sells. And the citation amount itself is set by state statute (cited in the meeting at around $187), so the council cannot simply raise it. Johnston floated bigger penalties and even barring repeat-offender landlords from renting, ideas staff cautioned run into legal limits. Councilor Hill suggested a running tracking list so the council can see where each problem property sits in the process. On fireworks, both chiefs made the counterintuitive case for restraint, Chief Halm noting that Fourth of July fires are "historically... pretty minimal" and that an outright ban could push people to "have more fireworks let off in an area that they shouldn't be."

🌲 Public Works and the Watershed

• At the May 28 special meeting (minutes approved June 15), councilors followed up on the recent 102.3-acre watershed purchase from Western Pacific Timber, asking for better mapping of watershed boundaries, elevation, and ownership, plus a site tour to guide future acquisitions.
• A new "Welcome to Goldendale" sign went up on Broadway, funded by the Goldendale Chamber of Commerce and the Columbia Gorge Chapter of ABATE, with the city public works crew assisting installation. A south-entrance sign is expected to follow.
• The parks fund received an unbudgeted $15,000 donation toward a pickleball court, and Johnston revived his proposal to build a covered picnic and gathering area over the concrete slab at Ekone Park, asking the Parks or Public Works Committee to take it up. Mayor Dave Jones responded that the city already holds engineered schematics for a picnic area from an earlier Ekone Park planning grant, to be pursued once the parks plan is complete.

🎡 Around Town: A Statewide Visit and a Carnival

• Mayor Jones reported that Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, along with honorary consuls from Japan, Mexico, and Lithuania, visited the area to tour the Goldendale Observatory, the Maryhill Museum, and local orchards, and to talk economic development and trade with regional representatives. Former Council Member Miland Walling organized the visit.
• The Maryhill Museum marks its 100th anniversary in 2026.
• Community Days runs July 10 and 11 and will feature a full Main Street carnival for the first time in over a decade.

🗣 A Note on Public Turnout

Beyond Halverson's comment, turnout was light, and it clearly bothered the council. During the June 1 discussion, one councilor, noting a long tenure in office, pushed back on how few residents show up even when they are upset: "I wish more people would actually come in and say, hey, we don't like this," the councilor said. "We should have a room filled with people, no matter what it is." It is a recurring civic tension in small towns, decisions with real local stakes getting made in a nearly empty room.

⚠️ Editor's Note: Broader Context

• Why a "planning agency" is even on the table. Washington planning law and the city's own code require that zoning-text amendments go through a planning commission. State law lets a city meet that duty with either a volunteer commission or an appointed planning agency. Small cities frequently struggle to keep volunteer commissions staffed, which is exactly the recruiting gap Goldendale hit.
• The CDBG program. Community Development Block Grants flow from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the state Department of Commerce to small cities and counties, aimed at projects that principally benefit low- and moderate-income residents. The grievance procedure the council adopted is a standard federal strings-attached requirement, not a sign of any dispute.
• Why weed fines are hard to raise. Because the base citation is set by state statute, the council's room to increase the penalty locally is limited. That is why the conversation kept circling toward slower, costlier tools (city-contracted mowing and liens) rather than a simple fine increase.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• CDBG (Community Development Block Grant): federal money, routed through the state, for local community-improvement projects.
• Current expense fund: a city's main day-to-day operating account, distinct from restricted funds like water, sewer, or streets.
• Lien: a legal claim the city places on a property to recover unpaid costs (like city-paid mowing), typically collected only when the property is sold.

📌 How to Join and Learn More

• Next meeting: Goldendale City Council, regular meeting, Monday, July 6, 2026 at 6:00 p.m., Council Chambers, 1103 S. Columbus Ave., Goldendale.
• Join by Zoom: dial 415-762-9988, Meeting ID 373 290 5204 (call-in opens at 5:45 p.m.); Zoom instructions are posted on the city website.
• Coming up: Community Days, July 10 and 11.
• Agendas and packets are posted on the City of Goldendale website ahead of each meeting.