🏘 The Zoning Map Catches Up to the Plan - White Salmon October '26 Round-Up

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🏛 October 2026 White Salmon Municipal Round-Up

Agencies Covered: White Salmon City Council (October 7 and October 21), Planning Commission (October 14 and October 28), White Salmon Valley Pool Metropolitan Park District, with notes from the Tree Board, Community Development Committee and City Lab as reported to Council.

The Bottom Line: October was a month of setting up decisions rather than making them. Staff laid out a plan to rezone up to 131 parcels to match the comprehensive plan the city adopted in 2021, the finance director showed Council a 2027 General Fund with about $125,000 of room, and the Bridge Authority said its last big federal grant is now expected by the end of the year. Council's votes were on water: two pay applications worth almost $800,000, a water main for a county subdivision, and a sole-source deal for the system that runs the water and sewer plants.

The Vibe: Early looks and long questions. Council got the rezone map before the formal process started, on purpose, and residents of one neighborhood came the same night to say the map had them wrong.

🔎 What Changed

• Council made Coburn Electric the sole-source contractor for the city's existing water and sewer control system (SCADA), 5-0.
• Council approved $703,736.88 to Tapani Inc. for June work on the water transmission main and $92,132.17 to Ajax Northwest for the North Main-Spring Street water project, and gave Ajax 152 more working days because of supplier delays.
• Council approved a water main extension for a four-lot subdivision outside city limits, paid for by the developers.
• Council signed Task Order 2 with the Bridge Authority, so the city is reimbursed up to $37,000 for reviewing the new bridge's local permits.
• The Planning Commission sent Council its short-term rental ordinance, with a new citywide 10% cap on short-term rental permits.

⚠ What Escalated

• The planning department's map would upzone 103 residential parcels and move the ten Upper Wyers townhouse lots from residential to commercial. Two Upper Wyers residents and their HOA objected.
• The 2027 General Fund projects revenue of $3,873,316 against $3,748,468 of planned spending, and the city's reserve account holds about $294,000. One insurance deductible could take two thirds of it.
• A Scenic Street resident asked Council when the street, unpaved since the spring storm damage, will be fixed before winter rain.

🧭 What's Next

• November 5, 6 p.m.: the Pool District's public hearing on its 2027 budget; adoption is set for its November 12 meeting.
• November 9 to 13: inspections of the old bridge, with traffic stops of up to an hour between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., before test pile work in the river this winter.
• November 18: the Pool District is scheduled to present to Council.
• By the end of 2026: the Bridge Authority expects word on its Bridge Investment Program application.
• Rezones: the city plans a project web page first, then informational notices and a workshop for property owners, then hearings at the Planning Commission and Council. The planning department lost its associate planner at the end of October, and the planner said that's part of why long-range timelines are slipping.
• About January: the Bridge Authority's local permit applications are expected at the Planning Commission, with a staff report and a public hearing.

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White Salmon City Council

Council met October 7 and October 21. The October 7 minutes are drafted and were approved on October 21. Minutes for Council's October 21 meeting and the Planning Commission's October 28 meeting are not yet public, so votes from those nights are as recorded on the meeting video.

🗺 A zoning map that doesn't match the plan

City Planner Rowan Fairfield brought Council an early look at a project the city has had on its list for years: making the zoning map agree with the land use map in the White Salmon 2040 comprehensive plan, adopted in 2021. The comp plan says what kind of place each part of town should become. The zoning map is what actually applies when someone files for a permit. Where the two disagree, Fairfield told Council, the comp plan controls, so an owner can't rezone against it.

Staff compared the two maps parcel by parcel and found 131 mismatches out of 1,393 parcels:

• 103 residential upzones: 70 parcels zoned R1 (single-family) would become R2, and 33 zoned R2 would become R3 (multifamily). Seven of the R1 parcels, about 43.6 acres, are vacant, including the Cherry Hill Estates subdivision.
• 12 residential to commercial: the ten Upper Wyers townhouse lots in the Wyers End planned development, a county stormwater parcel north of Dewalt Drive, and the Pinecrest Church of the Nazarene. The church would become a nonconforming use, because the commercial zone neither allows nor prohibits houses of worship.
• 4 commercial to residential: all four are already homes.
• 12 bluff parcels between State Route 14 and the top of the bluff would go from Riverfront District to R1. Fairfield called them "unbuildable bluff, not to say that it's definitely unbuildable but nobody's built there in 100 years." Parcels split by the highway, like the city's Heritage Plaza lot, keep their Riverfront zoning.

No residential parcel would be downzoned. Fairfield said an upzone mostly widens what an owner may build: anything allowed in R1 is still allowed in R2 or R3. The bigger change is for parcels moving between residential and commercial, where the list of allowed uses is different.

Upper Wyers says the map has them wrong. Spencer Bohaboy, secretary of the Upper Wyers HOA, wrote to Council and spoke at the start of the meeting. The ten lots are townhouses, he said, owner-occupied or rented long term, and the 2007 Wyers End approval allowed only light "consulting and professional services" in them, the kind of work-from-home that is "commonplace" now. His concern was that "this principle could be extended to almost any residents within the city." Neighbor Chris Larson said he bought his house as R2 in 2014 and has "never seen a commercial business ever" on the street. The HOA asked Council to drop Lots 19 through 28 from the rezone.

The city's parcel list names Councilmember Doug Rainbolt as the owner of one of those ten lots, Lot 25.

At the table, one councilmember asked "what problem are we trying to solve by doing this?" Fairfield's answer was housing: more parcels where denser homes could be built later, in line with the city's housing action plan. Councilmember David Lindley asked whether the city should also look at the Riverfront District's narrow, recreation-focused commercial rules. Fairfield said that's outside this project.

A week later, the Planning Commission saw the same report. Fairfield told commissioners the comp plan map "didn't really go parcel by parcel," so a mistake is possible, and the commission and Council can choose not to rezone a parcel now and fix the comp plan later. What doesn't count, in Fairfield's view: "If somebody says, 'I don't want apartments next to me,' that's probably not a good enough reason."

Timeline: a zoning map change is a legislative process with two public hearings, one at the Planning Commission and one at Council, then an ordinance. The report's draft schedule had a workshop on October 28 and a commission hearing on November 11. By October 14 that had moved: November 11 is Veterans Day, and Fairfield wants a project web page up before notices go out. The workshop for property owners is not yet scheduled. Bohaboy came back to the Planning Commission on October 28 to ask for a firm timeline, and said the HOA would amend its own documents to rule out commercial activity if that helps. That night Fairfield announced the associate planner's last day was October 29, leaving the department short-staffed, and said that's "partly why the timeline is getting pushed out" on longer projects like this one.

🌉 The bridge: still waiting on Washington, D.C.

Michael Shannon, project director for the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Replacement, came to Council on October 21 hoping to bring good news about the federal Bridge Investment Program grant. He didn't have it. The decision the Authority expected by September 30 is now expected by the end of the year. Shannon said the Authority answered federal reviewers' comments and resubmitted with a better benefit-cost ratio, and has had calls from Washington, D.C. that suggest "somebody's talking about us."

• Cost: still $1.12 billion for the whole program. The construction estimate came down at 60% design, and the savings went into contingency.
• Design: 60% design is done; 100% plans are expected in early 2027.
• If the grant comes in December: early work could start in April 2027 and the first in-water work window opens October 1, 2027. If it slips, Shannon said, the schedule loses productive time in the water each year.
• Test piles: 16 temporary piles near the old bridge this winter, with sensors on the old piers watching for movement, because the old bridge does not sit on bedrock on the Oregon side. After the meeting the Authority chose Advanced American Construction and set inspections for November 9 to 13, with piles out of the river by May 1, 2027.

The pointed questions came from the chair. Mayor Marla Keethler, who sat on the Authority's board through 2025, asked how the public should square the Authority's line that the project doesn't rely on one funding source with the fact that "nearly half of the project now is dependent in this cycle on a single federal grant." Shannon said the project is about 78% federal, under the 80% federal programs usually allow, and the grant would cover about 48%, under that program's 50% limit. Asked whether the design could be cut, he said dropping the bike and pedestrian path "doesn't save a ton of money," and that the Authority is weighing fallback plans, like separating demolition from construction or piecing together several smaller federal grants.

The Bridge Investment Program was funded for federal fiscal years 2022 through 2026. Our August Bridge Authority coverage has the background on the test pile fight.

On consent the same night, Council approved Task Order 2 with the Authority. The city will run the local permit reviews for the new bridge (shoreline, critical areas, SEPA, site plan, tree and flood review) and bill the Authority for staff and consultant time, up to $37,000, instead of charging application fees. The reviews go through the Planning Commission and Council; the task order estimates completion in March 2027. The Authority's team previewed those applications for the Planning Commission on October 28 and expects them back with a staff report and public hearing around January. Their White Salmon side plans include a construction road from the Heritage Plaza lot down over the railroad, use of that lot (to be repaved at the end), a temporary SR 14 bypass for about six months while the roundabout is built, and a search for about two acres of off-site wetland mitigation.

💸 2027 budget: balanced, barely

Finance Director Jennifer Neil started the 2027 budget with revenue only. Her report projects General Fund revenue of $3,873,316 for 2027, up about 1.4% from what the city now expects to collect this year. (The jump looks like 14% if you compare it to the 2026 budget instead.) Planned spending is $3,748,468, leaving about $125,000. Police are about $1.91 million, about half of the General Fund.

"Our existing service baseline is already consuming most of our projected, recurring revenue," Neil said, and she asked Council not to read the $125,000 "as money available to spend." The Streets Fund shows about $94,000 of room for 2027, but only because no street projects are in it yet.

Neil recommended Council take the 1% property tax increase the state allows, which she put at about $4,646, "not because it solves our problem, because it clearly doesn't," but to keep the base growing. She also asked Council which other revenue ideas staff should study: annexing land in the urban growth area, a public safety sales tax, charging utility taxes directly on customers' bills, fee updates, paid parking and a transportation benefit district.

Her report also flags reserves. The city's reserve account holds about $294,000. A single $200,000 insurance deductible, it notes, would use about 68% of that.

Council members who spoke favored studying fees and cost recovery and annexation. Columbia Gorge News covered the 5 p.m. budget workshop that came first, where the mayor said current revenue won't sustain the budget over the long run.

🔌 One contractor for the water controls

SCADA is the computer system that lets staff run the water and sewer systems remotely. Coburn Electric built most of White Salmon's and did its recent upgrade. Public Works Director Chris True asked Council to make Coburn the sole source for work on the existing system, so new projects like the North Main booster station don't each go out to bid and bring in another outside company with access to the controls. Water systems are "a very good target" for cyberattacks, True said, and the city's in-house staff can handle the basics but not the programming.

Councilmember Ben Giant, who said he worked in technical sales, asked how the city keeps from becoming "the cash cow for the sole source vendor." True said every job needs an approved work order, and the agreement sets no rates. Councilmember Patty Fink asked whether the city would check competitors' prices. True said "there are no competitors that can give us what Coburn Electric can give us." Another councilmember worried about the indemnity clause; True said the city attorney reviewed the agreement and he'd confirm it.

Council adopted Resolution 2026-10-655, 5-0. Washington law lets a council waive bidding for purchases "clearly and legitimately limited to a single source of supply", and the resolution makes that finding. It covers maintenance, repair and programming of the existing system only, not a replacement.

🚰 Water mains and payments

All on October 7, all 5-0:

• Alpine Grove: the city accepted about 312 feet of new water main built by White Salmon Storage Properties. The recorded agreement allows up to $51,009 in impact-fee waivers and estimates the city avoided $75,982 in costs.
• Transmission Main Phase IIA: $703,736.88 to Tapani Inc. for June 2026 work. The project is about 82% complete by contract value.
• North Main-Spring Street: $92,132.17 to Ajax Northwest (93% complete), plus a $5,008.05 change order to connect the booster station's flow meter to SCADA and 152 more working days, at no cost, for supplier delays.
• Jackson Drive and Ada Lane: a new 8-inch main, about 622 feet, for a four-lot subdivision outside city limits, applied for by Nate Loker and Matt Mullinix. The developers pay for construction and a $1,500 deposit toward city review. True said the process Council adopted in 2018 for extensions like this "has not been followed to a T for a while now," and he's bringing it back.

The October 21 vouchers, $1,072,835.01, include the Tapani and Ajax payments.

🔥 Wildfire and your insurance

David Forte, a senior policy advisor at the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, told Council that non-renewals in Klickitat County are still climbing while the statewide numbers level off, with clusters around Goldendale and in and around White Salmon. Insurers can't always say a non-renewal is about wildfire, he said, but the map "looks a lot like a wildfire risk map."

His advice to homeowners was the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety's Wildfire Prepared Home certification: a Class A roof, metal gutters, ember-resistant vents and, hardest for most people, nothing that burns within five feet of the house. "Survivability means insurability, and mitigation works," Forte said. The certification is voluntary and transfers to the next owner.

Commissioner Patty Kuderer's two wildfire bills both passed the state Senate this year and stalled in a House committee: ESSB 5928 on telling homeowners their wildfire risk score, and SSB 6079, which would bar insurers from dropping a certified home over wildfire risk and start a home-hardening grant program. Forte said the commissioner will bring both back in the 2027 session.

🌧 Scenic and Skagit, still waiting

On October 21, a Scenic Street resident told Council the street has been gravel since the water main break in early June, that rain off Snohomish now runs onto it, and that four homes sit below grade. She asked about snow plowing, emergency access and whether there's a plan and a budget to repave. The mayor said the city is still waiting on its insurer. If insurance doesn't cover all the work on Scenic Street and NE Skagit Avenue, the repairs may slip into 2027 and come back to Council for reserves or other funds. Our September round-up covered the $1 million storm grant, which Columbia Gorge News reports covers about half the repair cost.

🖥 Data centers

The mayor asked Council whether it wants to weigh in with Klickitat County, where commissioners have heard months of requests for a data center moratorium and, as we reported, sent their draft rules to legal review instead of acting. If Council agrees, staff would draft a resolution. Fink said City Lab has been discussing it. No resolution was on either October agenda.

✅ The rest, briefly

• Latino Heritage Month: Mary Alejandre of Washington Gorge Action Programs honored Alicia Flores Mackenzie, this year's El Grito community award winner, for years of interpreting for neighbors in hospitals, courts and orchards, and described a new Spanish-English interpreter training with Columbia Gorge Community College.
• Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Programs for Peaceful Living, which serves Klickitat County from offices in Bingen and Goldendale, told Council it has served 161 people in Klickitat County this year. Its 24-hour crisis line is (844) 493-1709.
• Officer Frank Randall of the Bingen-White Salmon Police Department resigned effective October 31 after more than 30 years in law enforcement, nine of them here, to join the county's Department of Emergency Management. Council honored him by resolution. Chief Mike Hepner is filling the job through civil service.
• Lindley earned the Association of Washington Cities' Certificate of Municipal Leadership.
• Halloween on Jewett cost the city about $9,000 to close the street for two hours this year, Giant said, and the Community Development Committee wants to find ways to bring that down. The committee is also working on kratom rules, which Giant expects to bring to Council by year's end, alcohol sales rules (Councilmember Morella Mora is leading that research) and a possible Creative District. The committee posts no agendas, minutes or video, so what's known about its meetings comes from councilmembers' reports to Council.
• Fire engine: the West Klickitat Regional Fire Authority started buying a new engine with money White Salmon had saved for years to replace its own, a two-year process.
• Lodging tax: the advisory committee reviewed eight applications totaling more than $70,000; recommendations go to Council in December.

White Salmon Planning Commission

🛏 Short-term rentals, one more round

The commission opened its hearing on October 14 on the short-term rental ordinance it has worked on since June. It lets older single-family homes in the commercial zone become short-term rentals, which the old "30% rule" blocked, and caps large buildings with a table: one rental up to 5 units, two for 6 to 10, three for 11 to 14, and four for 15 or more. (The old rule allowed seven in a 22-unit building.) Our July round-up covered how the commission chose the table.

Nobody testified in person. Peter Wright sent written comments, and the commission spent most of the hearing on them. His sharpest point: counting rentals per parcel leaves a gap if a developer splits a project into separate lots. Commissioner Brendan Brown proposed counting per "development site" instead. Staff preferred "parcel" because it's clearly defined, and Commissioners Nate Loker, Erika Price and Adam Elliott agreed, with Elliott asking staff to keep looking for a fix.

The commission continued the hearing to October 28, 5-0, and asked for cleanup. The revised draft goes further than the first one: it makes short-term rentals an allowed accessory use in the residential zones instead of a conditional use (the city has handled them administratively for years anyway), allows them in the commercial zone with new construction limited to the building types already allowed there, and allows them in mixed-use buildings in the Riverfront District, where they're banned now.

On October 28, Brown pressed the loophole again with a real case: the most recent plan for a Jewett lot was nine townhouses, and as written every one could become a short-term rental. Instead of his "development site" wording, the commission took a fix staff said was already written: the city's 10% cap on short-term rental permits, which the code applies only to residential zones, would apply citywide in every zone that allows housing, and the "no cap" line for the commercial zone would come out. Staff put the city at about 5%. The commission voted unanimously to recommend the ordinance to Council with those changes.

The ordinance carries the number 2026-09-1189, the same sequence number as the dollar store moratorium that failed in September.

🗓 The rest

• Commissioners heard the same rezone report Council did (see above).
• The commission approved its September 9 minutes after commissioners noticed they recorded a motion and a second on the duplex ruling but not the vote.
• Center Market's revised plans for 211 N Main, which staff had aimed at the October 14 meeting, were on neither October agenda.

White Salmon Valley Pool District

The district's board met October 8. Only the agenda is on file: an executive session, updates on contracting, the building permit and funding (a bond sale and a state capital grant), and a first look at the 2027 budget and a levy increase resolution. The budget hearing is November 5, adoption November 12, and the district is scheduled to present to Bingen's council November 17 and White Salmon's November 18.

Tree Board

The Tree Board moved its October meeting to October 26 and folded November into it because of Veterans Day, Fink told Council. On the agenda: its rewrite of the tree ordinance, which Fink said could reach Council in November, and a review of the Bridge Authority's planting plan for the new bridge landing. No record of that meeting is on file yet.

⚠️ Editor's Notebook: Broader Context

• A rezone that follows the comp plan is not a new policy choice, but it is still a choice. The 2021 comp plan already decided where denser housing should go, but until the zoning map changes, the zoning is what applies. An owner of one of the 70 R1 parcels can still build only what R1 allows, or apply alone to rezone toward the plan, never away from it. For each parcel the city now has three paths: rezone it to match, leave it for later, or decide the plan's map was wrong there and amend the comp plan instead, which staff said may fit Upper Wyers. A rezone can also leave an existing use behind: staff said the Pinecrest church would become a nonconforming use that can't expand.
• Thin margins meet big bills. The 2027 General Fund's $125,000 margin is smaller than the storm repair gap the city may have to cover from reserves, and the reserve itself is about $294,000.
• The bridge timeline now depends on a federal decision with no fixed date. The Authority says it has fallback plans, but every month without an award pushes in-water work toward a later season.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• Comprehensive plan land use map: the city's long-range map of what each area should become. White Salmon's runs to 2040.
• Upzone / downzone: rezoning a parcel to allow more (or less) intensive use, like single-family R1 to two-family R2.
• Nonconforming use: a use that was legal when it started but isn't allowed by the current zoning. It can usually continue, but staff said it can't expand.
• Live-work unit: a home with a ground-floor work space; one of the few residential types the commercial zone allows.
• SCADA: supervisory control and data acquisition, the computer system that monitors and runs the water and sewer systems.
• Sole source: a contract awarded without bidding because only one supplier can do the work. RCW 39.04.280 lets a council waive bidding for that.
• 1% levy: Washington caps how much a taxing district's regular property tax levy can grow each year. For districts under 10,000 people, like White Salmon, the limit factor is 101%, or 1% growth, not counting new construction.
• Transportation benefit district: a district that can raise money for street work through a vehicle fee, a sales tax or other charges, under RCW 36.73.
• Task order: a work assignment under an existing agreement between two governments, with its own scope and cap.

🗓 How to Join and Learn More

• City Council: first and third Wednesdays, 6 p.m., at 119 NE Church Ave and on Zoom. November meetings: the 4th and the 18th. Written comments go to public.comment@whitesalmonwa.gov by noon the day of the meeting.
• Planning Commission: second and fourth Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m. Staff said on October 14 there likely won't be meetings November 11 or November 25; December's is the 23rd.
• Community Development Committee: third Mondays, 5 p.m., at City Hall, 100 N Main, and on Zoom, per the committee's city page. November: the 16th.
• Pool District: budget hearing November 5, 6 p.m.; regular meeting November 12. Agendas at WhiteSalmonValleyPool.org.
• Bridge: project updates and closure notices at hoodriverbridge.org.
• Agendas, packets and video for city bodies are on the city's agendas and minutes page.