Commissioners plan community meetings

Wahkiakum County commissioners will hold community meetings in the next few months to discuss a variety of issues, Commissioners Dan Cothren and Tom Doumit said Tuesday.

In their agenda time for public input, Puget Island resident Bill Coons suggested the board hold a series of forums to discuss issues such as finances, economic development and other issues with the public.

Cothren and Doumit—Commissioner George Trott was in Washington, D.C. on a lobbying trip—agreed with the suggestion and said they have already been planning forums to discuss issues with the public.

For the board, finances will be the major issue. The county is looking at a shortfall in revenue from state managed county trust timber land for the next few years, and that may force reductions in county services.

Of particular concern to the board is the Wahkiakum Family Practice Clinic, which the county purchased two years ago from Peace Health.

The clinic is facing its own shortfall of $250,000 this year, Cothren said, and the board and clinic management have been meeting to discuss how to handle that shortfall.

One possible proposal would be a special levy, Cothren said. The board has requested an opinion from Proseucting Attorney Dan Bigelow on whether the county could continue to manage the clinic or if a hospital district would need to be formed to collect the special levy.

In other business:

—Rosburg resident Blair Brady suggested the commission investigate ways of making transcripts of meeting recordings available to the public. Meeting minutes, even when approved by the board, aren’t complete transcriptions and have contained errors, he said.

Commissioners noted that minutes aren’t intended to be transcriptions of meetings, but they and Clerk of the Board Holly Pfenniger indicated willingness to check new technology when the time comes to replace the aging tape recorder.

—The board authorized Public Works Director Pete Ringen to apply for state administered grant funds to replace the ferry Wahkiakum.

Ringen said a rough estimate of the cost of a new ferry is $5 million; the county would be responsible for a $50,000 match at that price.

The Wahkiakum is nearly 50 years old, Ringen said. He has suggested it be replaced with a ferry that would carry double the 12 car maximum load of the Wahkiakum.

—The board received bids from Burns Construction and Naselle Rock and Asphalt to supply rock for the county road department; Ringen will recommend approval at the board’s next meeting.

However, the board received no bids for roadside mowing. A new call for bids will be prepared for action next week.

—The board approved a shoreline management substantial development, conditional use, and variance permit for Lemmie and Wanda Rockford to construct a ramp and dock on property on the Columbia River near County Line Park. The variance is needed because it would extend into the river beyond the 50-foot limit in the county shoreline plan.