County Commissioner's Report

Wahkiakum County commissioners met Tuesday to approve some routine expenditures, but the majority of the meeting was focused on public comment.

Town Council member Jeanne Hendrickson came to the meeting to tell the commissioners that she has found a way to eliminate the fee for library cards in Cathlamet. Commissioner Hendrickson asked the commissioners to step up and assist her new program by allocating $1,500 from the County budget to assist the new library program. The other comment came from a county resident who felt unsafe at a recent budget meeting. During a workshop on property taxes the resident was verbally harassed by a resident who opposed the 1% annual property tax increase. This increase would raise approximately $7,000. The commissioners apologized and said they were “caught off guard” by the person's account. After the lengthy comment period the commissioners approved work on the freezer for the county jail, and granted a Health and Human Services employee a promotion. Chris Bischoff, director of Health and Human Services (HHS) briefed the commissioners on the success of their Living Well event, which brought almost 100 people to explore programs supported by HHS.