Goldendale Sentinel March 31, 2021

‘Journey Through Klickitat County’ inside!

Goldendale, Washington

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2021

Vol. 142 No. 13

$1.00

Lou Marzeles

SIGNS: The intersection of Highway 142 and Knight Road just west of Goldendale. On the wooden fence just past the road sign is a flyer for CEASE, the organization trying to stop a huge solar energy project from sprawling across the land.

The battle lines over solar energy are drawn Lou Marzeles Editor This is part one of a series on the controversy over a planned solar energy project near Goldendale.

Someone on the CEASE website has been busy with Photoshop. CEASE stands for Citizens Educated About Solar Energy, and the organization’s website (CEASE2020.org) is filled with idyllic shots of scenery before

and after—before solar panel arrays and after. The after shots are Photoshopped projections of what the land could look like if CEASE doesn’t have its way.

CEASE’s name reflects its desire: it wants a huge solar farm planned to cover the open expanses around Knight Road just outside Goldendale to stop and go bother someone else’s neighborhood. Or, better yet, not to bother anyone anywhere.

able moratorium on solar projects has been enacted in Klickitat County, the result of a county commissioner changing his mind.

The vote for the moratorium was on March 9, and it could be for up to six months.

“Well, we know we can’t stop it,” Wagner sighs, “because the president of the United States wants all this renewable energy, and the governor’s all behind it.

Part of our plan was to stop it by

having a moratorium. We’ve accomplished that. But if we can’t stop it, we at least want to control it.”

Wagner says solar energy hasn’t got a single thing in its favor. He calls it dangerous and a gross encumbrance on the convenience, scenic beauty, and property values of homes in the area.

“It’s going to ruin all that,” he states. “Who wants 14-foot-high

See Solar page B1

New library branch manager’s roundabout route here Nick May For The Sentinel

Facebook

A STREAK IN THE SKY: Eyes were fixed on the skies around the county Thursday night as a large chunk of space debris re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere lit up the night.

‘Floating’ light in the sky captivates county A large light-covered object drifted across Pacific Northwest skies Thursday night, firing the curiosity of many in Goldendale, including some who posted video of it online.

So what was it?

The Goldendale Observatory’s Administrator, Troy Carpenter, says the event was a worthwhile teaching moment. Here’s what he had to say about it: “Due to the (relatively) low speed of the object and long duration of the event, it was immediately apparent that this was not a natural object, but man-made

CEASE’s embodiment is Greg Wagner, its founder. If you want to talk solar energy with Wagner, be prepared to spend a while. He’s passionate about the topic—he lives in the area where the solar project is projected to go. He’s amassed a group of citizens who share his concerns, and their collective volume has already wrought some unexpected, if still small, victories.

For example, a once-unthink-

space junk. Artificial material reentering the atmosphere is moving ‘only’ around 17,000 mph, while meteors frequently exceed 100,000 mph. Also, artificial space hardware is made of dense and durable materials like aluminum, steel, and titanium, which don’t disintegrate or vaporize as quickly as tiny, rocky particles.

YouTube has years of reentry fireball videos which resemble those recorded last night in Oregon and Washington.

“I initially suspected that this was part of old weather Satellite

Meet Terra McLeod, your new branch manager for the Goldendale Library. Terra grew up in southern Oregon and graduated from North Medford High School. She then went to Southern Oregon University for her undergraduate degree in applied cultural anthropology. Then she sold her car and moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute, where she got her Master’s in Library Science MLIS. She then got a job at the Queens Library, where she worked for a year as the librarian. Then she did a 180 and ended up teaching

hot yoga in New York, where she started going to Brooklyn College for pre-med after thinking about becoming a physical therapist.

She realized that what she loved was being a librarian.

She ended up moving back to southern Oregon to deal with some personal family matters.

Once those were settled, she wanted to move more north and so applied for the job working as the new branch manager for the Goldendale Library branch position.

Terra loves taking bike rides around town and taking walks in nature, along with getting to know people. She hopes to spend a good amount of the summer

Contributed

NEW IN TOWN: Terra McLeod is the new branch manager at the Goldendale Library.

taking bike rides and meeting more of the community.

Welcome, Terra!

See Sky page B1

Mosbrucker on bill to fix drug law void A comprehensive package of legislation was introduced Monday, March 22, by House Republicans to address repercussions and concerns of a Washington Supreme Court ruling (State v.

Blake) on Feb. 25 that deemed the state’s simple possession drug law unconstitutional.

“The fallout of the court de-

cision will be devastating and deeply impact public safety for all Washington citizens and our communities. And it will not help those who are suffering with substance abuse,” said Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, who serves as ranking Republican on the House Public Safety Committee. “I’m also really concerned about the message this decision sends to our young people. If law enforcement loses the power to make arrests for narcotics possession, we’re going to be losing a powerful deterrent for keeping

See Drug page B1

Contributed: Edith Gidley

A CROP OF HAIL: Wild wind and a furious bout of hail hit Goldendale Saturday afternoon. As in this picture, some of the hail was marble-sized. The flamingo here was blown off balance and looks like it’s ready to dine on fresh hail.

A4—March 31, 2021

Goldendale, Washington

Opinion

It was a good year for Pawsitivity What a year it has been! 2020 has been a strange and busy year for our fledgling little “Pawsitivity” group.

In spite of everything, we managed somehow to muddle through and in the end were quite successful, all things considered.

At the beginning of last year, we hoped to build on our progress from the previous year with trap-neuterrelease (TNR) work in and around the Goldendale and Centerville area. It started out somewhat typical for January and February, as we did what we could to TNR cats before spring and kitten season started.

Then Covid-19 hit. With closures of non-essential businesses in the Guest spring, we were unable to take any trapped cats to the Feral Cat CoaliEditorial tion (FCO) to be neutered. While Pawsitivity, everything didn’t completely grind to a halt, things did slow down consida feral cat erably, neuter-trapCome spring, due to the inability to do much TNR work in the winter, release there were so many kittens in need of service rescuing and fostering. Unfortunately, we were down a foster home at a critical period from May until July, with one of our volunteers out of town. Elke, our intrepid leader, took up the slack and at one time was fostering around 20 kittens and cats in her home! Our other three foster parents, Stina, Heather, and Sally, stayed busy as well and stepped up to help. In July, with all volunteers on deck, our foster homes were busy taking in more kittens as soon as others were adopted.

Luckily, with the bad came some good. With everyone stuck at home, folks decided it would be a good time to adopt a pet, and adoptions happened at a fast pace. We were able to post kittens and cats up for adoption and almost immediately found loving homes for them.

For a group of only around six members, we are proud of what we were able to accomplish last year, in spite of Covid restrictions. TNR Total: 300. Kittens/ cats adopted: 170. Barn cats adopted: 45. All our kittens/cats go to a new home after they were spayed/ neutered and up to date on vaccines.

During our down time in the winter, Stina was able to create a website for Pawsitivity (www.pawsitivity.info). It makes a difference to have a web site this year. We were able to drive contacts through the website, post cats and kittens for adoption, and provide information on our group.

As frustrating and sad as this year has been in many ways, we’ve had some great success with adoptions and hope that a few of the stories below will warm your heart: • Easter was a hard case. She was thrown out of a car window near her foster mom’s home and was not social, but was a very sweet and good cat. She bonded to her friend Lily (a sweet outgoing girl), and it was determined that they needed a home together. After being fostered for eight months, we finally were able to find an amazing home for these two with a very patient woman.

• Dr. Jean from Rowena Wildlife Clinic helped save a sweet little girl that was caught in the base of a wind turbine. She was pretty bad off and required one of her legs to be amputated and lots of stitches, but she managed to recover in one of our foster homes. She gained some notoriety after being featured in an article and was quickly adopted.

• Poor Sugar was so tiny and so sick for a very long time. Two of her siblings had to be euthanized, but nevertheless she persisted. After many months and several setbacks, she was finally well enough to be adopted with her friend Bear to a wonderful home.

• We rescued 11 cats from an abandoned house. It was so sad to see the conditions these poor cats were living in. We were so relieved when our volunteer Trisha’s mom offered to adopt all of them to her horse ranch south of Portland.

We are working with cat clinics in Portland and Tri-Cities. Going to these clinics are long drives for the volunteer drivers. We are glad to have Trisha as a new driver besides our all-around volunteers Heather and Elke.

We are very thankful to our wonderful local veterinarian, Marianne Randall DVM, for helping us out, when we need a vet immediately.

Finally, we could not do what we are doing without the support of Rowena Wildlife and Dr. Jean Cypher. We are so grateful to her for all that she does to help the kitties. She is also a selfless human being and an amazing vet for our injured wildlife. We cannot thank her enough.

We don’t know what next year holds for us, but we are hopeful that we will be able to continue to build on our progress from the last years. With the help of the community we will be even more successful and help more cats with our programs. We also want to say thank you to all the community members who helped us with trapping cats.

Please text or call Elke at 261-0689 or Heather at (303) 523-4412 and tell us how we can help.

Burn-out has got to go The Festival of Wheels gave it another try this year. It seems the attendance has dwindled to much lower levels than when the event was new, 10 years ago. There are a lot of competing car shows this time of year, so it doesn’t surprise me .

This year Goldendale Motorsports Association and ABATE brought back the burn-out, which was tried several times in the past with questionable benefits to the town. This year someone had the brilliant idea to use the old skateboard park as a place to stage the return of the burnout. It was held on the concrete slab, a tempting medium for anyone inclined to bum rubber. Rednecks of many degrees, punk kids or maybe the little old lady from Pasadena.

I personally was left with a bad taste in my mouth and lungs. Even though I made it a point to stay away from the burn-out and was at my home where I thought I would escape the noise and smoke, when the toxic cloud rose from the park and drifted over the Little Klickitat River Park (the swimming pool) on to the kids and families at the pool and on to me while I was sitting on my property. We were contaminated by the toxins in the smoke, and my eyes and throat were imitated, and my lungs filled with carbon monoxide and other cancer causing toxic compounds

for three hours.

I think the city of Goldendale needs to rethink supporting burnouts in our park. Next year don’t issue a permit to any group that wants to burn-out. There are places in the county where it could be held, just not in the city please.

I hate toxic smoke, and you should too.

On Sept 4 I will be asking the mayor and his administration to make an ordinance forbidding anyone from reckless unsafe burnouts in any ones neighborhood or any street in the Goldendale city limits. I would appreciate some support from like-minded citizens at the council meeting. Let them know how you feel.

Ken McKune Goldendale C I recently received an updated “Terms for Business and Deposit Account Agreement” from Columbia Bank. I am not in the habit of reading the fine print but for some reason this time I did. I came across an “added” line that I found very concerning. Again, this line is both for personal and business accounts. It reads: “We may refuse to open and account and may close your account at any time for any reason or for no reason at all.”

“For No Reason At All” I particularly found offensive.

I contacted the bank for an explanation. The answer was essentially that “we wouldn’t do that.” Then why is it in your documents, I asked. The answer was to send me up the chain of command.

The second person gave the same answer as the first and then was to have me contacted by some-one higher up. That person has not contacted me after more than a week so I am following through on what I told the bank contacts I was going to do—write a letter to the editor to be sure local folks are aware of how Columbia Bank is choosing to deal with its account holders.

My concern is that a comment as broad as this opens the door for abuse. I have had no difficulties with our local branch and am sorry that the headquarters has decided to take such a hard line.

It ap-pears I will need to look for a bank that does not behave in this manner.

Ken Margraf Goldendale

THE GOLDENDALE SENTINEL

Official newspaper of Klickitat County, Washington Established 1879 • Published every Wednesday from offices at 117 W. Main Street • Goldendale, WA 98620 • Telephone: (509) 773-3777 Emails: news@goldendalesentinel.com (News, editorial, Obituaries, Letters) Classifieds @goldendalesentinel.com (Classified ads and inquiries) Ads @goldendalesentinel.com (Display advertising information and inquiries) Legals @goldendalesentinel.com (Legal and public notices) Payables@goldendalesentinel.com Receivables@goldendalesentinel.com Calendar @goldendalesentinel.com (Events and activities - on hold during pandemic)

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Lou Marzeles, Editor & Publisher

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