What does it really cost to build a house near a wetland in North Bonneville? This month the City Council turned a routine environmental-rules update into a debate about affordability and local control. We also cover the North Bonneville Planning Commission, a firefighter bill four years overdue, a library open just six hours a week, and why sewer pipes are quietly straining budgets all across the Gorge.

In This Episode

• The Critical Areas Ordinance heads to the state, and one councilor's cost analysis that reframed the whole debate
• The city pays off firefighter-pension dues unpaid since 2022, and a vote where the record and the recording disagree
• Sixty-five hundred dollars in tourism funds for a summer car show and Gorge Days
• A library that gets used every day but is staffed only six hours a week
• Blackberries, faded road lines, and a striping machine the city could not buy
• Why North Bonneville's fifty-year-old sewer lift stations are part of a Gorge-wide story
• What is next: a July 7 zoning hearing and a July 28 look at the Bradford Island Superfund site

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• North Bonneville City Council agendas, minutes, and audio (the new "Supplemental Documents" link holds sheriff reports and written public comment)
• North Bonneville Planning Commission meetings & minutes: the draft Title 20 zoning revisions and the July 7 public hearing
• Fort Vancouver Regional Library: send comments on the North Bonneville branch through the FVRL website
• Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Priority Habitats and Species and Department of Ecology Critical Areas / wetlands guidance

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The Skamania Dispatch and The Klickitattler are community-led projects of OpenGorge.org.

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