Hood River County Commissioners have approved a utility easement that will bring with it $100,000 for the County’s forest trails program.  Commissioners approved the application from the Zayo Group for the easement along Pinemont Drive within County forestland as part of the installation of a fiber optic line from Sandy to The Dalles.  County Administrator Jeff Hecksel says the Zayo Group will provide $100,000 for the County’s forest trails program that has been in question as part of the County’s budget shortfall issues.  He says it doesn’t fully cover the trail program’s costs for the next two years, but it does move them toward what is needed.  The County’s timberland fund will realize over $75,000 from the easement.

White Salmon City Councilors will hold a public hearing on a short-term rentals ordinance during their meeting on Wednesday evening.  Mayor David Poucher says the main purpose of the ordinance is to help the City figure out how many STR’s are actually operating in White Salmon.  Property owners who do short-term rentals of a home they actually live in would be charged $75 for a permit.  Property owners who do not live in the home and rents out a single unit would be charged 300 dollars, while there is a third tier for those who rent out multiple units.  Wednesday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. in White Salmon City Hall.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is awarding $554,509 to Hood River County fire agencies.  The regional grant will assist county agencies in purchasing 89 Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus with spare bottles and masks.  Hood River Fire & EMS Chief Leonard Damian says the grant will be used to replace aging equipment over fifteen years old.  Hood River County’s grant was the single largest in Oregon during this year’s round of federal assistance to the Firefighters Grant Program.  That program was created by Congress in 2001 and is now administered by FEMA, and is a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.   Through the program, FEMA will pay for 90 percent of the equipment costs with the county agencies responsible for the remainder.

A couple of weeks into classes the Hood River County School District’s enrollment is about where officials thought it would be.  New Superintendent Sara Hahn-Huston says the district is only three students over its projection from the start of the year, leaving it right around 4,000 students.  The district’s enrollment has been flat to slightly declining for a number of years.  More formal numbers on student counts will be put together at the end of the month.

Two veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars from The Dalles will be taken to Washington, D.C. as part of the Honor Flight program.  David Tuttle, an Army Corporal who saw action in Korea and received two Bronze Battle Starts for his participation in the Battle of Christmas Hill, and Robert “Max” Maxwell, who served in the Navy and Naval Reserves during both the Korean and Vietnam wars, will be making the trip this week.  The national Honor Flight Network program takes World War II, Korean, and Vietnam veterans to Washington, D.C. free of charge for a four day trip to visit the national memorials to their service along with the White House, Capitol, and other attractions there.

Motorists on U.S. Highway 26 between Madras and Mt. Hood should pay close attention to driving conditions as the Oregon Department of Transportation deploys robotic flaggers and rumble strips on a highway maintenance project northwest of Madras.  Traffic control for the project was set up Tuesday morning between mileposts 75 and 81, and will be in place for about three weeks.  Many motorists are encountering the automated flaggers for the first time and should be aware that the lowered arm across the travel lane is the signal to come to a complete stop until the arm is raised.  The rumble strips will be placed ahead of the automated flaggers to alert drivers to the upcoming work site.  The automated flaggers are operated by ODOT workers who are close by, but out of the traffic pattern, to keep them safe during such operations.

Two people died in a motor vehicle accident involving a wrong-way driver early Sunday morning on Interstate 84 in Gilliam County.  According to the Oregon State Police, a preliminary investigation revealed that a car driven by 29-year-old Josue Amando Lopez-Munoz of Prosser was traveling westbound in the eastbound lanes.  His car struck an eastbound vehicle driven by 33-year-old Anita Dugger of Salem.  Both Lopez-Munoz and Dugger sustained fatal injuries.  A 13-year-old boy in Dugger’s vehicle was taken by air ambulance to The Dalles and later by ground to Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in Portland.  The accident occurred at around 5:45 a.m. Sunday.  The OSP was assisted by North Gilliam Fire Department, Lifeflight, Morrow and Benton county sheriff’s offices, the Gilliam County District Attorney and Medical Examiner, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The Port of Hood River Commission will hold a worksession Tuesday on real estate and development.  Port Executive Director Michael McElwee says it’s intended for the Commission to talk among themselves about the Port’s real estate portfolio and the specific sites they have, and determine their priorities in the future.  The worksession figures to run three-to-five hours, and will take place Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the Columbia Gorge Hotel.  The meeting is open to the public.

Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Second District Congressman Greg Walden are pressing the Forest Service to explain why it has not awarded any “call when needed” contracts to the providers of wildfire-fighting large air tankers.  The lawmakers sent a letter to Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen stating that the “call when needed” solicitation was originally issued in July 2018 and closed in April 2019.  In the letter the legislative trio says they are concerned that companies have responded to the solicitation in good faith, but have been left in limbo due to Forest Service inaction.  They also say failure to award the contracts hurts the Forest Service’s firefighting work by denying it access to several next-generation large air tankers, and because several next-generation tankers are available at lower rates than current aircraft in use that could save taxpayer money.

A bipartisan group of Western senators on Monday introduced legislation to provide long-term financial security for rural counties.  The legislation introduced by Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkey, Idaho’s Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, and Colorado’s Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner would reauthorize the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program for ten years.  The program provides resources to nearly 1,900 counties across 49 states.  Counties have used these payments for more than 40 years to fund law enforcement, firefighting, emergency response and other essential county services.  Earlier this year, the Oregon and Idaho senators also introduced the bipartisan Forest Management for Rural Stability Act to make the Secure Rural Schools program permanent by creating an endowment fund to provide stable funding for county services.