The Dalles City Council approved the City’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018-19.  It was approved with only minor adjustments from what came out of the municipal budget committee.  Mayor Steve Lawrence called it the best budget the City has adopted since he took the position, noting reserves and contingency have been fully funded and projects are being done within the resources the City has.  In other business, the Council approved a contract with consultants KPFF to update the financial figures for The Dalles Riverfront Access Project for the City Council and Urban Renewal Board to decide if it wants to pursue it.

Skamania County Search and Rescue located a 44-year-old Vancouver woman whose car battery died west of Trout Lake.  According to the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office…the department received a report at 4:20 p.m. Sunday that Shawna Lamb had become lost while hiking above Stevenson as she was solo camping.  Her husband had received a call from her that her car battery had died and her cell phone was almost out of battery.  He told dispatchers Lamb gave him directions but was unable to locate her.  A search & rescue Deputy made contact with the husband and found the location was not in the Stevenson area but Trout Lake, some 50 miles Northeast.  The deputy started checking spurs near Mt. Adams, and located Lamb 5 1/2 hours later after checking 70 miles of roadway.  She was in Yakima County near “Backstrap Trail.”  The deputy assisted in getting her vehicle running and then reunited her with her husband.

A grant from Northern Wasco County PUD will help complete Phase 1 of plans to expand Klindt Cove Kiwanis Park.  At their June 4 meeting the PUD’s Board of Directors awarded $16,000 to the project through their economic development grant program.  The grant will allow Phase I completion through the addition of site seeding and irrigation.  The Port of The Dalles, Northern Wasco County Parks & Recreation, and The Dalles Kiwanis are collaborating on the expansion project.  The Port has donated a bit over one acre of land for the expansion project, which will include more picnic and activity areas.   A $70,000 Oregon Parks grant will provide much of Phase 1 funding.

Hood River County Commissioners are continuing to conduct their focus group discussions as part of its sustainability project to deal with budget issues.  Each of the five commissioners is overseeing focus groups for a different part of County operations.  Commission Chair Ron Rivers has been involved in discussions around public safety, and feels like it’s building momentum, and he expects the outreach to continue, adding they aren’t hearing negatives from those taking part.  The County plans to have the panels make recommendations during the summer as Commissioners angled toward putting a revenue measure on the ballot in November of this year or May 2019.  For more information on the various groups and how citizens can take part, go to the Hood River County website.

After a week of volunteers building the new structures at Children’s Park in Hood River, the facility is about 85 percent complete.  According to a post on the Children’s Park Facebook page, another couple of community days will be upcoming to finish the park up.  Specific dates and plans will be announced later.  Volunteers spent all of last week building the play structures.  The original wood-based structure had to be replaced after 25 years of use for safety reasons.

An early morning fire in Odell destroyed a manufactured home.  Wy’east Fire District Chief Greg Borton says crews arrived at the scene of the fire on Summit Drive at 2 a.m. Monday and found the older style manufactured home fully involved, and had to fight the fire defensively.  Borton said two sisters who lived in the manufactured home were helped out of the home by relatives who live in a trailer close by.  Borton did say one of three dogs that lived in the home was found dead inside the burned structure, while a second is missing and a third got out safely.  All Hood River Valley fire departments were involved in the firefighting effort.  The American Red Cross assisted those displaced by the fire.

The White Salmon City Council is gathering information on vehicle license fee to provide additional funding for street maintenance.  Mayor David Poucher says the state of Washington has been cutting back funds they had shared with cities, including privatization of liquor stores eliminating much of that income and a car tax that went directly to the city.  The state is now allowing cities to form transportation benefit districts and impose fees on vehicle licenses starting at $20 and eventually getting to $50.  Poucher says the Council is gathering information and would at least have a public hearing before making any decisions.  Poucher added he would want to see a vote of the people before adding any type of tax.

With the cherry harvest in the Mid-Columbia underway, a volatile international trade situation is creating uncertainty.  Ken Bailey of Orchard View Farms says you never know for sure what the impacts of tariffs would be until you product begins to be put on the market.  Bailey notes non-tariff barriers that can be an issue.  He says one example is China’s move last month to change its inspection rate of produce for pesticide residues from 30 percent of imports to 100 percent.  That slows the inspection process, and combined with insufficient cold storage facilities has the potential to lead to major disruptions.

The discharge from the City of The Dalles Wastewater Treatment Plant to the Columbia River has returned to compliance with permit limits for E. coli as of Thursday evening.  Samples taken throughout the day on Wednesday at the City discharge point to the river were within limits for each individual sample and for an average of five samples.  The delay in reading out the test results is due to the 24-hour incubation time that the test requires.  Samples taken at pre-arranged locations in the river late in the day on Wednesday were also within limits for each sample.  Signs which were placed at locations of public river access on the Oregon shore of the Columbia River, to warn of contaminated water, were taken down last night.

An incident earlier this week involving a Dry Hollow Elementary School student being directed to the wrong place to be picked up by a parent turned out to simply be a case of miscommunication rather than foul play.  In a joint statement, The Dalles Police Department and North Wasco County School District 21 said they learned parents of two different students called the school within minutes of each other, and the message intended for one student was accidentally sent to another.  The message directed the wrong student to walk to a day care where the student was to remain until the parent could pick that child up.  In their statement, police and the school district said it was a relief that the event was a simple mistake and not a more ominous event.