Reunion a focus of Community Days
Andrew Christiansen
Reporter
Goldendale, a great place to live and come home to, was the theme of last week's Community Days festivities. The theme captures the intent of the event, which is a tradition of class reunions and an anticipated celebration by the locals.
After preliminary events on Thursday and Friday, things hit high gear on Saturday morning. Breakfast by the Rebekahs started the day followed by the fun run which took off in front of Sterling Bank. The bank was the primary sponsor for this year's Community Days, in cooperation with the Greater Goldendale Area Chamber of Commerce and the Goldendale Jaycees.
Many other area businesses also donated to the diverse events.
Main Street bustled throughout Saturday as auto enthusiasts admired the classic cars and tried their hand at the drag race light tree, but nobody was quicker than Dennis Schroder and Mike Howard. The annual engine blow-up lasted seven minutes, 11 seconds...Brady Walling had the winning guess.
A quilt show at the Presby Museum, games, booths, food, the Old Time Fiddlers on the Courthouse lawn, the Golden Art Gallery's Japanese-inspired dinner, and a benefit auction followed one of the larger parades in memory, with 65 entries.
The final event was a Sunday talent show, won by Ross Kauffman. Sarah Brumfield was second and Dusky Jones was third.
At the end of the day, those living here were back to work and those who came to the event were home recovering, no doubt remembering everything that happened between the scheduled events. Another Community Days has passed, but you can be sure the class of 1960 is working on plans for next year's gathering of those who live in Goldendale and those who like to come home.
Library traffic up during down times
Lou Marzeles
News Editor
Following a national trend, the Goldendale Community Library has noticed substantial increases in traffic since the current recession began.
"Check-outs are up about nine percent here," says Community Librarian Naomi Fisher. "That's about the same as it is across the district," which refers to the Fort Vancouver Regional Library System, running from Vancouver to Goldendale at its easternmost edge.
Fisher says foot traffic in the library is also up significantly. "In the last two years, we've seen an increase in foot traffic through the library of about 17 percent over previous years," she says.
"A lot of this has to do with the fact that in a down economy, people aren't spending as much money on books and movies," Fisher explains. "So more people come to the library."
Fisher has also seen a rise in patrons utilizing the library's resources for job searching. "We have more people coming in to use the library's computers to explore job options," she says, "as well as to use the library's free wireless internet service." The library has wireless internet access throughout the building and even as far as the street, where Fisher has seen cars pull up to access the internet just outside the library. Wireless internet was added to the library this past winter.
The increase in visits to the library has helped make the community more aware of the unique resource it is, Fisher considers. For example, new technology in the library allows for extremely rapid check-outs; patrons need only place their stack of books on a pad that instantly reads all the numbers on every book and checks them all out instantaneously. "We can still check out the familiar way," Fisher says, though the new option is increasingly popular. To utilize the technology, staff had to encode every resource in the library, which Fisher says took only a few days.
"This actually makes us more effective with our time and resources," she says, asked about the cost efficiency of employing high-tech tools in the face of financial cut-backs. "The process saves us time, which allows us to be more efficient with our staff."
Budget cuts required the library to shorten its hours, and its current schedule is Tuesday through Saturday. The library chose to close on Mondays as a cost saving measure.
The West Burgen Street building that houses the library itself draws considerable interest. "This is a Carnegie library," Fisher explains, "one of a number of libraries funded by [philanthropist] Andrew Carnegie's foundation in the early 20th century. Goldendale's library was built in 1914 and has been in continuous operations as the city's public library ever since." The Women's Association of Goldendale at that time applied for $8,000 from the Carnegie Fund and then raised funds on its own to purchase two city lots. The building was constructed soon after, following unique design patterns established by the Carnegie Fund, and the library opened its doors in 1915.
In 1985 the library building was extensively renovated with a $1.2 million budget. Two wings were added and the floor space was quadrupled. The renovation allowed such new features as a performance amphitheater, a reading deck, an expanded children's area, and a community meeting room. Pains were taken to preserve the original architecture, and much of it remains visible to this day, including the front entrance, which has many features characteristic of Carnegie library design. The library is featured on many area historical tours.
Windy Point/Windy Flats sold to California agency
Renewable energy pioneers Cannon Power Group announced today the closing of the sale of Phase I of its Windy Point/Windy Flats project in Goldendale to Tuolumne Wind Project Authority, a California joint power agency formed by the Turlock Irrigation District and Walnut Energy Center Authority. The 136.6 megawatt (MW) wind energy project will be referred to as the Tuolumne Wind Project.
Expected to be fully completed in 2010, Windy Point/Windy Flats will be one of the largest wind projects in the world-26 contiguous miles of ridgeline along the Columbia River-covering over 90 square miles. Its anticipated capacity of more than 500 MW of renewable energy will generate enough clean electricity for more than 250,000 households per year and will displace at least 800 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Phase I began commercial operation on May 28. The project land is leased through eight private lease agreements with 20 year terms and one lease with the state of Washington that extends for 40 years.
Turlock Irrigation District provides electric service to approximately 98,548 customers in a 662 square-mile area in central California (90 miles southeast of San Francisco).
California will continue to benefit from the Windy Point/Windy Flats project as another California entity is expected to purchase power from Phase II, the Windy Flats project, with additional commitments expected in the near future. In sum, it is anticipated that California will receive 400 MW of clean energy from the entire project which could significantly help the state meet its renewable energy goals.
"Windy Point/Windy Flats is a tremendous project and we are proud to add this to our utility-scale clean power development portfolio," said Gary Hardke, president and managing director and San Diego-based Cannon Power Group. "This has long been one of the premier wind sites in the Pacific Northwest and is the culmination of over five years of hard work by our development and construction teams in close coordination with the local community."
Phase I of the three-phase project includes more than 20 miles of roads, nine miles of transmission lines, more than 87 miles of underground cable, two project substations and foundations and installments of 62 turbines (42 Siemens 2.3 MW turbines and 20 REpower 2.0 MW turbines). Cannon Power Construction Company is acting as construction contractor.
The Windy Point/Windy Flats project is creating more than 150 local jobs for the next two years in everything from office administrators to technicians, and hiring nearly 75 percent of the employees from the Klickitat County area. Klickitat County will see property tax revenues of approximately $2 million a year from Windy Point/Windy Flats that helps fund community needs such as libraries, schools, and fire protection services.
The rent the project will pay local landowners will inject another $2 million a year directly into the local economy for the next 20 years. The project's total capital investment in Klickitat County based on current commitments is over $700 million, which is expected to increase with planned project expansions.
Construction of the infrastructure for Phase II is well underway and will add another 21 miles of roads, 10 miles of transmission lines, an additional two project substations, along with 88 Siemens 2.3 MW turbines. Cannon Power Group recently announced its intention to further expand Phase II by an additional 26 turbines (approximately 60 MW), which would bring Phase II to over 260 MW.
Maryhill Museum is home to 15 of the project's wind turbines and will receive more than $100,000 in revenue each year once the turbines begin producing energy in 2009. This is believed to be the first wind energy project in the U.S. to generate revenues for a nonprofit museum. Cannon Power Group also made an in-kind donation to the Maryhill Museum of $18,000 worth of concrete to improve their parking lot. and walk areas. |
