News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Measuring COVID rates by region rather than counties, and using other metrics, are part of a new recovery plan in Washington state. Gov. Jay Inslee announced the "Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery" plan on Jan. 5, and signed the plan into effect on Jan. 11. The plan groups counties into regions, all starting in phase one of a two-phase (so far) approach to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The two phases vary in their restrictions for various aspects of life for Washington residents an... Full story
A free streaming service launched by North Central Washington Libraries, which includes the Grand Coulee Library, offers 30,000 movie titles, including hit movies, documentaries, and kids’ content. And it all only requires a library card to access. The streaming service, called Kanopy, was announced on the NCW LIbraries blog page on Dec. 21, 2020. Kanopy is accessible via computers, mobile and tablet apps for iPhone and Android, as well as SmartTV apps like Roku, Apple TV, and Fire Stick. Kids’ content is unlimited for viewers, and for other co...
With COVID-19 vaccines being widely dispensed, will an end to this pandemic halt “work from home?” Will workers return to downtown offices at pre-pandemic levels? Not likely! However, it is not an either/or question, said Stanford Professor Nicholas Bloom, who is co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship program. “Working from home will be very much a part of our post-COVID economy,” he added, “so, the sooner policymakers and business (employers) think of the implication...
Local people are handling issues presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways, with many optimistic about 2021, but many not. With an online survey focused on Coulee life during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Star asked questions related to how work, raising kids, and life in general have been affected. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (61%) said they plan to get the vaccine. Forty-eight percent (28) said they plan to get it as soon as they can. Only eight (14%) said they plan to get it after others try it first. Thirteen people (22%) said...
High school administrators in Easter Washington have been hoping that extracurricular activities, including sports, will return as planned beginning on Feb. 1, but a Tuesday announcement of a new state plan for managing the pandemic makes that prospect unclear. A letter signed by 103 Eastern Washington School Administrators, including Lake Roosevelt Athletic Director Tim Rasmussen, was sent to Gov. Jay Inslee, the Washington State Legislature, and the Washington State Department of Health, emphasizing the importance of returning to sports and...
A curriculum focused on students learning outdoors within the Columbia River watershed began locally and has grown to include thousands of students and teachers in the Pacific Northwest. The River Mile was awarded a $100,000 Environmental Education grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in late 2020. Janice Elvidge has worked as the education specialist for the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area since 2005. Her office is at Spring Canyon. Tasked with coming up with an education...
Although I have no political party affiliation I will most likely be vilified for what I am about to put forth as I live in a bastion of the Republican Party. Honestly, I hate the two-party system of politics that run this country. I am 67 years old and for the last 50 years have watched as through the shenanigans of current and former members of both parties we are now stuck with an extremely polarized, exclusive, winner-take-all system of governance. Hopefully, we are viewing the culmination of this process, the failed deterioration into...
Now that vaccines are available, we hope our lives will return to the way they were before the coronavirus pandemic blanketed the globe. That is not likely to occur. Last March our booming economy was clobbered by COVID-19. A worldwide pandemic ensued. There was no vaccine to counter it and even though vaccines were developed at “warp speed” lots of things changed and have become imbedded in our daily lives. Futurist Bernard Marr, columnist in Forbes, believes employers quickly adapted to a remote workforce. While less than ideal, working fro...
After 51 years of cutting meats professionally, Ed Moore is retiring from Ed's Meat Market. Located in the back of Harvest Foods, Ed's Meat Market has been a local staple for meat eaters for decades, and now Moore will be retiring but will stay available as a consultant for his coworkers who will be taking over the meat cutting. Moore was raised on a cattle ranch in Benton City, and after graduating high school in 1965, began working at Moon's Grocery Store for about a year before joining the...
The Electric City council this month approved donating $2 per resident, roughly $2,000, to the Grant County Health District, but not before some discussion. At their Dec. 8 council meeting, Mayor Diane Kohout read a report from Brad Parrish, who is the representative for northern Grant County on the GCHD Board of Directors. and is also a commissioner for Hospital District 6, which runs Coulee Medical Center. Parrish’s report starts by saying the GCHD can use all donations they get, but went on to say he thinks the city’s donation should com...
Opportunity for growth has opened for the town of Nespelem with an upgraded water system now up and running. Mayor Darcy Epperson explained to The Star over the phone on Tuesday that the town actually has two water systems, and needed to repair one of them. "We did two because if our one goes down, we are without [water] and our town has no way to get that water to our customers. So that's why it was such an emergent situation. We have them both up and running now." "The town had been in this...
While the coronavirus and its devastating effects on people and economies worldwide were unfortunately the top 2020 stories, the massive impact of western wildfires can’t be ignored. It was catastrophic. The National Interagency Fire Center’s western states tally shows a record 8.6 million acres were incinerated in 2020 compared with 4.6 million acres in 2019. In Washington, just over 700,000 acres were burned; however, California and Oregon were not as fortunate. By comparison, a combined 5.7 million acres were destroyed. Fires inc...
In-person school is being encouraged by the state, but Lake Roosevelt is limited on space to keep a safe distance between students and staff. The guidelines for when to open schools to in-person learning were loosened up by Gov. Jay Inslee last week, citing data showing schools as being relatively safe during the COVID pandemic when they’re careful to follow safety protocols. The Washington State Department of Health and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction worked with the governor on the decision. Guidelines from the state pr... Full story
Locals have a lot of ideas for their North Dam Park, a Star survey reveals, including lights, updated playground equipment, a dog park, outdoor movies, and more. Last week, The Star reported on a meeting between Coulee Area Park and Recreation District commissioners in which they discussed areas for improvement at the park, and the need to look into grants to help pay for those improvements. The Star then shared a survey online asking readers their opinions on the commissioners' ideas, and to...
The Colville Tribes extended the closure of the Colville Reservation to non-essential visitors until midnight on May 31, 2021, and started a curfew in the Keller District. Chairman for the Colville Tribes Rodney Cawston said in a Dec. 22 press release that the Keller District is “experiencing a severe outbreak of COVID-19 infections.” As of Dec. 21, there are 15 active cases of COVID-19 in Keller and more people in quarantine while they await test results or to see if symptoms develop. “It is absolutely necessary to impose this curfew to prese... Full story
The long, controversial story of the imagined Ice Age Park in Electric City has come to an end, but the potential for a park is still there. The city council voted at their Dec. 8 meeting to stop the Ice Age Park project and so to return $28,234.31 of spent grant money to the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. That grant included $257,650 from the state, and an exact match from the city. The city returned their $257,650 match back into their hotel/motel fund which now has $519,275 in it. The $32,190.69 the city spent on the...
Christmas is an especially difficult time for anyone grieving for lost loved ones. Try adding a crippling killer virus into that mix. That is the tragic reality of 2020. Even though the traditional ceremonies attended by thousands went virtual this year, more than 1.7 million holiday wreaths were placed against grave markers of fallen service men and women. Normally, the fallen are remembered on Memorial Day, but thanks to a Maine family and over hundreds of thousand donors and volunteers, on Dec. 19 those wreaths were laid on the tombstones...
Efforts from local scouts to collect food donations from the community last week brought in over 2,000 pounds of food to the Care and Share Food Bank. Carole Nordine, who manages the food bank, said they received lots of mac and cheese, soups, and fruits and vegetables. She felt that this year’s haul from the annual event seemed better than in previous years. “It was awesome!” she said. Combined with the foods already there, the donations brought in from the girls and boys in local Scouts BSA troops will last through about March, Nordine said....
Would you like it if North Dam Park had new tennis courts, lighted ball fields, new playground equipment, and more flowers? We want to know. Commissioners for The Coulee Area Parks and Recreation District last week discussed improvements that could be made at North Dam Park, which it manages. The improvements could potentially be paid for, at least in part, with money from various grants. The commissioners at their Dec. 9 meeting agreed to each look into various estimates for certain improvements to gain firmer cost ideas for any grant writing... Full story
Education looks far different today than when George LaPlace was in school, and he thinks its future is likely to see more amazing changes even though funding inequities currently in place still need work. LaPlace has served as a school board director in the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors since the 2014-15 school year. As chairman since January of this year, he answered questions from The Star over email covering topics ranging from the role of the board, education during...
If your family member or loved one is employed by Okanogan County, I would be seriously concerned due to: The attitude of County Commissioner DeTro, chairman of the Board of Commissioners and Board of Health. Recent positive Covid tests of 11 inmates and four staff, along with 23 exposures at the county jail (not to mention 16 recently confirmed Covid-related deaths at North Valley Extended Care.) On Dec. 7, 2:21 p.m., the County Planning Department supervisor expressed her employees’ distress due to a recent unidentified positive test in t...
Back in 2019, I partnered with Douglas County PUD to sponsor and pass a bill authorizing Public Utility Districts to produce and sell renewable hydrogen. Hydrogen is a gas that can be created from a process that uses electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water. I worked closely that year with Douglas County PUD because of their interest in using surplus hydropower to produce hydrogen. The bill’s passage allows for the production and sale of “renewable hydrogen,” which is defined as hydrogen created from an emissions-free elec...
The return to school for seventh- through 12th-grade Lake Roosevelt students on Monday, Dec. 7 continued under a plan modified in an emergency school board session Friday night that sets a much higher threshold for the number of local Covid cases it would take to stop in-person schooling. The Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors held an Emergency Board Meeting tonight via Zoom where they voted 4-1 to modify the plan, previously approved on Nov. 9, for junior/senior high students to return part time to physical school on Dec. 7....
A COVID-era rule intended to help individuals has meant lost revenue for cities, and utilities. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Proclamation 20-23, first issued in March of 2020, doesn’t allow utilities to be shut off for a resident, nor for late fees to be charged. That has meant that those who charge for utilities, such as local cities and electric companies, are holding higher amounts of their customers unpaid bills than usual, and that they also haven’t been able to bring in money from late fees like they have before. Locally, the city of Gr...
If you have a drivers license and an insured vehicle, you could help local senior citizens by volunteering to deliver meals to them. “We are in desperate need of volunteer delivery drivers,” Senior Meals Director Chay Heilman said. Deliveries have gone up during the COVID pandemic since the dining room of the Grand Coulee Dam Senior Center, where the food is prepared and normally served, is closed. Heilman said that three drivers are needed for each of the five delivery times throughout the week: at 9 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays, and at 3 p.m... Full story
