News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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One person visited with the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board on Monday regarding district plans for handling their budget emergency. "After reading some of the letters to the editor in The Star this week, I wanted to come and just kind of get an understanding from the board as to what cuts are being made and why," Sam Halvorsen said. Halvorsen visited on a day the board had just put off a discussion on an upcoming emergency budget resolution, opting to discuss it at a "workshop" on...
WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to force the Trump administration to admit if it plans to send armed federal law enforcement or U.S. troops to polling locations in the upcoming midterm elections. The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charges that 11 Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests submitted to the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense by the DNC in October have gone unanswered, a violation of p...
All four local towns are suing each other. You could be forgiven if you didn’t know this; the biggest beef between them involves the spectacularly uninteresting subjects of their shared sewage treatment plants, which are spectacularly expensive by your and my standards. Which is sad, because that’s who has to pay for them. That seems obviously unavoidable, as sewer plants are one thing we don’t want to do without. But making them even more expensive than they already are by deciding to sue each other over disagreements regarding them just rubs...
Just as many November 2024 general election President Trump voters express that Trump’s cruel, lawless, racist tyranny is “not what I voted for,” the same is likely true of many voting for Michael Baumgartner as our 5th Congressional District Representative. Watching Baumgartner suck up to Trump lapdog Attorney General Pam Bondi during her histrionic, unhinged performance at Congressional hearings on opening the Jeffrey Epstein files was nauseating (Spokesman-Review 2/12/26). Then Baumgartner, always lapdog to House Speaker Mike Johnson, in tu...
Ah, St. Patrick’s Day is upon us — a fine time to restore our sense of humor. More than 20 years ago, British sociologist Christie Davies wrote in “The Mirth of Nations” that Americans were becoming as nervous about swapping jokes as people once were in communist Eastern Europe — a warning he issued well before cancel culture. Which makes me long for the jokes my dad and Uncle Mike — a child of Irish immigrants — shared on Sundays, such as this one: “Mike,” says Pat, “If you were stranded on a desert island, who would you like most to be wit...
After a season that may have started out with more modest ambitions, the Lady Raiders competed in the WIAA State 2B Girls' Basketball Tournament at The Arena in Spokane March 4, where they played the Ducks, of Toutle Lake, staying ahead through halftime, outscoring them five points, 21-16. Toutle Lake took off in the third quarter, however, holding LR to 10 points while adding 26 to their own score for a 42-31 advantage going into the fourth. The Raiders beat them back by only a point after...
The geologist Nick Zentner "popped up" at Dry Falls State Park Visitor Center last Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m. in one of his "pop up" events, where the popular prof just shows up to talk with the geologically curious. That was a curiosity he piqued by putting forth a new old idea about the formation of the Grand Coulee. An estimated 120-plus people showed up to the cliff-top venue, where Zentner lectured with his back to the 400-foot chasm and promised not to step backward. Zentner, the "Science...
Washington State Standard March 4, 2026 The votes weren't there yet late Wednesday for Democrats' income tax bill in the Washington state House. Democratic members are withholding support for the proposed income tax on millionaires, saying they want to see if a new version of the controversial legislation, possibly due out Thursday, will satisfy their concerns. Holdouts reportedly number around a dozen and include lawmakers who've publicly opposed the bill and ones who cast themselves as... Full story
Coulee Dam is hoping to finally get the grant funding it applied for to replace over 30 old maple trees removed during a sidewalk replacement project in 2023. The city applied for a grant, which was awarded in February of 2024 for over $71,000 to do the work. The money comes through the state Dept. of Natural Resources with federal funds awarded to the state-managed program. City Clerk Stefani Bowden told the city council Feb. 26 that a federal funding freeze in February of 2025 kept the project from moving forward. as funding was held up kept...
My thoughts are with the U.S. Military, Foreign, and Civilian service members and American citizens across the Middle East as news breaks that the United States and Israel have launched preemptive strikes on Iran, and Iran is retaliating. When American lives are on the line, we must lead with steadiness - not impulse. Failing to seriously consider the moral and legal justifications for attacking another country costs the aggressor blood, treasure and reputation, and earns the enmity of the people attacked. Having worked with survivors of armed...
I’ve lived in many public school systems around the country and all of my nine children attended the public schools where my family lived. I can tell from talking to hundreds of people here in the Grand Coulee area, that the schools here are not high quality and are not meeting the needs of children or their parents. I lived in a similar school district in Texas and after trying to change the local school from within, I ultimately moved my family to get my children into a better school. I’ve met only a few people in this school district who...
Recently, the Washington State Association of Counties released its 2026 County Fiscal Health Survey. The results confirm what many of us have been saying for years: county governments across Washington are under significant and growing financial pressure. Out of 39 counties, a majority report significant or severe General Fund pressure. Twenty counties say state mandates are the primary driver of their budget problems. Twenty-one report moderate reductions or delays in public safety services. Nearly two-thirds say long-term sustainability...
If you'd told Head Coach Jeremy Crollard during the Lady Raiders' first 10 games of the season that they'd being going to state this year, he'd have thought you were crazy. But the young team that started out less than stellar became a strong, competitive unit that battled in the last half of the regular season, and on Saturday in Wenatchee vanquished the Orcas Island Vikings 66-42 to survive the opening round of WIAA's 2026 2B Girls State Basketball Tournament. Freshman Paisley Fury-Smith led i...
A proposed reduction in high school secretary hours has become a flash point in the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s broader struggle to close a mounting budget gap, with staff warning of strained student support and administrators describing a years-long squeeze of rising costs and falling enrollment. High school secretary Tammy Norris told the school board that trimming one secretary position from 9 to 7.5 hours a day is more than a simple line-item cut. “In a district our size, there is no extra, there is no cushion,” Norris said during th...
The geologist Nick Zentner will be at Dry Falls State Park Visitor Center this coming Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m. in one of his "pop up" events, where the popular prof just shows up to talk with the geologically curious. If you're me, that sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon. (If you're new here, this is one of the most interesting geological areas on the planet.) Zentner, the "Science Outreach and Education Coordinator" at Central Washington University, shares his knowledge in entertaining... Full story
Grand Coulee’s recently adopted Ordinance 1105 is headed back to committee after city officials concluded they need clearer direction on how to enforce it and how quickly property owners must comply. The council briefly revisited the ordinance near the end of its Feb. 17 meeting, focusing not on whether to keep it, but how to implement it. ClerkTreasurer Lorna Pearce told council members that as staff prepared notification letters to business and property owners, several unanswered questions emerged. Chief among them: Who is the designated o...
Thank you, Anna Kirk, for your support, and your letter was right on. I received several thanks for the letter and even a phone call from Wilbur in agreement for the letter to the editor. Jamie Holman If you cannot see what the Democrats are doing in Congress and Senate you are very naive about what is going on with the criminal illegals. Some city Democrat mayors are cooperating with Ice & border patrol with no problem. But most of the Democrat Cities are not cooperating like Minnesota and calling the ICE officers Gestapo, Hitler Brown shirts...
I chose a week’s stopover in Taiwan because I had special arrangements set up with the government there. My congressman at the time was Lloyd Meeds. He had some influence there because his wife was Chinese and knew a lot of government officials. I was set up in a very Chinese hotel with a car and driver at my disposal. I didn’t know at the time that I would land there in the midst of the Chinese New Year celebration. It was The Year of the Horse and the capital was jammed with traffic. It apparently is the custom to pay your debts with “Fu...
There’s a lot of hatred in the world today. For a while, starting from when I was a young girl, it was classless to openly display your bigotry. People would whisper among themselves about “the others,” and epithets were spoken at cocktail parties and behind closed office doors, but people were savvy enough not to come to work wearing white sheets. Lately, however, that has changed. I’ve already talked about the damage being done to our Jewish communities by the blatant antisemitism displayed by anti-Zionists of all stripes, including other J...
The Lady Raiders will head to the first round of state Saturday, after vanquishing Mabton in the game for third or fourth in District 5 last weekend. The Vikings (13-11) are the top team in the Eastern Washington Athletic Conference East, but the Lady Raiders (14-10) took them down in East Wenatchee last Saturday, 61-37. Despite that score, Lake Roosevelt took some time catching up after Mabton's early five-point lead and did not pull decisively ahead until late third quarter. which ended for...
If you’ve ever dealt with a construction project, you may realize the near certainty of finding more problems than you planned for. Now apply that concept to an industrial plant built decades ago. The Grand Coulee City Council on Feb. 17 approved a significant electrical upgrade at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and advanced several related engineering agreements with Gray & Osborne, Inc., moves aimed at improving safety, reliability, and longterm compliance at the regional facility. The most expensive of the actions was a roughly $24...
Facing a steep jump in sewer treatment costs, the Elmer City Council voted last week to shift its utility rates, raising sewer charges while cutting water rates in an effort to limit the impact on residents. During a public hearing on Ordinance 393, ClerkTreasurer Kelly Ross laid out the numbers now confronting the town. Under an injunction stemming from a legal dispute with Coulee Dam, Elmer City is being billed $98.98 per household per month for sewer treatment and plant loan repayment alone. That does not include the town’s own sewer c...
If you have an old American Flag that's tattered and torn, official protocol calls for a proper disposal. That involves retiring the nation's symbol with respect, not a trash bag. That's where Addison "AJ" Cannon comes in. Cannon, almost 18, is working on getting her Eagle Scout rank, which involves an ambitious project to supply the local area with flag retirement boxes for used flags. She has been working with American Legion Post 157, which will have a key to the boxes. She presented one...
Washington state moved one step closer Monday to creating a personal income tax two years after the Legislature said it wouldn't. Majority Democrats in the Senate advanced legislation on a 27-22 vote to tax households earning more than a million dollars. Passage of the bill followed a three-and-a-half hour debate on whether this will make for a fairer tax code or harm the economy and incite an exodus of Washington's wealthy residents. House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, who watched the vote...
We continue to enjoy The Star every week. Please continue our subscription for another year. Your editorials have been “spot on”! So glad to see small town folks marching for democracy! We continue to march and speak up in the Tri-Cities. Darlene Price...