News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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The educational leader who has led Nespelem School District since 2020 will resign at the end of the school year. Dr. Effie Dean, who took over in June of 2020 as the Covid pandemic was disrupting education and society in general, informed the district board of directors Jan. 30. Monday night, directors voted to begin the search for a new superintendent, engaging Northwest Leadership Associates, of Wenatchee, to begin the search and vetting process. Dean’s last official day is June 30. She told The Star on Tuesday that she is not certain of h...
In a change from a prior policy considered by the Regional Board of Mayors, the Delano Regional Transfer Station may soon accept credit cards following an Electric City Council vote on Feb. 3. Electric City administers the transfer station operation. It’s workers and administrators are city employees. New Mayor Blake Martin brought up the fact that only cash and checks have been accepted for payment at the transfer station, options that increasingly seem too limited in modern society. “I mean, I know I don’t really carry cash on me,” Martin...
Two Washington tribal leaders could soon snag seats on the state's Board of Natural Resources, which guides logging sales and other management decisions for millions of acres of public land. Sen. Claudia Kauffman, a Democrat from Kent who's the first Native American woman to serve in the state Senate, proposed Senate Bill 5838. On Monday, it was voted out of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. The bill originally called for only one tribal representative to be appointed to... Full story
Thank you, Carl Russell, for your right-on letter in the January 28 edition of The Star. I agree with you and support you 100%. However, sadly the rules of engagement for criticizing the Trump-hating Dems is, “Stick your neck out and get your head chopped off.” In the February 4 edition of The Star, there were three contemptuous shots sent your way. Jamie Holman’s letter was a simpering and condescending word salad. I struggled to get through, but apparently you need to be admonished… a lot. Don Andrews had to vomit and therefore could not con...
A front-page article in The Star news recently described the frustration of the Electric City council concerning the lack of equal, accurate and reliable representation within the decision process of law and policy in the matter of the wastewater treatment plant owned and operated jointly by Electric City and Grand Coulee. I share that frustration and growing anger related to our entire process of government from town council to the federal system. Watching the system making legal decisions of law and policy with life and death consequence to...
The normal reply when the Seattle area is mentioned is that the person wouldn’t want to live there. I remember when my family learned we were going to move to the Seattle area. All we could think of was the things we could do in a large city. This was in 1964. We were so surprised that you could drive downtown and park right next to a movie house. We were in Bothell at the time. I fished off the dock in Edmonds, visited every art gallery in town and most of the museums. Our neighbors were friendly enough, and we largely kept to ourselves. A...
The Lady Raiders basketball team missed the league championship by just two points Tuesday night as they took second in the 2026 CW2B League Girls Basketball Tournament and Brewster held onto a 46-44 win at Okanogan High School. LR's loss came after a big win for Lake Roosevelt's girls Saturday afternoon in Omak against Okanogan's Lady Bulldogs, 60-33. The Lady Raiders took the lead away from Okanogan early in that game and piled it on. Lady Raiders will be headed to Eastmont High School Feb....
The Raiders ended their basketball post-season Thursday after one game against the Bridgeport Mustangs that went into overtime. The Raiders were up by 13 points early in the third quarter but the Mustangs picked away at that lead, overtaking it by a point with just under two minutes to go in regulation. The Raiders led again but Bridgeport tied it with a foul shot at 54 each with 16 seconds left. The Raiders pulled ahead by two halfway throught the four-minute overtime, 58-56. But the Mustangs...
After years of arguing that Grand Coulee is treating it like a paying customer instead of a co‑owner of the regional wastewater treatment plant, Electric City is turning to the courts. The City Council voted Tuesday to seek a legal judgment on the 1984 agreement that created the joint facility, saying Grand Coulee has ignored board decisions, relied on a costly contractor, and refused to enter mediation. The two cities are parties to a 1984 interlocal agreement that created the jointly owned t...
OLYMPIA - A protest at the Capitol Saturday called for the removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "everywhere." With more than 1,500 attending, the rally joined similar nationwide protests after the recent ICE-involved killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Evergreen Resistance organized the protest. The group is Olympia's branch of the nationwide organization 50-50-1 (50 states, 50 protests, one movement). "We're a group that does not want our nation to become more...
Those Democrats are getting crazier than anyone can imagine — not voting for a president who is a convicted felon, for a man who doesn’t respect America’s laws and cries like a baby if they don’t give him the Nobel peace prize. I could go on and on, but I’d have to go throw up in the bathroom. Don Andrews...
When I left for college 70 years ago a friend said that the best thing that I would get was what I got off the walls. Of course, he was talking about the experiences that I would have, meeting people from all over the world and people who were unlike me. He was only partially right. I had some good professors, ones that I still remember. I had two survey profs, one in Old Testament studies and the other in sociology, both under class subjects. My sociology prof had used the same notes for probably 30 years but he welcomed questions. I think he...
By the end of the first quarter, the play was as fierce as a championship overtime. The Liberty Bell coach was calling out the seconds left to her players, but the clock ran out before they could will in another two points for a tie to head off the 16-14 psychological advantage for the Lady Raiders. Much of the first half was like that, but the LR girls were relentless, beginning their undeniable assent in the second quarter to leave the Lady Mountain Lions with a loss, 78-37 Friday in Coulee...
In their "best game" of the season the Raiders almost pulled out a win the Mountain Lions at home Friday in a game that showed the possibilities. Pushing through a tough season, missing a key player, the Raiders are near the bottom of the Central Washington 2B with a win-loss of 2-4, 7-13 overall. You wouldn't guess that by watching them play Liberty Bell (5-1, 18-3) as they adapted and persevered after adding their first two points five minutes in. By the end of the game, they'd taken the lead...
A big boulder fell from the wall of the Grand Coulee during the night, blocking most of two lanes on SR-155 along Banks Lake. Drivers could still drive around it where it was coned off at a wide spot in the shoulder of the road on an area of light traffic. But drivers Saturday morning found one-lane (mostly on a pull-out) traffic on the highway just south of the entrance to Steamboat Rock State Park. The Washington State Department of Transportation sent out an alert on its mobile app about 3...
A Grand Coulee man was arrested Jan. 18 after reportedly admitting to shooting his rifle at a boat on Rufus Woods Lake to try to “scare the occupants away,” a sheriff’s report says. Deputies of the Douglas County sheriff arrested Shawn W. Robison, 41, after an investigation, a Jan. 22 release from the sheriff’s office states. One of the five people on the boat called to report the shots, and deputies were dispatched at 8:14 p.m. to the “1000 block” of Strahl Canyon Road, in a remote section of the county about 25 minutes northwest of Grand Co...
Elmer City’s residents already pay around $68 a month for their sewer service, not the $14 stated incorrectly in an article last week, but that amount will still go up following a court ruling last December. The $14 cited at a town council meeting is what Elmer City had been paying Coulee Dam for treating sewage at the time. Okanogan Superior Court Judge Kathryn Burke ruled on Coulee Dam’s preliminary injunction seeking payment from Elmer City at double the $80 rate Coulee Dam charges its own customers. The judge didn’t agree to that high a rat...
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton famously intoned, “I feel your pain,” reassuring voters he understood what they were going through. Since then, similar statements of empathy have become a staple for politicians but too often they are just hollow words. Take small business owners, for example, which are the backbone of America’s economy. They are Washington’s forgotten constituency. Most elected officials have no idea what it’s like to risk everything you have or to struggle to meet payroll for your employees and their fam...
It has been said that once a kid, always a kid. I believe that, in a way. I remember growing up and some of the things I did way back then. I used to follow the railroad tracks. I always took a salt shaker because I often came across apple trees. I liked to salt up an apple; seems they taste better that way. I followed the rails in both directions. The W I and M went toward Potlatch. The Idaho line was but two miles away. The W I and M line was largely used in the early days as a logging operation. Going the other direction, I would go either...
I predicted the Democrats would go crazy if President Trump was re-elected, I just didn’t realize they would go this crazy. The Democrat party has become the party of supporting criminals 100%. They support of all illegals in the United States. But worst of all they support pedophile’s, murders, rapist’s, criminal gang members, robbers, drug dealers and traffickers, domestic violence, and fraudsters. Democrats are standing up and promoting all the fraud by Illegals without regard for the damage they are doing to citizens of the United State...
Elmer City must pay a lot more for the wastewater treatment service it buys from Coulee Dam, a county judge ruled recently, which may force Elmer City residents to have to pay more for their utilities. The town council endorsed a plan Thursday to increase rates to cover the bill in dispute for 2025, although the town is working on an appeal. In the meantime, residents who are used to paying $14 a month for their sewer service will have to pay considerably more. Coulee Dam's own residents pay...
A big boulder fell from the wall of the Grand Coulee during the night, blocking most of two lanes on SR-155 along Banks Lake. Drivers can still drive around it where it's coned off at a wide spot in the shoulder of the road on an area of light traffic, but drivers should expect one-lane traffic on the highway just south of the entrance to Steamboat Rock State Park. The Washington State Department of Transportation sent out an alert on its mobile app about 3 a.m. Saturday warning of a... Full story
A Grand Coulee man was arrested Jan. 18 after reportedly admitting to shooting his rifle at a boat on Rufus Woods Lake to try to “scare the occupants away,” a sheriff’s report says. Deputies of the Douglas County sheriff arrested Shawn W. Robison, 41, after an investigation, a Jan. 22 release from the sheriff’s office states. One of the five people on the boat called to report the shots, and deputies were dispatched at 8:14 p.m. to the “1000 block” of Strahl Canyon Road, which is at about its intersection with Road 32 NE in a remote sect... Full story
The city of Grand Coulee will write a letter endorsing a local effort to explore forming a regional "fire authority," the city council voted Tuesday night. A fire "authority" differs in state law from a "district" in that it is possible to include emergency medical services in it. Each of the affected areas in the currently proposed area must write a letter of its intent to move forward with such a study. The vote at Grand Coulee was unanimous, ticking off one more box on the list of things to...
Shane Proctor was inducted into the Bull Riding Hall of Fame Tuesday. The Grand Coulee cowboy went on to a winning career in professional rodeo after graduating from Lake Roosevelt High School in 2003. Naming Proctor as a 2026 inductee to the Bull Riding Hall of Fame (BRHOF), the nonprofit organization listed his many accomplishments in rodeo and bull riding. Proctor qualified for the PBR World Finals nine times from 2006 to 2017 and for the National Finals Rodeo five times from 2011 through... Full story