News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 4001 - 4025 of 7269
After 40 years working at the hospital, Lorale Johnson said she has no plans to retire soon. "Who wants to go home and just sit?" she said. Johnson was honored last week for her four decades of work in the facility that is now called Coulee Medical Center, with co-workers describing her on a bulletin board full of cards with words such as "Never Ending Dedication!," "energy", "blessing," and "joyfully." Johnson has seen a lot of changes in the healthcare industry over the years and in her own...
Yet again, local cities are forced to waste time, effort and money in a disagreement that wouldn’t exist if they did what may be the logical thing and merged. Electric City is objecting to a spike in their metered sewage flow into Grand Coulee costing Electric City more than a month does on average. If the two cities were one, it would be a technician’s problem only, with nobody else even needing to be aware of it. Like every other time the two cities have disagreed — police services contracts, charges for water or other intercity servi...
Cities and towns that have formed Transportation Benefit Districts have been slowly racking up some extra money for streets, even a little they shouldn’t have. Elmer City and Electric City have both formed the special districts; Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam, while holding discussions about it, have not yet done so. A transportation benefit district (TBA) allows a city or town to collect $10 for each license on cars and trucks. It’s a tool designed by the state legislature to help municipalities make up for the financial hit their street fun...
COULEE CITY — Lincoln and Grant county law enforcement officers teamed up this morning to arrest a Coulee City man suspected of having two stolen vehicles. Bernard A. Brill, 55, is lodged in the Grant County Jail on suspicion of two counts of possession of a stolen motor vehicle and two counts of possession of stolen property. The path to this arrest began when Lincoln County sheriff’s deputies learned Brill may have been involved in recent theft-related crimes near Wilbur. Lincoln County deputies contacted Grant County for assistance. Gra...
A telephone service outage for CenturyLink customers in the Grand Coulee Dam area lasted for several days following a power outage centered in in Ephrata. A spokesperson for CenturyLink said that there had been several phone outages in eastern Washington following an electrical transformer fire in Ephrata Wednesday night. Ephrata and Omak also suffered telephone outages, noted Kerry Zimmer, eastern Washington marketing and communications manager for CenturyLink. Coulee Dam's problem seemed to...
The Nespelem All-Indian Basketball Tournament was held this past weekend, bringing people together to bond over basketball and bringing people to the area during the tourists' off-season. Thirty-two teams, spanning different age groups, participated in the tournament, with each paying $350 to participate. The games took place at the gymnasiums at the Nespelem Community Center, Nespelem Elementary School, Lake Roosevelt High School, and at the former middle school in Grand Coulee. "I think that...
Parts of Electric City’s proposed trail system received the most “push back” of any of the features of the city’s Pathway and Revitalization plan. In workshops and before the council, local residents expressed their opposition to a planned Ice Age Floods Trail, particularly one that goes through a residential area on Lakeview. Other segments of the trail system won unanimous approval by an Electric City resident advisory group that voted in unison on most of the trail ideas, but only 50 percent on a shoreline park off Sunny Drive. Two of the...
Electric City will fill its vacated council position April 11, City Clerk Jackie Perman said last week. Perman stated that the city will advertise the vacancy March 22 and 29, and turn the names over to the council for its selection. Brad Parrish submitted his resignation last month because his wife, Diana, had been hired for the city’s deputy clerk position. At the time, Parrish stated that because of his wife’s status with the city he wanted to avoid any “conflict of interest.” The current deputy clerk, Russell Powers, will replace Jackie...
This week, February 18-26, is an in-district work week for the House of Representatives, during which members of Congress are supposed to be meeting and communicating with constituents. Yet it appears that Representative Dan Newhouse will not be attending a single event open to the public, despite numerous requests that he do so. Furthermore, he hasn’t made clear what exactly he’s choosing to do that takes priority over holding a public event. A staffer in Washington, D.C., said she “cannot give [me] the congressman’s schedule for security reas...
The Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce held its annual Installation Banquet last Thursday night at the Melody Restaurant in Coulee Dam. The chamber annually makes an award to its "Achiever of the Year" and "Business of the Year" and names any changes to its board of directors at its annual members meeting. Named "Achiever of the Year" was Gerald Sands. Sands served as mayor of Electric City for a four-year term and part of a second term, and currently serves as a commissioner of Grant Cou...
Three Raider wrestlers participated at the state's Mat Classic XXIX in Tacoma this past weekend where all three placed, including Kaleb Horn, who is the first Lake Roosevelt sophomore to win a state championship, and the 11th state champion in school history. "It's very hard to even put yourself in the position to have a chance to compete for these spots," Raider Head Coach Steve Hood said. "It takes a tremendous amount of dedication and being accountable to what you're trying to accomplish."...
Residents of Elmer City could develop a healthier lifestyle as a result of a $250,000 grant the town received last week for a plan that calls for a trail along the Lower River Road that will link some town streets to the Down River Trail. Elmer City’s “Complete Streets” project likely will be done in 2018, Public Works Director Jimmer Tillman said last week. The work plan, shared with the town council last Thursday, calls for links from the town to the Bureau of Reclamation’s Down River Trail system along the Columbia River. One of the key elem...
COULEE CITY, Wash. (19FEB2017) -- A 17-year-old boy is dead and his twin brother is in custody after an early morning stabbing in Coulee City. Grant County Coroner Craig Morrison Monday morning released the identity of the as Shane C. Wachter, age 17. Deputies were called around 2:30 a.m. Sunday to a home in the 300 block of West Washington Street. The victim was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. His twin brother is in custody for investigation of manslaughter and assault-domestic violence. An autopsy to determine...
OLYMPIA, Feb. 16 — Washington State Democrats have introduced legislation they say will protect residents from recent presidential executive orders. At a news conference Wednesday called by House Democrats, Sen. Guy Palumbo (D-Maltby) said the legislation is meant to shield the state from affairs in the nation’s capital related to President Donald John Trump’s executive orders. “Democrats are trying to find a way to build a wall around Washington State to keep D.C. out, and this hateful rhetoric and all these actions,” Palumbo said. On the sa...
The phone service outage in the Grand Coulee Dam area still has no end in sight. Crews will be working through the night on the cable damage. From a power outage and from excessive water. Here's the latest full press release from the company: A CenturyLink customers in Coulee Dam and surrounding areas out of service SPOKANE, WA. – CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) Due to an earlier power failure and extensive water damage, cables in downtown Coulee Dam are out of service impacting approximately 1,000 voice customers in Coulee Dam and the surroundin...
Electric City's Pathway and Revitalization project has been through a public input process and will soon go before the city council for adoption. The project had three community workshops, been discussed at various council meetings, commented on through a survey, and moved forward by a community advisory group. A team comprised of Assistant Professor Kathleen Ryan and students from Washington State University's Rural Communities Design Initiative, who gathered the information and put the plan...
The Regional Board of Mayors discussed adding a new trailer at the Delano Transfer Station, and recycling, but didn’t act on either issue Monday. Randy Gumm, manager of the transfer station, had asked that the mayors consider purchasing another trailer. One new trailer was purchased last year for about $90,000. Currently, the transfer station has the new trailer, a second trailer that had $9,000 repairs to it last November, and a third that is in poor condition. Gumm brought up the need for another new trailer at the group’s last meeting, onl...
Traditional school isn't for everybody. For a variety of reasons, some students can benefit from a different model of education, and the Grand Coulee Dam School District offers an alternative. Located in the former middle school, the Lake Roosevelt Alternative Learning Environment offers students the chance to earn credits at their own pace, in a way that better suits their needs. "It's an alternative approach to the curriculum," said Mark Herndon, principal at Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High...
There are a number of places within the Grand Coulee area where people can recycle or dispose of items. The idea of recycling has often come up at the Regional Board of Mayors, but not acted on because some of the towns involved don’t want to participate because of the expense. Under Grant County’s recycling directory, the following local places will take certain items for either recycling or disposal: Coulee Hardware in Grand Coulee will take rechargeable batteries (Nickel Metal Hydride (NI-MH), Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Lithium Ion (Li...
Coulee Medical Center turned in postive financial results for the often-gloomy month of December, a high spot on what has been a bumpy landscape for the hospital this year, and a consulting finance expert sees a smoother road ahead. Its $192,243 gain for the month gleams compared to losses in recent months and a total loss for the year of a whopping $5.7 million, due mostly to a decision to stop spending huge amounts to upgrade its electronic health records system. Even without that large cost showing up all at once instead of ammortized over...
After National Park Service officials announced last week that a marina that serves the north end of Lake Roosevelt would close, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers fired off a quick request for the NPS to reconsider and extend the current concessioner’s contract while the NPS answers several questions. Those five questions appropriately hone in on the specifics of the problem at Kettle Falls, where a marina and houseboat operation’s concessioner contract is up at the end of April. It’s possible that a much broader inquiry would be well worth the t...
Here is an open letter to Congressman Newhouse. Please print it in letters to the editor section. Dear Congressman Newhouse: I am a believer in property rights, though my version of them extends beyond my front lawn. My property includes the clean air I breathe, the clean water I drink, and my public lands. If someone poisons my air or water, they are taking away my property without my permission. Similarly, when federal lands are given away to ‘local control,’ realistically that means giving them to corporations to develop, perhaps to des...
In December, at the very end of the Obama administration, federal officials finalized a rule that could limit the ability of some seniors who receive Social Security benefits to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The federal rule, submitted by the Social Security Administration (SSA), deals with the implementation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. The rule would require the SSA to submit to NICS the information of anyone who receives Social Security and requests assistance...
Three Raider wrestlers and their alternates will compete at the state tournament later this week after having earned their seeds to the big competition in the regional tournaments. They competed at the regionals in Tonasket and Wahluke, as Lake Roosevelt placed third out of 10 teams in Tonasket on Saturday with 60 team points. They were behind Kittitas who had 146 and Tonasket who had 278.5 points. Raider Tony Nichols was the champion of the 138-pound bracket after he defeated Austin Rimestad from Tonasket 3-1. “That was a close, tough m...
The Lake Roosevelt Lady Raiders lost to Tonasket then Liberty Bell over the weekend, and were defeated in the districts tournament last night against White Swan 41-51. Playing the Lady Tigers in Tonasket on Friday, the Lady Raiders lost by five points, 58-53. "We shot bad in the first half," Head Coach Wallace Pleasants said. "We got open looks, but just couldn't get the ball to fall." Down 27-15 at the half, the Lady Raiders outscored the Lady Tigers in the fourth quarter 23-12, still five...