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Larry Hernandez asked for community support and got it as he presented his case to Coulee Dam's town council for an alteration of his lease for the Village Cinema. The council meeting room crowd was standing room only Nov. 12 and spilled out the door as the council wrapped up an earlier meeting and budget hearing, then opened up to hear comments on the city's decision to terminate the theater's lease in the city community building. Hernandez detailed a timeline of starts and stalls with working...
by Scott Hunter The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville Tribes) and Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) announced a landmark collaboration last week to “advance tribal energy sovereignty and resilience through the design and deployment of multiple microgrids across the reservation.” The Tribes’ 1.4 million acre reservation, which includes parts of two counties is served by five different electric utilities, and power outages are getting worse, said the Tribes’ Business Council chair, Jarred-Michael Erickso... Full story
The town of Coulee Dam is offering to buy a piece of property owned by STCU, following a town council vote taken Nov. 12. The part of the lot north of the credit union’s building in Coulee Dam is to be acquired by the town for $65,750, the price offered by STCU. The council voted to approve the purchase, although Councilmember Keith St. Jeor “recused” himself from the vote. “I think in my own mind, it would be a good addition to the city if the city owned that property,” Mayor Bob Poch said. “We have no place else to go for any major impro...
Mayor Ruth Dalton leads Chantelle Crowe by just 18 votes in the election to decide who the next mayor will be. Dalton has 53.91% of the 230 votes cast, while Crowe’s votes at last count on Nov. 14 stood at 46.09%, 124-108. Grant County’s elections office will count the remaining 30 ballots Nov.19 at 5 p.m. Those 30 ballots left to count are for all races in the county’s 81 precincts. It’s not impossible for that small number to make a difference, again, in another Grand Coulee election. The race for the city council member 2 seat has flipped tw...
Kudos for the letter to the editor dated October 29th from Kurt Steinke. Thanks, Mr. Steinke, for speaking out! Impartial news is all but extinct and has been for quite some time. It’s all about pointing fingers now and hating the opposing side. These United States have turned their collective backs on God, the Bible, He gave us, and just plain Christian decency for so long, that I’m shocked He has held our Nation together for this long. Recently I heard it said by a reputable source, that of the near 1100 registered voters in Grand Cou...
My current read is “Patriot”, by Alexei Navalny, who courageously tried to save Russia from Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship before Putin murdered him. That raised my mind’s question: Who is currently our US Patriot playing the same role as Navalny was in Russia? I immediately thought of former US Rep. Liz Cheney and her courageous dedication to saving our democracy from wannabe dictator President Donald Trump. At the other (bottom) end of the courage scale, my recent read was the Aug. 18 Time magazine featuring Republican House Speaker Mike Jo...
During his first year, President Trump has been globetrotting attempting to ink trade deals, repair tattered relationships, and attract manufacturing back to America. However, no mission has been more crucial than his recent trip to South Korea, Japan and China. Behind the bluster of new “reciprocal” tariffs was the simple fact that China is not only a manufacturing, trading and military challenge but it is our primary supplier of strategic metals. Not only is America short of RARE minerals, but metals such as iron, copper and aluminum. Wea...
The town of Coulee Dam is terminating its lease of the Village Cinema to the proprietor who has spent over a year coming up with new ways to breathe life into the shell that had been vacant for over a decade. Larry Hernandez posted on the theater’s Facebook last week that he’s been ignored since August when he proposed mediation to come to an agreement about his rent going forward and that he waited for 10 months for the city to propose new language in the lease after the town council wanted to have the city attorney clarify it. “This build... Full story

An enterprise seeking to convert the old Center School into the "Center Senior Living" assisted living project has made significant progress. In fact, they now own the building. The project, driven by a dedicated board including local professionals and community members, aims to address the lack of local assisted living facilities, which forces seniors to move far away. The project has secured a $1 million federal grant for hazmat abatement and demolition, and they've raised $291,000 in local...
Mayor Ruth Dalton pulled ahead in the race to keep her office in Grand Coulee. Dalton switched the advantage since last week, when challenger Chantel Crowe, the deputy city clerk was ahead by a few votes. Dalton now leads with 56% of the vote, 120-104. Likewise, for Grand Coulee’s council member 2 seat, Andrew Dobson pulled ahead of Cameron Whitney 88- 79. Cheryl Hoffman gained a 54% lead over Jeremiah Seekins in the race for Electric City’s Council Member 1 seat, 154-129. Bradley Oliver holds an insurmountable 185-97 lead over Robbin Boy...
Dear Mayor Poch and City Clerk Bowden, Please share this email with Council Member Black, Council Member Schmidt, Council Member Adkins, Council Member Hall, and Council Member St. Jeor, since I can’t seem to locate their email addresses on the Town of Coulee Dam website. I understand the challenges our communities face, especially rural towns, when balancing pinched budgets during these difficult times. I have spent the last year participating in these discussions across the state, and I’ve seen how difficult these decisions can be and how...

Seven Lake Roosevelt Raiders traveled to Pasco to compete in the WIAA State XC Championships last week, which has not occurred with a Raider team since this one's oldest athlete was in first grade, Coach Matthew Timentwa said. At a school assembly the day before they got on the bus for Sun Willows Golf Course outside Pasco, Timentwa praised the team. "They worked so hard this year," the coach said. "They all ... put in their best effort, every single one of them, and every single day." Timentwa...

An important institution celebrated its 90th anniversary Saturday, when the Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Department members gathered at the fire station on Spokane Way, which was built in the 1970s. The modern fire department was consolidated from two earlier, separate departments for the different parts of the city, Rick Paris recounted as people gathered at the station for food and drink, and to honor the department's work and role in the community. Before there was a city or an ordinance to...
Even in an election year when most races were for often uncontested local offices, several were too close to call last night when county election offices stopped counting ballots after 8 p.m. In Grand Coulee, Mayor Ruth Dalton wasn’t getting too nervous yet about barely trailing by 52-48, Chantel Crowe, the city’s deputy clerk who decided to run for the mayor’s office. Neither was Crowe, reached on her way back from a leadership class in Ephrata. She also said it was too close to call. “As of now, I’m excited and I’m certainly honored,” she sai...
Please renew my subscription to The Star. The editor has won national and local awards; the paper provides important community news and a variety of insightful perspectives that entertain and enlighten its readers. The editor prints editorials from perspectives with which I sometimes disagree and perhaps which the editor himself has reservations over as well. Yet, consistently, his belief in permitting his community to speak through The Star overrules whatever his own political perspectives might be. The community is fortunate to have such an...
We are now in the sixth week of the federal government shutdown, and Senate Democrats still refuse to vote to reopen the government. The latest victims of what will ultimately be the longest shutdown in history are recipients of benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. On November 1 funding for SNAP expired, meaning that nearly 42 million Americans — and over 900,000 here in Washington state — will not receive their full benefits. In response to a federal court order, the Trump Administration announced it would fun...
I learned on my first trip to Japan to go into the small shops if you want to find interesting things to purchase. I was in Tokyo and my hotel faced one of the large, wide city streets. I got a city map and decided to wander around on my own. Just off the large street was what looked like an alley. It was wide enough for a single car and was full of tiny shops. I started going from one to another and found that the small shops had a few very interesting items. I had heard that you can purchase things and have the merchant send them to you, for...

The Raider football team capped their season Thursday night with a big win at home on senior night. Lake Roosevelt hosted the Tekoa-Rosalia Timberwolves in an 8-man game that took the place of an originally scheduled contest with the Okanogan Bulldogs. Head Coach Geary Oliver said the Raiders forfeited to Okanogan because it would have been a mismatch, going against one of the primary safety guidelines coaches in the state are supposed to follow: don't mismatch teams. He indicated this year's...
Lake Roosevelt’s boys’ cross-country team took sixth place at the District 5 meet Thursday and qualified seven athletes to compete at the state meet in Pasco Nov. 8. Senior Caden Portch set a personal record to take seventh out of 93 competitors on the district’s 3-mile race at Apple Ridge last week in 16 minutes, 33.4 seconds, beating his own 3-mile time at Oroville last month by 13.5 seconds. Each Raider set a personal record on the 3-mile course. After a send-off assembly at the school on Thursday at 10:15 a.m., the team will board the b...
by Scott Hunter The Care and Share Food Bank, like many others, is getting ready to meet the needs of people who will be caught in the midst of the fight in Congress that has shut down much of the nation’s federal government, including food assistance. “Thanks to our government budget, local support and prudent management, we will be able to support all those in need with basic food support,” Shawn Neider wrote in a note to The Star about what the local food bank expects. “We may have to spread our food thinner but nobody needs to starve.” Neid...

by Scott Hunter It wasn’t for a far-off cause that people gathered to walk through brilliant fall foliage on a perfect afternoon last Thursday. It was to help local women get a mammogram, a screening that can detect breast cancer early and thereby save lives. It was Walking Together for Mammograms. Kelly Buche said she is “a survivor, nine years strong, nine years grateful and nine years blessed” because she had good health insurance. “But I was lucky,” said the local accountant just before aw...
In response to Arlo Roell’s letter last week about the bias editorial page, yes, and why is the one-sided weakly stupid cartoon always about making fun of Republicans? Then there’s the front-page splash about how this certain person started this embarrassing weekly sign demonstration because she wanted to do something about Trump’s abuse of power and bad decisions. REALLY? Were you asleep during that awful Biden presidency that drove our country into the ground? Republican versus Democrats has always been and always will be nothing but head...
Village Cinema is officially resetting its operations as the Village Cinema Performance, Events & Recreation Center, expanding what we do and how we serve our community. This next chapter opens the door for more than just movies. We’re building a creative, flexible space for performances, events, recreation, and community gatherings and all under one roof. This change allows us to bring even more diverse programming to the area while maintaining compliance with our updated public performance licensing. You’ll continue to see free and aff...
Last week, rumors of a proposal by the Trump Administration to import large quantities of beef from Argentina took the agriculture industry by surprise. The alleged plan suggests the United States will quadruple the amount of beef imported from the South American nation as a means of lowering beef prices for American consumers. While it is no secret beef prices are higher than years past, a decision to import beef from Argentina would be disastrous for American producers. The U.S. is already at a trade imbalance for beef with Argentina. In the...
I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression and survived it. I often write about how I had a good childhood in Palouse where I was born and went to school. I was the fifth of five in our family, four boys and one girl. My next youngest was my brother Bob, who was nearly five years older than me. They were all born in Minneapolis. Our house had a partial basement, with a dirt floor. My Dad was a carpenter, among other skills, and built racks to hold the canning foods my mother prepared that lasted part way through the winter, such as...