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 term “March Madness” was coined in 1939 by an Illinois high school official named Henry Porter, but it didn’t relate to the annual NCAA basketball tournament until 1982, when broadcaster Brent Musburger put it in play. Musburger was referring to the drama that comes with 68 teams competing in the single-elimination event, now underway. But here’s the real madness: Americans will legally wager an estimated $3.3 billion on the men’s and women’s tournaments. According to the American Gaming Association, it’s an increase of 54% in just the p...
Elmer City leaders Thursday heard their consulting engineer give a rough estimate of $8 million to build an evaporative lagoon system to treat their sewage instead of sending it to Coulee Dam's new facility. Nancy Wetch, of Gray and Osborn, estimated the overall cost at around $8 million, and the cost of all the planning involved could be as high as all the funding available to Elmer City through the state Public Works Board - $800,000, half of it in grant, half loan. A separate facility plan...
Electric City officials are waiting for a formal proposal from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation after an initial discussion about a possible interlocal agreement for permitting and inspections at the tribal golf course area. Mayor Blake Martin reported to the council March 10 that he and another city representative met with tribal officials at the golf course in early March. In that meeting, the Tribes expressed interest in an arrangement that would allow them to issue their own permits and conduct their own inspections for...
Solveigh Chaffee has been trying to buy the dilapidated building next to her Voltage Coffee House for 10 years. Tuesday night she asked Grand Coulee's City Council to reject a bid to tear it down that would cost much more than it's worth, likely leading to more liens against it. Instead, Chaffee said she would like to bid on the property at auction when the county puts it up for sale for overdue taxes. It was once a little museum that showed people the work of Constantine Vlachos, a local invent...
When I was a kid growing up in Palouse, someone built a gym on Main Street. I was more interested then in what was scheduled in the gym than who built it. Lately have wondered who built the gym. My interest was in the events that were scheduled there. We had a town basketball team. All the towns had one, and they traveled around playing each other. I always thought that the members of our Palouse team financed the building of the gym so they could control how it was used. And most of them were farmers, so they could secure a loan for the...
Protecting the people’s right to know in Washington state is a constant battle that is getting even harder. That’s a tough message to deliver, especially during Sunshine Week. Sunshine Week is recognized nationwide from March 15-21 this year. It’s meant to educate, recommit and celebrate the fight for openness in government, believing it is the best way to ensure accountability and preserve public trust. It coincides with the birthday of James Madison, March 16, 1751. Madison was a driving force behind the constitutional convention in 1787...
The height differential was obvious from the start, but it didn't matter. Thursday night's Seniors vs Staff Basketball Game at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High gym was more about having fun while beating the other team than just beating them. The fundraiser for the senior class drew lots of community support and winded their teachers and coaches several times, although staff coach Brad Oliver kept his team rotated and fairly fresh for a bunch of old folks. The first quarter turned out to indicate the...
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...