News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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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...
While reading Letters to the Editor in The Star, I am reminded that change often comes one funeral at a time. Some can’t come too quickly. Gloria Carroll Coulee Dam...
I have been very troubled with the presentation of the picture chosen to be put on the front page of The Star (Feb. 11). I have not always agreed with the sentiments expressed on the protestors’ signs, but that’s OK. However, the sign that reads, Guardians Of Pedophiles (GOP), is shameful and hypocritical. It is also ironic that the sign next to it states, “No Hate.” Are we supposed to forget that the Democratic Party under the Biden Administration allowed hundreds of thousands of unvetted immigrants into our country and even gave them plum pr...
The daughters of Albion Lounge on the grass And smoke cigarettes And write poetry Tinkering with instruments Somewhat disinterested Who do they have to impress Not even the deities With motion, ballerinas Leap forth into oblivion Headstrong and confident Taught strong exuberance Strutting in outfits Casual cool Chic Effortless Maintaining an image We all seek Flower petals and butterfly wings Picnic baskets and fine wines Cheese plates and sliced meats Aprons dawned for appetites Transcendence and philosophy Transforming effortlessly Booty...
The Lady Raiders won their first game in the 2026 District 5 2B Girls Basketball Tournament, lost the second, and will play Saturday, Feb. 21 against Mabton at 4 p.m. at Eastmont High in East Wenatchee for third or fourth place and seeding into the state tournament in Spokane next week. To get this far, Lake Roosevelt's young team had to first beat White Swan's Cougars, who had held LR to a one-point win in January. The Raiders took them by 27 points on Friday, 71-44. Coach Jeremy Crollard said...
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...