News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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An elementary school teacher was arrested Monday on a charge of “Communication with a Minor for Immoral Purposes.” Kittitas County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Ross Ashenfelter, a fourth-grade teacher at Lake Roosevelt Elementary School at 11:55 a.m. Ashenfelter, 42, of Coulee Dam, was arrested at the school, where he was doing some administrative work while the school was closed for the holiday, the sheriff’s department said in a statement. The sheriff’s office said the arrest resulted from investigations by detectives with the Washington taskf...
The Trump Administration on Friday reportedly fired the entire staff of an office in the Treasury Department that runs a broadly popular program that helps local loan funds in places that are typically underserved by banks, including Native American reservations. The Community Development Financial Institutions that get the funds loan them out to small businesses to help develop local economies, often for higher rates than a bank might charge if they were interested. Those CDFIs include the... Full story
Coulee Dam will not be providing a school resource officer for Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School this year as was earlier expected. Mayor Bob Poch said at the Oct. 8 town council meeting that the town didn’t have enough police officers to cover the duties at this point. The town just swore in a new officer last week. Police Chief Paul Bowden said there was not enough time to get everything done before sending an officer to that duty. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Rod Broadnax said the delay actually helps the district with a b...
Even politically engaged constituents of our Republican US Representative Michael Baumgartner may have been puzzled by his abrupt referral to the “Working Family Tax Cuts” bill in his recent Friday Emails. Weekly since September 19, identical sections began with “As part of the Working Family Tax Cuts bill, applications are now open for states to apply for funding through the Rural Health Transformation Program, a historic $50 billion investment aimed at strengthening rural health care across America.” If you’ve never heard about the “Working...
Trump floats plan to deny back pay to furloughed federal workers after shutdown by Jennifer Shutt, Washington State Standard October 7, 2025 This report has been updated. WASHINGTON — The Trump administration may try to interpret a law enacted during his first term in office differently than it did following the last government shutdown, potentially denying back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers. The change in stance, outlined in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget that was first reported by Axios on T... Full story
by Scott Hunter The Lake Roosevelt Raiders won their football game against the Chewelah Cougars 56-12 at Jenkins High School Friday in another journey into 8-man play. The team, and some opponents, has had to adjust all season to illness, injury or ineligibility, making it tough to plan on their regular 11-man game. "It has been a crazy season," Coach Geary Oliver said. "Over a third of our players are freshmen, and they have made significant progress since August. "Each game this year players...
by Scott Hunter Nespelem School District ceremonially broke ground on construction of their new CTE building Monday morning as the whole school looked on. Nespelem's high school closed in 1956 as the state consolidated schools, sending local students to high school in Coulee Dam. The district's board of directors has long expressed their current dissatisfaction with the arrangement, thinking some of their students were not thriving in the neighboring system. Board President Jolene Marchand said...
The city of Grand Coulee will be able to fix a lot of dilapidated sewer lines with funding from the state of Washington’s Public Works Board for $4 million, the board said in a press release Monday. The city’s sewer improvements project will replace or rehabilitate approximately 10,200 linear feet of deteriorating sewer mains and manholes, PWB said. Planning for the project has already been started while the city engineer has been working with city leaders on updating its wastewater treatment plant, a job that will cost more than $10 mil...
Anyone following state news lately may have observed the following “bridge events”: 1) SR 165 has been closed permanently at the Fairfax bridge over the Carbon River due to bridge support failure. This has closed the northwest entry into Mt. Rainier National Park. 2) The bridge on SR 410 between Buckley and Enumclaw has been closed for bridge truss repair after a Vac Truck struck the bridge. 3) The SR 169 bridge over the Green River gorge area between Maple Valley and Enumclaw has been closed for girder repair. The latter two have resulted in...
We had a family gathering this past week and the topic became my wife’s recipe for chocolate frosting. Among scores of recipes my wife kept in a steel box was the frosting recipe that was on family’s minds. My oldest daughter, Kathy, took the recipe box to type up a number of recipes and see to it that the entire family got copies. It took her some time to do it because the recipes were handwritten. The chocolate frosting recipe was among them. When we had family gatherings my wife would always bake a chocolate cake and make the frosting. Som...
by Jennifer Shutt, Washington State Standard September 30, 2025 WASHINGTON — A government shutdown could have significant economic consequences, though an analysis released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it’s difficult to pinpoint ramifications without knowing the length of a funding lapse or how exactly the Trump administration will try to reshape the federal workforce. Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in a four-page letter the agency projects about 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed, leading to a $40...
As we barrel towards a government shutdown due to Senate Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), essential programs and services here in Central Washington are now at risk. Congress has the responsibility under our Constitution to fund the federal government, and allowing a shutdown is a disservice to the American people. If the government shuts down, farmers and ranchers in the Methow and Yakima Valleys will lose access to Farm Service Agency employees due to furlough. Farm operating loans, conservation and crop d...
Having good neighbors makes me a very lucky person. Across the street I have the “Dahlia Lady,” Denise Anderson. While writing this I am looking at the prettiest bouquet of flowers you can imagine. Every few days Denise brings over a beautiful array of flowers. She is certainly the “Dahlia Queen” of the city. Well, make it the state. This has been going on for years. The flower’s pollen is a problem for her to keep the flowers in her own home. So, no problem here. She will walk the dahlias over a couple of times a week. I almost always ha...
The mood of the nation is ugly and getting worse. Deadly violence from guns, knives, fire-bombings and vehicles is rising. Social media is toxic. Things have to change for all of our sake. The tone of the discourse is hateful. For those of us who started as journalists in the late 1960s, we are left wondering if public trust can be restored and civility is again possible. Over the last 40 years our family has vacationed at the same place on the beach. While the buildings have been refurbished, the complex is still largely unchanged. As long as...
The Raider football team played the closest thing they've had to a home game so far this season on Saturday in an exhibition game against ACH at the Warrior's Brickhouse Athletic Field in a version of football for which they had one day to prepare. Almira Coulee Hartline, a 1B team, plays 8-man ball; the 2B Raiders play 11-man, which may not sound too different. The game proved otherwise, leaving a 92-44 ACH imprint on the Raiders' backsides. The game replaced a canceled Soap Lake home game for...
The Raider varsity football team will have a game this week after all. It starts at 5 p.m. Saturday in Coulee City against ACH. A Friday game scheduled against Soap Lake was canceled due to a lack of eligible players at Soap Lake, Athletic Director Casey Brewster told the school board Monday night, not long after learning of the cancellation. He was trying to fill the slot, for what had been a home game for the Raiders, by Wednesday but apparently was unable to do so. Lake Roosevelt and Soap... Full story
The town of Coulee Dam gained its fifth police officer, completing the department last week. Following his graduation from the Washington State Police Academy, Phillip Ogren was sworn in as an officer Sept. 15 and took the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor in a brief ceremony and reception at the Town Hall Ballroom. Chief Paul Bowden administered the oath of office. City officials, and Ogren's family and friends attended. Coulee Dam's police department also provides policing services for Electric...
The Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation have been planning on launching fast fiber-optic internet access, including for Elmer City and Coulee Dam. Elmer City’s town council at its last meeting didn’t have objections to a plan for the buildout, including adding some utility poles in town. The town took plans for review and will likely be ready to sign a franchise agreement with the tribes at the October council meeting. That likelihood is a turnaround from a few months ago, when council and staff took exception to a plan presented wit...
Washington's secretary of state on Tuesday denied the Trump administration's request for personal information contained in the state's voter rolls, saying to hand over the data would violate state and federal law. Secretary Steve Hobbs told the Department of Justice he would be willing to provide voter names, addresses, genders, years of birth, voting records, registration dates and registration numbers. But he wouldn't give dates of birth, driver license numbers and the last four digits of...
Several local businesses came together to arrange for weekend snacks and meals for certain local kids who might otherwise go hungrier over the weekend. A Second Harvest van rolled up to Lake Roosevelt Elementary School Thursday with about a month's worth of supplies for feeding 55 kids who can use a little extra help on the weekends. The delivery was the start of Second Harvest's Bite2Go program that partners up local donors with school staff who know which students would seem to benefit from...
The city council in Grand Coulee voted Tuesday to get started adopting a new ordinance intended to encourage commercial property owners to use their property, clean it up or sell it. Councilmember Tom Poplawski said he’s had no contacts from the owners of what he estimated were 10-15 local properties that are deteriorating instead of housing some business. Poplawski in July had brought to council examples of similar programs in other cities, including an actual ordinance from Medical Lake. A study undertaken in Blaine, Washington was also inclu...
With the passing of Robert Redford, the world has lost a gifted artist and a staunch defender of animals and the environment. When he learned from PETA that rabbits on angora farms suffer immensely as their fur is torn from their skin while they’re still alive, his Sundance Holdings Group removed all angora from its broad selection of chic cardigans and sweaters online. Long an advocate for horses, Redford joined forces with the former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, to form the Foundation to Protect New Mexico Wildlife, a group whose...
We are just one month away from the start of hot commissioning at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at Hanford, a milestone in the cleanup effort more than 20 years in the making. Throughout my time in Congress, I have supported the Hanford mission and helped deliver resources to the project through my role on the House Appropriations Committee. While federal spending levels and policies change over the years, one thing remains true: Hanford will make history with the vitrification of radioactive waste this fall. Last week, reporting on the U.S....
I was in the Palouse Days parade last Saturday where I was invited to be in it by Janet, who was a St. John when I first knew her. Her dad, Don St. John, was one of my best friends while growing up in Palouse. He and I started in the first grade. Janet and her sister and brother stopped in to see me in Electric City a couple of weeks ago. I was able to tell them things about their parents that they didn’t know. Don invited me out to the farm many times during our early grades. His mom and dad always treated me in a kind way, so it was fun v...
by Scott Hunter The driver of a late model car left Spring Canyon Road after apparently losing control Saturday afternoon about 3, landing in dry brush and starting a fire. The crash happened right in front of a home at 4550 Spring Canyon Road. Firefighters got there quickly, according to Coulee Dam Police Officer Josh Watkins, who was at the scene for traffic control. No injuries were reported, other than financial. Only a metal hulk was left of the apparently late model car. Firefighters...