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  • Burglar gets money at Center Lodge

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 25, 2013

    Police are investigating a burglary at Center Lodge Motel where an unknown party took about $2,000 from a drop box and cash register sometime during the early morning hours of Sept. 20. The report stated that someone used a key to gain entrance to the motel office where $756.91 cash and a $1,000 check was taken from a drop box and $351.45 taken from a cash register. The cash register was also taken, The loss was noticed by an employee who found the a key in the door which was unlocked when she came to work in the morning. Owner Dale Baty let of... Full story

  • Resident shares concerns with council ... again

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 25, 2013

    Grand Coulee’s mayor and council got a tongue-lashing last Tuesday night for what Becky Billups said was “not doing anything,” She repeatedly has appeared before the council asking that the city enforce its ordinances in regard to keeping up property and putting drug offenders away. Billups lives on Burdin Boulevard and repeatedly has been to council meetings to make formal complaints. “I want to know why you don’t do something,” she repeatedly stated last Tuesday night. “There are junk cars, garbage everywhere,” she declared. “I want to know... Full story

  • USAJOBS meetings set for local area

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 25, 2013

    Interested in a job working for the federal government and have been frustrated trying? Then there’s help coming with two meetings scheduled, one Sept. 30 and the other Oct. 2. The meetings are designed to assist the job seeker in using the USAJOBS website, the official job site for the federal government. The first session, Monday, Sept. 30, will be at the Nespelem Community Center where interested parties can learn about job opportunities both with the federal government and the Colville Confederated Tribes. This session lasts from 10 a.m. t... Full story

  • Food bank in need of food, money donations

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 25, 2013

    The Care and Share Food Bank needs some help. Manager Fern Blaylock said Monday that after that evening’s deliveries the food bank shelves will be nearly empty. Blaylock said that the truck delivery that was received will be gone by Monday night, and the next delivery won’t be for a week and a half. The food bank is open Mondays at the Church of the Nazarene and is currently assisting some 100-130 families. Blaylock said that the food bank is in critical need of canned foods and money to purchase meats and perishable goods. Persons can mak... Full story

  • Volunteers keep the course going

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 25, 2013

    Volunteers are the nuts and bolts of most organizations. It is especially true at Banks Lake Golf Course, now managed by Port District 7. The Port District took over management of the course two years ago when it was in danger of being closed, and has continued to administer and finance the course’s operation. This year, in particular, volunteers have been the nuts and bolts that have held the course together. And surprisingly, according to port authorities, the course has improved in large part because of an army of dedicated volunteers. T... Full story

  • The legion appreciates the help

    Jerry Beierman|Sep 25, 2013

    The American Legion Post 157 in Electric City would like to say thanks to everyone who helped us out in many ways! Yes, our Legion Club has had problems in the past, but most of the money has been recovered, our tax-free status has been reinstated and our legion post recovery has just been great. Thanks to all who donated to our weekly Saturday yard sales. This was a very good fund-raiser for us. Also a thanks goes out to all who purchased yard sale items from us! Legion meetings are held every second Tuesday of the month at the Vets’ Center i... Full story

  • ESA listing could undercut Washington's economy

    Don Brunell|Sep 25, 2013

    A small critter is causing big problems in the South Puget Sound. It’s called the Mazama pocket gopher. Some 100,000 pocket gophers inhabit prairie lands throughout northern California, Oregon and Washington. Our state is the northernmost part of its range, where separate populations are scattered in pockets throughout the area, including Thurston and Pierce counties. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed to list several subspecies of the Mazama pocket gopher in W... Full story

  • Our take on the news

    Scott Hunter editor and publisher|Sep 18, 2013

    • Congratulations to local firm Taylor Enterprises, LLC for landing a $4.2 million contract to provide the Grand Coulee Dam with janitorial services. • Electric City’s planning commission should think carefully if asked to alter what kinds of buildings are allowed within the city. Understanding why restrictions are in place should be the first step in either removing them or keeping them. Decisions like that affect everyone’s property values. • In our special triathlon section this week, read about a remarkable young athlete who registere... Full story

  • USBR contracts with Grand Coulee police

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    The city of Grand Coulee approved its latest law enforcement contract with the Bureau of Reclamation at a special meeting of the council last week, while another local police department didn’t get a similar extension of the program. The new contract with Grand Coulee -- for one year with extensions possible for two more years -- was essentially the same as the bureau’s just-lapsed contract with the city. Police Chief Mel Hunt said his department is one officer short, and the city’s civil service board has just advertised to fill the position. C... Full story

  • Triathletes hit the coulee this weekend

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    It appears that the weatherman might cooperate for Saturday’s 10th annual Grand Columbian Triathlon, organized by Tri-Freaks, an endurance sports organization. The forecast is for a high of 68 degrees and a low of 48, with partly cloudy skies, a 20-percent chance of rain and winds out of the southwest at 10 mph. This is good news for those competing and finishing up with the triathlon, or a part of it, during the heat of the day. Swimmers will splash off in what race officials say will be a... Full story

  • Council member: plant delay is a good thing

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    Larry Holford sees the delay of Coulee Dam’s proposed wastewater treatment plant rebuild as a good thing. “It will give everybody time to refocus their efforts and put together a better project than the one proposed,” Holford stated this week. Holford is a town council member at Elmer City and has been following the project for quite some time. He has been in the middle of discussions with the Colville Tribes, Indian Health Services, and Elmer City in exploring ways to build a cost-effective plant and locate it where it will do the most peopl... Full story

  • Local firm grabs USBR contract

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $4.2 million contract for janitorial and maintenance services at Grand Coulee Dam to Taylor Enterprises LLC, a Grand Coulee firm. The contract is for a five-year period. The work involves janitorial and maintenance services of several buildings and facilities at the Grand Coulee Project, the bid award press release stated. The release said it was for five years, assuming satisfactory performance each year. The work requires detailed attention to janitorial services to office buildings, tourist facilities,... Full story

  • Big buildings in a residential area not allowed, yet

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    Two Electric City residents found out it isn’t going to be easy to change the city’s comprehensive plan so they can build larger accessory sheds than the code allows. Mark Payne and Mike Dennis along with others, appeared before the city’s planning commission hoping to convince its members to allow larger and taller steel buildings than currently allowed in R-2 zoning. Members of the planning commission stated they didn’t have any problem with that and it motivated the two to come to the council with their interest. Dennis had appeared before... Full story

  • Tourism funds sought in Coulee Dam

    Scott Hunter|Sep 18, 2013

    Hoping to make a bigger impact for local business and jobs, the chamber of commerce told Coulee Dam leaders last week of its more ambitious plans for marketing the area in 2014. Peggy Nevsimal, the manager of the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber wants to buy more advertising on the west side of the state to market the area, but it takes a lot of money. Coulee Dam, like Electric City and Grand Coulee, collects hotel/motel taxes on every room rented in the town, the funds from which must be used to promote tourism.... Full story

  • Grudgingly, Elmer City OKs project

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    Two issues that came out of the Regional Board of Mayors has cleared all four community councils, but not without some tough comment from Elmer City. Elmer City, meeting last Thursday night, finally cleared a seven-quarter contract with URS, the mayors’ engineering firm. The second issue, a repair job at the dump site at the transfer station, got a lot more attention. This issue introduced by Mayor Mary Jo Carey brought a comment by her that “I wouldn’t vote for it.” At the mayors meeting, which she chairs, two of her council members attende... Full story

  • Brown water made grey T-shirt

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 18, 2013

    An Electric City man brought proof of brown water and the damage it caused to the city council meeting last Tuesday night. Dan Nagle, who lives on Grand Avenue West, pulled two plastic bottles from a cooler and showed city officials that there was a brown water residue in each. Then he opened a gym bag and showed council members two T-shirts, one a tattletale gray, and the other one white. He said the grayish T-shirt had been washed in Electric City water and that it had been as white as the clean looking shirt he held up. He said that he took... Full story

  • To my fellow residents of Coulee Dam:

    Carol Netzel|Sep 18, 2013

    I have lived here since before we had a city government, under the rule of USBR. When we formed our first government we were very lucky to have a group of people whose sole goal was the good of the town. Through the years we have continued to have able, hard-working citizens who considered it as part of their duty to give the town their best. I have watched the towns around us over years of acrimony, name-calling and just plain mischief making while our mayors and council members gave their time and energy to give Coulee Dam a stable and... Full story

  • Open community dialogue wanted

    Greg Wilder|Sep 18, 2013

    As the general election nears, I’m more than ever intent on a community dialogue. I know of many changes that need to be made based upon over 40 years’ of experience in municipal government … those things that make us more efficient, accessible, responsible, and responsive. There are the equally important things you want changed and addressed and I want to be your agent for that change. You already know how you are treated by Town Hall; that’s an obvious given for most of us. You already know how decisions are made that impact your lives a... Full story

  • What is going on with the Colville Confederated Tribes?

    Truman Covington|Sep 18, 2013

    Just my opinion ... but I still adamantly say strict oversight by the peoples is necessarily ‘there’ against a still dysfunctional council ... and, further that we the concerned membership fighting for council reform truly and necessarily need “more” support from the general membership to enact once again constitutional governance, as non-transparency from council is still the rule rather than the exception. A ‘new’, third CCT corporation? NO! NO! NO!...it will only be one more corporate to siphon off of our CCT fiscal sustainabil... Full story

  • Shopping and junking in the coulee

    Frankie Delano|Sep 18, 2013

    Holy Tornado! Let’s put aside our favorite topics (shopping and junking) for a bit for a quick rant and rave about the latest t-storm that blew through the Coulee Sunday evening, with gusting winds and lightning strikes dancing around. When the power went out at Detective Frankie D.’s abode, I wondered for a moment if the house would take flight and wind up over the rainbow, crashing down in the Land of Oz. If that had happened, I was ready to belt out a few of Judy Garland’s famous tunes and put on a pair of red, jeweled shoes, tapping the h... Full story

  • Our take on the news

    Scott Hunter editor and publisher|Sep 11, 2013

    • The Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada, which the two countries will start renegotiating soon, is one international news story the local community needs to watch. It can affect everything from how much water remains in local lakes to whether, as some very hardy canoeists on the front page would like, we build fish ladders around Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. • Even while trying to form a better advocate for growing tourism via a local tourism board, the chamber of commerce continues in the interim to entice local... Full story

  • City considering pot moratorium

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 11, 2013

    The city of Grand Coulee is wrestling with whether to declare a moratorium on the location of marijuana gardens or distribution businesses within the city limits. The issue came up at the Sept. 3 city council meeting, and will likely come up again at the next meeting, Sept. 17. Mayor Chris Christopherson got the ball rolling when he stated that marijuana was a “gateway” drug and he was against any consideration of growing or distribution of it. Councilmember Erin Neilson asked if any moratorium would just be kicked down the road every six mon... Full story

  • Paddling for politics and passion

    Scott Hunter |Sep 11, 2013
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    Five people in two canoes got as close as they dared to Grand Coulee Dam Saturday on a “Sea to Source” expedition in craft carved from trees by school kids and others. Their purpose is to call attention to what they consider to be deficits in the soon-to-expire Columbia River Treaty between the United States and Canada. Under that 1964 treaty, which addresses power and flood control issues, three dams in Canada and Libby Dam in the United States were built. Tribes and conservationists now wan... Full story

  • Harvest Festival set for Friday and Saturday

    Roger S Lucas|Sep 11, 2013

    You can come casual, but dress up your pet for the chamber of commerce’s first-ever “Harvest Festival” at North Dam Park Friday and Saturday, Sept. 13-14. See inside this week’s Star newspaper for more details click here. There’s a costume pet show, so brush your pet and dress it up for the Saturday 11 a.m. to noon pet show contest. Organizers say that you can dress up also, if you want, and lead your pet around the show area. There’s a lot of activity for young and old, and even those in between. You might be interested in the community-w... Full story

  • Medical center joins stroke network

    Roger S. Lucas|Sep 11, 2013

    Stroke victims will have a much better chance of recovery because of new Telestroke Network technology introduced at Coulee Medical Center Tuesday. Emergency Room nurses and a handful of other technical staff at CMC practiced using the new equipment this week in an all-day training session put on by Spokane-based Providence Telestroke Network. The networking involves some dozen other rural hospitals in Eastern Washington. Now stroke patients have 24-hour access to stroke specialists who are... Full story

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