News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 451 - 469 of 469
Hotel/motel tax money flowed freely in Electric City last Tuesday night when the city council voted to provide the Ridge Riders $4,000 and the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce $13,000. The money collected as a tax on motel rooms and campsites, must be used to support tourism. Both groups made presentations at the meeting showing how the money would be used. George Kohout explained to the council the new features the Ridge Riders group planned this year. They included a riding clinic, a dinner and auction, a bull riding event the day... Full story
Carol Ann Estrada is still wrestling with the disappearance of her daughter, Jamie Breckenridge. Breckenridge, 42, was reported missing Jan. 8, after she told friends that she planned to go to Snohomish. Her mother just returned from Snohomish, after going to the area for a family funeral, and talked with people who had seen her daughter, the week before she went missing. Breckenridge’s car is still in the local area. “She had told me that something was wrong with the starter,” her mother said.... Full story
The Village Cinema has become a new family affair. Carole Fisher, of Changes in Electric City, recently purchased the theater from Lori Crabtree, and Fisher’s daughter, Lynette Zierden, has become the new manager. Three of Zierden’s children, Mara, Alisha and Jimmy will all play a major part in the operation. Fisher and family have worked with the town of Coulee Dam, owners of the building, to establish a two-year lease. At the town council meeting last week, the council committee dealing wit... Full story
Town officials will have another opportunity tonight (Wednesday) to offer input on the Bonneville Power Administration’s Third Powerhouse powerline project. BPA’s senior project manager, Mark A. Korsness, said he planned to be at tonight’s meeting, set for 6 p.m. at town hall, to again review plans to string the high power lines from the Third Powerhouse, across the river and up the hill to the switch yards. BPA officials were in Coulee Dam in mid-December to review plans to get the proje... Full story
School district and federal officials met last week to talk about federal impacts on local schools. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson met with Bureau of Reclamation Project Manager Mark Jenson and others last Thursday so the two parties could exchange views on the school position that work being done on the Third Powerhouse generators and on the John W. Keys III Pump-Generator Station impacts the school district. While doing the Environmental Assessment for its Third Powerhouse upgrade, the Bureau of Reclamation... Full story
The Bureau of Reclamation has raised the possibility of conflict of interest with its Grand Coulee Project budget director, Chris Christopherson, also being mayor of Grand Coulee. The city council moved quickly last Tuesday night to correct the potential problem by passing a motion that Mayor Pro-Tempore Paul Townsend sign on any particular agreements made between the city and the federal agency. The council learned that City Attorney Charles Zimmerman had looked into the conflict issue and had told the city that he didn’t think there was a c... Full story
A missing woman’s mother still hasn’t turned up anything helpful in finding Jamie Marie Breckenridge, 42, who has been unaccounted for since Jan. 8. Carol Ann Estrada, of Elmer City, said she is working on getting a court order to get her daughter’s personal phone records to access calls made from her cell phone. “The last phone call she made, that we know about, is a call she placed to a person who was helping her through some personal things,” Estrada stated last week. The last anyone knew of Breckenridge was on Jan. 8, when she was seen... Full story
Police are looking for information about a local woman who hasn’t been seen nor heard from since Jan. 8. Jamie Marie Breckenridge, 42, of Grand Coulee, was last seen at Tim’s 4 Corner Union 76, her family says. They pasted posters around town on Thursday, hoping to elicit clues. Her mother, Carol Ann Estrada, of Elmer City, said Tuesday that she hasn’t heard from anyone with specific information. Police officers contacted Breckenridge on a domestic violence complaint the day before she went... Full story
About a dozen people who showed up for an informational meeting about a wastewater treatment plant project got assurances from two Gray & Osborne engineers that the extent of change was necessary to meet agency requirements. Jeff Stevens and Dave Van Cleve of G&O stated that the different elements of the project were as low as possible in cost and would allow considerable growth. The remodeling of the existing 40-year-old plant will likely begin in 2013 and take from 12 to 18 months to complete,... Full story
The new Keller ferry will likely be assembled near the Crescent Bay boat ramp before its launch in May, 2013, the Regional Board of Mayors learned recently. Two officials, Mark Houghton and Warren Snider, of the Foss Maritime Company, the successful bidders on the project, briefed the mayors on the schedule and procedure they plan to follow in delivering the new 116-foot ferry to the Keller Ferry site. Foss submitted the winning bid of $9.6 million, some $250,000 below the Department of Transportation estimate of the cost of the ferry that will... Full story
Electric City’s council elected Lonna Bussert to fill Willie Bott’s vacated council seat last Tuesday night. Two residents, Bussert and Bradley Parrish, had written letters of interest and appeared at the council meeting. Council members went into closed session to discuss qualifications of the two candidates and returned to make their choice. That’s when things started to go askew. Members wanted to select their new member by secret ballot. “We live in a small community where everyone knows e... Full story
There’s a new twist to the Ridge Riders this year. The hallmark event put on by the local horse riding club, the Colorama Rodeo, will be held as usual on Mother’s Day weekend in May. But that’s where the similarity ends and some new beginnings begin. First new thing out of the chutes this year will be a riding clinic, staged over four days, March 31 - April 3. The event is for riders of all skills, even beginners. People can sign up for one of the days or all four days, getting a break if they p... Full story
A group of people from the Senior Center appeared at the Electric City Council meeting last week to support Councilmember Birdie Hensley’s appointment as the city’s representative to the Grant County’s public transportation system, Grant Transit Authority. GTA operates a dozen bus routes from George to Coulee Dam. As it turned out, Councilmember Bob Rupe was also in the running for the appointment, having served on the advisory board for several years earlier. Seniors, who work with Hensley at the Senior Center, in turn spoke on her behal... Full story
It was a two-dog night last Tuesday at the Electric City Council meeting. One dog won and the other lost. The two separate dog issues came out of skirmishes people had with different dogs while walking through the city streets. The council voted to name one dog “dangerous” and elected to dismiss a second dog issue because there could have been a mistake in identity. In the latter case, a 7-month-old Labrador-type canine, named “Mia” got a reprieve when about a dozen residents stood up and defended the dog. Another resident, Jeffrey Brent,... Full story
Coulee Dam’s town council passed its version of an ordinance calling for a six-month moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana collective gardens at its meeting last Wednesday night. The council has set a public hearing for 6 p.m., Jan. 25, its next meeting date, to take testimony to consider adopting further findings. Electric City and Grand Coulee have adopted similar ordinances. The ordinance prohibits the issuing of a business license to any person for such a collective garden and will automatically expire six months from the d... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District will get its opportunity, a bit late, to comment on how the Bureau of Reclamation’s Third Powerhouse remodeling project could affect schools in the area. The addendum to the Third Powerhouse Overhaul Environmental Assessment, will allow the school district to make its case that it was left out of the original assessment process and that it could have a significant impact on classrooms and schools in general. Schools have until Feb. 12, to provide addendum i... Full story
The conviction of a Spokane woman, Maya Michelle Campbell, 29, who was convicted for having 750 Ecstasy pills in her purse, was upheld last week in appellate court in Spokane. The woman was arrested, along with Jeffrey Vernon Joseph, Nespelem, who was 18 at the time of the arrest. A minor, who was driving the car, was also arrested. The incident occurred, Sept. 9, 2008, in the H&H Grocery parking lot in Electric City. Campbell argued in the appeal that a search warrant didn’t include her purse. The Washington State Court of Appeals disagreed a... Full story
A 22-year-old Grand Coulee man was cited and released by Grant County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday for possession of marijuana on the front lawn of the Grant County Courthouse in Ephrata. Around 1:30 p.m. Jan.10, citizens notified sheriff’s deputies that a man wearing a red coat and black baseball cap was approaching people in front of the courthouse and asking if they wanted to buy marijuana. Deputies found Andrew Allen Kramer, smelling strongly of marijuana, standing on the front lawn of the courthouse, they said. They found 20.5 grams of por... Full story
The four local municipalities passed their salary ordinances in the past several days. Clerks, public works directors and police chiefs have a wide range of salaries. Most have the same benefits. Grand Coulee Police Chief Mel Hunt is paid $45.93 an hour, or $95,901.84 annually, while Coulee Dam’s police chief, Pat Collins, receives $30.17 an hour, or $62,994 annually. Differences occur through length of service and extra duty demands. Hunt has been with the Grand Coulee Police Department 35 years, most of the time as chief. He receives extra p... Full story
