News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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A plan to match kids and horses as part of a school program got stalled when the school district stated that its insurance carrier wasn’t too high on the idea. The idea was hatched by Chris Holman, president of “The Nourishing Hand” group, an equine rescue organization. His idea was to match kids from the school with mistreated horses and create a bond between school-age children and the animals. The idea was met with enthusiasm at the time, but got stalled by the school’s insurance carrier, Canfield & Associates. Superintendent Dennis Carlson... Full story
The Missoula Children’s Theater is coming to town. Sponsored by the Grand Coulee Dam PTA, the popular theater group will be here to train a host of children from local schools, then put on performances Nov. 9. Representatives from MCT will come here to begin after-school rehearsals Monday, Nov. 4. A request by the PTA to Coulee Dam’s town council for use of the Village Cinema venue was approved last Wednesday night. The council agreed on a $25-a-day charge for use of the theater, an amount that council members said would take care of ele... Full story
Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson told his board Monday night that the K-12 school construction venture is back on schedule. “The elementary side of the project will be enclosed by the end of October, allowing workers to be indoors during the winter,” he said. Time had been lost early on when excavation survey mistakes were made, placing the schedule at a risk. The ground floor of the secondary wing was scheduled to be poured Wednesday. Carlson stated that the 1,100-foot-long retaining wall is essentially complete.... Full story
Port District 7 approved its preliminary budget for 2014 last Thursday and has scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 24 for review and public input. The meeting is at 5 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 24, at the airport office, the port’s normal meeting place. The public hearing will precede the port’s regular monthly meeting. The port’s preliminary budget shows revenue of $458,000 and expenses of $440,200. A large portion of both revenue and expenses is some $254,500 of anticipated grant monies from the Federal Aviation Administration. The port’s major o... Full story
Coulee Dam rejected a bid of $21,000 to clean up a burned-out house at 611 Holly Street last Wednesday night. The lone bid had been submitted by Deckwa Construction, a Grand Coulee firm. The council did so because they weren’t sure where the money would come from. At issue also is how the town would recover the cost of cleaning up the property. One council member suggested that Okanogan County would probably end up owning the property because of unpaid taxes. The county wouldn’t pay off any lien the city would have on the cleanup effort. Cou... Full story
A $5,700 grant is helping Lake Roosevelt lady basketball players mentor young students from the 3-6 grades. The Lady Raiders are holding three basketball clinics teaching the younger students, about 25 of them, the basics of the game. Two clinics have already been held and the third is scheduled Oct. 2. A mini-basketball tournament is planned for Saturday, Oct. 5, at the high school gym. The grant is from the Charlotte Martin Foundation and was written by Mary Schilling, grant writer for the... Full story
Owners of two business firms appeared before the Grand Coulee council last Tuesday to complain about a person doing mechanical work at his residence without a business license. Mike Horne, of MPH, and Jack Madsen of Jack’s Service, both in the vehicle repair business, stated that Donovan Picard, who lives at 431 Grand Coulee Avenue, is doing mechanical work at his home garage without a business license and in a residential zone that doesn’t allow businesses. Horne and Madsen explained to the council that the city isn’t getting tax reven... Full story
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
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
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
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 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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The chamber of commerce is attempting to solicit tourism promotion funds from the local cities proportionally to the size of their tourism income. Chamber Manager Peggy Nevsimal laid out her organization’s plans to develop tourism in 2014 at the Grand Coulee Council meeting last Tuesday night. She explained that the three municipalities, Grand Coulee, Electric City and Coulee Dam, which collect hotel/motel taxes, together take in about $128,000 a year of the tax that, by state law, is to be spent on promoting tourism. Electric City takes in a... Full story
An emergency repair at the Delano Regional Transfer Station is still an emergency. The Regional Board of Mayors has been kicking around an $18,000 repair problem for far too long, Electric City Mayor Jerry Sands told the group Monday. The repair of a curbing and structure problem at the dump site has been a subject of debate by the mayors for four months. It has gone out to bid on two occasions, with Young’s Welding being the lone bidder. Decisions made by the mayors have to be approved by the councils of the four towns, and that’s where it... Full story
The new Coulee Pioneer Museum is in need of a number of items, organizer Birdie Hensley stated this week. The museum is in its temporary home at 3 Coulee Boulevard in Electric City, and soon will have limited openings, depending on volunteers, to man the new facility. Hensley stated that the museum is in need of a vacuum cleaner, a high table for sorting display materials, sanding around windows and filling the cracks, label material, work on electrical, and old photos of the area and local historical objects. Hensley said that the museum... Full story
by Roger S. Lucas When does a yard sale become a “park” sale? September 13 and 14, to be exact. Those are the dates for the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce’s community yard sale at North Dam Park. It’s part of the chamber’s fall Harvest Festival, with activities planned for the entire family, and even your pets. The community yard (park) sale officially begins at noon on Friday the 13th, and goes to dusk. It resumes at 8 a.m. on Saturday and goes to dusk again. Chamber Manager Peggy Nevsimal said that there will be security on site s... Full story