News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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People are frustrated with crime and feel powerless to do anything about it. That was evident at Tuesday night's Community Watch meeting held at the Almira/Coulee Dam Community Church. It was the second Community Watch meeting held in Coulee Dam in an effort to try to find a way to curb crime. About 25 people showed up for the meeting. One thing decided on was to determine places to put up neighborhood crime watch signs. The next will be how to finance the cost of the signs. One woman said she... Full story
One of Grand Coulee Dam School District's buses received damage to its front end last Thursday about 7:15 a.m. when the driver swerved off the road near Nespelem to avoid hitting a vehicle in front of it. There were no injuries, and only one child was on the bus at the time. Damage to the bus was limited to the front bumper and security arm. The Washington State Patrol issued veteran driver David Gates a citation for driving too closely. Gates has been driving bus for the district about 12... Full story
Money makes the world go around, and it also builds school classrooms. Both classrooms and money are in short supply at the Grand Coulee Dam School District, just three years after opening the new Lake Roosevelt Schools complex in 2014. Currently, the school district is in the midst of its five-year “study and survey” that will spell out the district’s classroom needs in detail. There’s currently a crunch for classroom space, specifically in the elementary wing of the school. The “study and survey,” after a review by Superintendent Paul Turner... Full story
Electric City’s 25-year Pathway and Revitalization plan is complete. This week, the Star newspaper looks at two new city parks as they are outlined in the plan. Funding for parts of the Pathway and Revitalization is anticipated through grants as they are available to the city. The two new parks are: Grand Avenue Park, with an Ice Age focus; and McNett Splashpad Park, behind the fire department building and just temporarily named. The Pathway project was just recently completed by a team of instructors and students from Washington State U... Full story
An organizational community watch meeting will be held Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 6 p.m. at the Almira/Coulee Dam Community Church. The meeting is a follow-up to an initial meeting held early in December, and is being organized by Ed Bartley. About 50 people showed up at the first meeting, alarmed by reports of burglaries and car prowls in Coulee Dam. Bartley, who has had about 50 years of experience in law enforcement-related activity, drew out concerns local residents had at the first meeting, and stated that organizing against crime would be the ta... Full story
There are over 250 probable and confirmed cases of mumps in Washington, including cases in Grant, King, Pierce, Snohomish, Spokane and Yakima counties. The Grant County Health District encouraged residents to take every precaution to help stop the spread of the disease. Residents in the county were encouraged to be vaccinated with the MMR vaccine, stated Dr. Alexander Brzezny, health officer. Mumps is a contagious disease with more cases being reported daily. Grant County had three possible cases, all linked to the Columbia Basin Job Corps, at... Full story
Police have arrested one person and are looking for additional suspects in the burglary of Loepp Furniture early Sunday morning, Jan. 15. Officers Adam Florenzen and Chris McClanahan took part in the apprehension of a 34-year-old Omak woman, Darcy K. Edwards, who was in the driver’s seat of a pickup parked in the alley behind the store, partially filled with objects from inside. At least one other person was believed to be part of the burglary, the police report stated, and possibly two. Florenzen, on patrol, reported that as he was driving M... Full story
A follow-up “community watch” meeting in Coulee Dam has been set for 6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 7, at the Almira/Coulee Dam Community Church, according to Ed Bartley. A feeling that the crime rate in Coulee Dam was rising rapidly spurred the first meeting early in December, with about 50 people showing up. Bartley chaired the meeting then and will again when the follow-up meeting is held. That meeting will put some meat on the bones with some specific suggestions of how community members can help fight crime, not as vigilantes, but by coo... Full story
An upcoming visit between two local governments could help prevent a big local asset from degrading into a permanent eyesore. The Grand Coulee Dam School District has been invited to Grand Coulee’s next planning commission meeting on Feb. 8, to let planners know what it plans for the Center School property. The school district has conducted two advertisements calling for bids on the 8.3-acre school building and property, but has never appeared before city planners. Both attempts to receive bids have failed to produce any because investors w... Full story
Brad Parrish has resigned his position on Electric City’s council. Parrish submitted his resignation after he learned that his wife had been selected as deputy clerk. The council meets next Feb. 14, and is expected to accept Parrish’s resignation at that time. Parrish is midway through his second term and would have been up for re-election in 2019. City officials stated that Parrish decided to resign after his wife, Diana, was hired as deputy clerk. She begins work at city hall Jan. 27. Parrish has been the mainstay on the council in sup... Full story
The National Park Service Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail is like a giant jigsaw puzzle; the whole is there to see, but the problem is how to put the pieces together. Denise Bausch, NPS chief of interpretation and education for the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area and Ice Age Floods, told about 40 people Monday that "partnerships" with communities and groups along the way would be the key to the trail's success. The meeting was held Monday afternoon in Coulee Dam's community room a... Full story
Yes, the Grand Coulee Dam School District does have a superintendent! A glitch when Paul Turner took over the superintendent position last August was fixed by the school board Monday night. It was one of those things where someone forgot to cross a “t” which prevented Turner’s name from turning up in county records listed as superintendent. Now it’s fixed and Turner, who had served as a vice principal, can now sign his title as “superintendent” without anyone having the license to challenge it. In other action Monday night the board hired... Full story
A city law proposed months ago to regulate fireworks in Electric City has gone “poof” last Tuesday night after the fire chief insisted it wasn’t needed. The ordinance was doomed after volunteer fire Chief Mark Payne appeared before the council and told members it was unnecessary. Payne said he had been associated with the fire department for over 20 years, and fireworks have never been an issue. “Just because Grand Coulee has an ordinance about fireworks, it doesn’t mean that we need to,” Payne responded. The fire chief told council mem... Full story
The most dramatic feature of a proposed four-state trail is centered locally, and residents can learn all about it next Monday afternoon. People can learn how this region will play a small but significant role in the development of the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail at a National Park Service information meeting Monday, Jan. 23, from 1-3 p.m. in the community room at Coulee Dam Town Hall. Denise Bausch, of the National Park Service, will make a 45-minute presentation showing the proposed... Full story
Electric City’s Pathway and Revitalization plan is about three-fourths of the way complete, and should be ready for review within a few weeks, the city council learned last week. The plan is being developed by a Washington State University group made up of a team of students and Assistant Professor Kathleen Ryan from the WSU Rural Communities Design Initiative. The WSU team has been working on the plan since last spring, including conducting two public meetings and issuing a preliminary report. When completed, the plan will be reviewed by C... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District directors accepted the resignations of two veteran employees at its meeting Jan. 10. Resigning were teacher and Current Technical Education Director Kathy Proctor, and Human Resource Director Mandi Stack. Proctor came to the district in 1979, and has been associated with vocational education. She will finish up a 37-year teaching career at the close of school this spring. Proctor’s husband, Gordon, retired a couple of years ago, also after many years of service, as a teacher and coach. Stack is a 1997 g... Full story
Electric City may still get started on its new park behind the fire station early this year. A discussion at last week’s council meeting provided some hope to Councilmember Lonna Bussert that work on a needed retaining wall could be done after the city receives the finished Pathway and Revitalization plan from a Washington State University team of an assistant professor and several students. That plan is expected to be complete in either late January or early February and include details of the development of the park. Bussert was active in t... Full story
Grand Coulee's police department showed a marked increase in the number of burglaries reported in its jurisdiction (which includes Electric City) in 2016 over what it reported for 2015, according to records released last week. The report, which included Electric City, showed there were 42 attempted and actual burglaries for 2016, compared to 23 for 2015, an 82-percent hike. Burglary records for Coulee Dam were not available for 2016, but the number of burglaries in 2015 was shown as six. Police... Full story
Patrons of the Grand Coulee Dam School District will soon have an opportunity to officially comment about local schools. The district just recently prepared a survey, which will be online, covering a number of topics relating to different aspect of schools. The survey follows up Superintendent Paul Turner’s efforts to communicate more directly with staff and patrons of the school district. Turner, who took over duties of superintendent last August, stated then that “communications” was one of his top priorities in the months ahead. The distr... Full story
Community members are encouraged to attend an Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail informational meeting Jan. 23 in Coulee Dam. The national project is to tell the story of the Ice Age Floods, which includes 16,000 square miles in four states and, locally, formed the Grand Coulee. The meeting in two weeks will feature a report from National Park Service’s Denise Bausch, who will speak on the NPS’ long-range interpretive plan for the trail system. The meeting will be held Monday, Jan. 23, from 1-3 p.m., in the community room at Coulee Dam Town... Full story
Old Man Winter interrupted Monday’s start of school, forcing a two-hour delay because of snow at both Grand Coulee Dam and Nespelem schools. In Coulee Dam, interim bus manager George Davis said roads in general were bad in all directions. He singled out roads in the Nespelem area, Delrio, Grand Coulee/Delano area, upper Electric City and “just roads everywhere.” Electric City, Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam city crews were hard at it Monday morning trying to keep streets open. It wasn’t necessarily the depth of the snow, but finding room to move... Full story
The sale of Center School is made more complicated by the issue of zoning. The school district has made efforts to sell the vacated school and some additional acres, but so far no one has stepped up to the plate to make an offer. The issue of zoning keeps coming up and any interested buyer isn’t certain how the property might be re-zoned. Currently, the Grand Coulee planning commission is studying a wide range of zoning issues. “We are not looking at a single property, but what needs to be done throughout the city,” stated planning commi... Full story
There were smiles all around last Thursday as Port District 7 officials got the year-end financial report on Banks Lake Golf Course, which they manage. At the end of 2015, port commissioners were looking at red ink to the tune of $32,000. But last Thursday, district Secretary Joanne Davidson brought smiles to commissioners when her report stated that the golf course was in the black for 2016, $17,006.16. Actually, things look better than that. The Port District paid off its golf carts in 2016, a $17,048.37 non-recurring expense. Given that,... Full story
Grand Coulee got first place, but not necessarily the type of first place you’d want to receive. An FBI report for the state of Washington shows that Grand Coulee, for its size, was rated first in the state for burglaries for the year 2015. Statistics show that Grand Coulee had 23 burglaries for its population of 1,056, a statistic skewed because it doesn’t account for the population of Electric City, which the Grand Coulee Police also support, noted Police Chief John Tufts. Two other nearby communities on the list include Winthrop, which was... Full story
Elmer City has a 2017 budget, but not without a bit of strife. It was all over a $2 an hour raise for city clerk Gary Benton. The raise and passage of the town’s $915,603 budget narrowly passed Dec. 8, with one council member, Jesse Tillman, voting against the budget because of the raise, and another, Councilmember Don Bonertz, abstaining. That left the vote 2-1, with Clara Carson and Larry Holford voting for the budget, including the raise for Benton, and Tillman voting no and Bonertz abstaining. Councilmember Joaquin Marchand was not at t... Full story