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 project to replace some 300 streetlights in Coulee Dam should get started in about a month, public works director Barry Peacock said last Friday. The town awarded a $118,246.25 contract to Northwest Edison, a Seattle firm, as the result of a 100-percent grant received from the Transportation Improvement Board. Coulee Dam is one of six communities in the state to receive the grant. When completed, just over 300 LED (light-emitting diode) street lights will save the town about 60 percent in energy costs, plus additional maintenance savings....
Are violators of pedestrian crosswalks a problem in the area? Yes, says Electric City resident Steve Salstrom, who has complained about the motorists who zoom by even when people are in the crosswalks. Salstrom stated that on one occasion he was midway across a crosswalk and had motorists pass him on both sides. He complained again at the Oct. 8 Electric City council meeting, stating that he had someone zoom by him at what he thought was about “45 miles per hour.” The crosswalk in question is the one by the Electric City post office and the...
There seems to be an unusual amount of black bear in the area this year. Two were shot in Coulee Dam recently by Tribal Natural Resource officers, after residents there were bothered by them roaming the streets. A bear was trapped this week in the orchard at Shaw's Fruit and Produce, the fifth this year at that Belvedere orchard, tribal officer Rick Desautel noted. "That bear must have weighed over 300 pounds," Desautel stated. Orchard co-owner Donna Hamilton said that tribal officers came with...
They are going to dress up city hall. The Electric City council has approved a plan to replace its 22-year-old carpet at city hall, doing half with this year’s budget and the other half with its 2014 budget. Loepp’s Furniture will be doing the work. City Clerk Jackie Perman said the new floor covering will correct worn traffic areas of the carpet that was installed in 1991. This year’s floor improvement plan includes the carpet for the council chambers, tile for the back bathroom and a carpet that catches the dirt at the rear maintenance compu...
Mike Horne, owner of MPH, a mechanical firm on Midway in Grand Coulee, made his second appearance before the city council to complain about a home mechanic operation at 431 Grand Coulee Avenue. The operation in question is owned by Donovan Picard, who allegedly doesn’t have a city business license and the current zoning does not allow business operations. Horne had appeared before the council, along with Jack Madsen, of Jack’s Service, in September, raising the same concerns. Horne told the council last Tuesday night that the home mechanic ope...
by Roger S. Lucas Grand Coulee police officers can no longer operate within the town limits of Coulee Dam, according to a letter sent last Wednesday to Police Chief Mel Hunt. The letter from Coulee Dam Chief Pat Collins revokes permission for Grand Coulee officers to operate within the town of Coulee Dam, even when they are covering for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Collins said Tuesday that the decision was prompted by Grand Coulee getting a bureau contract when Coulee Dam didn’t. The bureau awarded the three-year, $1.6 million contract t...
Electric City’s council approved a request for a $2,000 contribution to the Grand Coulee Dam/Coulee City Nutritional Program at its meeting Oct 8. The council will take a formal vote on the resolution at its next meeting, Nov. 5. The request, made by Myrna M. Schryvers, director of the program, is for the city’s 2014 budget. This budget year Electric City gave the organization $1,500. Schryvers, by letter, explained to the council how costs have risen and how popular the program has become. The organization has a budget this year of $15...
A school bus accident Oct. 4, in Elmer City, ended up with some students getting shook up, but with only minor damage to the bus, school officials said this week. A number of middle school-age students from both Grand Coulee and Nespelem were checked out at Coulee Medical Center and released. The accident occurred shortly after 5 p.m., with an after-school bus near the old Tillman Store. The bus was struck by a vehicle driven by Daniel Parks Conant. School officials said that bus driver Stephanie Anderson saw that Conant’s vehicle was going t...
Tribal natural resource officers shot two black bears last week that have been repeated uninvited guests in Coulee Dam. The town has been bothered by black bears visiting both the commercial and residential areas recently. One bear was shot on Fir Street early in the morning about the time that children were going to school, and the other was shot on Tilmus about 10:30 at night. A resident near Tilmus said it sounded like a shooting war. Both bears were 2-year-olds. “Please do not feed the bears,” states an informational poster sent out fro...
Timing is the key to progress on any building site, Rotarians learned at their meeting last Wednesday. Speaking was Jim Crowley, Walker Construction superintendent on the K-12 school project in Coulee Dam. Crowley explained the importance of getting materials delivered on time and how it relates to subcontractors and their efficiency. The construction of the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s K-12 building project is back on schedule after a delay that occurred several months ago when the o...
Grand Coulee’s city council declared surplus a number of items from the police department at last Tuesday night’s meeting. Included were two bullet proof vests from the 1970s, a breath analyzer device referred to as “dial a drunk” by Police Chief Mel Hunt, a Polaroid camera with case, boxes of electronic items, some phone parts, and an outdated fax machine and typewriter. But the items that caught the fancy of members of the council were two horsehide leather coats about 40 years old. Several members of the council tried the coats on. The hea...
Grand Coulee passed an ordinance last Tuesday night declaring a moratorium on any type of marijuana operations in the city. The moratorium came after a public hearing where three residents of the city spoke supporting the issue. Speaking against any marijuana activity in the city were Cheryl Piturachsatit, Linda Black and Al Jordan. All were for the moratorium and against marijuana operations in the city. The moratorium is for six months, effective from Tuesday’s meeting, to April 1, 2014. Residents of Washington State voted approval of I...
Coulee Dam has a new licensed day care. The day care center, at 1111 Central Drive, is run by Clarissa Cawston and is designed to take care of 12 children, from 6 months to 12 years of age. She has named it “Coulee Kids Day Care.” Cawston has designed the daycare center to be somewhat like a preschool, with educational materials including lesson plans and learning opportunities. It’s an opportunity for her to exercise her education degree from Washington State University and still be home with...
Some people have a tough time getting to work on Monday mornings. That was the case for Jason Mucciaccio this past Monday when he fell asleep and his pickup truck left the roadway and knocked down a power pole on SR-174, near Knute Street at North Dam Park. Mucciaccio was driving to work at the new school building project, where he is employed by a subcontractor, when he fell asleep, he told police. His vehicle and trailer left the roadway, jumped a curb and severed the light pole. Police said damage estimate was $5,000 to the pickup, $3,000...
A special dinner to benefit the Coulee Pioneer Museum will be held Friday, Oct. 25, at the Senior Center. Tickets are $10 per person or $20 for a family and are available from museum members or at the Senior Center. Museum coordinator Birdie Hensley said the spaghetti dinner proceeds will help the museum move along in its efforts to define itself. “It’s all you can eat,” Hensley stated. The dinner is sponsored by Flo’s Restaurant. As part of the fund raiser, a quilt raffle will be held at $1 per ticket or six tickets for $5, Hensley stated....
Coulee Dam area school children will put on “Blackbeard the Pirate” when they perform as part of the Missoula Children’s Theater on Nov. 9, according to Crystal Jones, vice president of the PTA here. School children from kindergarten through sixth grade will be the actors. Auditions start Monday, Nov. 4, at the Center Elementary School gym. Jones said that 50-60 kids will be involved in the play. Representatives from the Missoula Children’s Theater operation will be in the area directing the youngsters for performances on Saturday, Nov. 9....
That’s one big pumpkin! Bill Niendam of Elmer City shows off what he calls his “300 pound pumpkin.” He and his wife Dusty raised a single pumpkin in their garden on Front Street. He said the pumpkin vine had a number of blooms but only one pumpkin. “We used a giant pumpkin seed for this one,” he said. It doesn’t look like he will move the pumpkin. “We would need a lift truck to get it out of here,” he stated. (Roger S, Lucas photo)...
The latest failure of Congress to compromise has shuttered two local branches of federal agencies but not affected operations at Grand Coulee Dam. The federal government went into shutdown mode Tuesday as the U. S. Senate and the House of Representatives failed to compromise on a continuing resolution that would allow the government to pay the bills already spent and approved by Congress. Locally, barricades and recorded messages greeted many who tried to contact federal agencies or receive...
Police Chief Pat Collins made a little headway in his efforts to retain at least one of his patrolmen after the town of Coulee Dam was axed from its contract for law enforcement coverage with the Bureau of Reclamation. The contract, which affords the town four additional patrol officers, their patrol cars, training and equipment, was up Oct. 1. The town was already short two officers, and the contract’s end means the loss of two more. “I don’t know how I can provide coverage with only three officers,” Collins told the council last Wednesd...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...