News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 133 - 157 of 1803
Electric City will shift dollars from a project city council members decided to give up on after years of setbacks, spending it instead on a popular park project that is taking shape but needs a financial boost. The city park being built just uphill from the fire station, but will eventually need more funding that what was currently available, despite fundraising efforts. Mayor Diane Kohout said a vote was taken at a special council meeting Aug. 28 to drop the Shoreline Waterfront Trail project that now would cost about $1.4 million to...
Since Lake Roosevelt School are now on a four-day school week, students won't be there for Friday meals, which is a problem for many students. The school district directors agreed Monday to change that with an amendment to their contract with Chartwells, the company that provides the food service, which noted they lost 20 percent of their revenue under the contract when the district went to a four-day week. Superintendent Rod Broadnax said he told Chartwells the district would not pay full...
Over 700 firefighters are battling two blazes on the Colville Reservation that have burned more than 23,000 acres of forested land. The Rattlesnake Fire started Sept. 1 from lightning and had burned 19,367 acres as of early Wednesday morning in the southeast corner of the reservation. It's 33% contained. The Lynx Mountain Fire has burned 4,226 acres since its Sept. 2 start from and undetermined cause. It is 5% contained. There are 762 firefighters on the fires. Evacuation levels have been set...
Kids playing Monday night in the Grand Coulee Dam Youth Soccer league took up the last rays of sunlight at dusk with enthusiasm, even if it was for somersaults during the game instead of what their coaches are trying to instill in them. Makeup games, canceled earlier due to smoke, were underway at the former middle school in Grand Coulee. Ruth Randolph, of the league, said she has 168 kids signed up for the sport this year. Coach Trent Turner said he is surprised at how far many of the...
After a relatively easy early fire season, September started with a rash of new fire starts amid high temperatures and thunderstorms, resulting in thick wildfire smoke socking us in for a time on the first day of school in Coulee Dam. The Grant County Health District issued a warning that the smoke was thick enough across much of the county as to be "unhealthy" and warrant limiting time outside. "Poor air quality conditions are expected to continue as wildfires in Washington and neighboring...
Rod Broadnax has goals for Lake Roosevelt Schools. He wants Lake Roosevelt students safe and learning, in a school that is recognized for its academic rigor, as well as its athletics programs, and is fiscally solid, while increasing student enrollment and parental engagement. That's a lot. And big changes have been made to address the challenges ahead. The Grand Coulee Dam School District superintendent took time to speak with the Rotary Club Thursday, the same day he was explaining new...
That roadside trail between Electric City and North Dam may get built yet, providing a safe path for pedstrians along the highway. The city council, frustrated with a lack of progress, in July had decided to explore starting over with their new engineering firm, but that firm talked them out of it at their meeting Aug. 12. Marissa Siemens, of TD&H Engineering, said the city's previous contracted engineering firm, Century West, has the plans about 90% complete for the project that would add a...
Nespelem School District Tuesday awarded the job of constructing its new CTE building to Lakes General for $1.38 million. The project may look more like a shop than a typical school builading, and the budget currently allows for not much more than an outer shell and a few rooms, including a bathroom. Add-ons could include specialized rooms for special purposes to fit the Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. The district exceeded its $1 million budget for the CTE building project, a part of the district’s expansion plan that has result...
Electric City wants to move ahead with discussions on forming a regional fire authority, an option proposed last fall in an all-community meeting called to discuss the future of local emergency services. The city council agreed last week to send a letter stating the city is in favor of moving ahead with talks to pursue the establishment of a regional fire authority with five other entities: Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam, Grant County Fire District 14, Lincoln County Fire District 9, and Okanogan...
Larry Hernandez got his lease extended for the Village Cinema last week, with monthly rent coming to $1,500 a month, including $600 plus $900 of in-kind work on the building. The town council wouldn't budge Wednesday on his request to put off the collection of the $600 cash component for another three months. Hernandez approached the town a year ago with a plan to take over the space if he could have a year to get it functional again as a theater and more, with his upgrade work paying the rent f...
A wildland fire put Electric City on evacuation alerts Aug. 6 as firefighters from many agencies helped local firefighters in the steep terrain. The Silver Fire ignited in the rocky, wooded hillsides outside the southeast corner of the city where a small forest rises on cliffs overlooking houses and pastures Wednesday afternoon. By 2:30 a large, blackened area dwarfed firefighters with brush trucks hosing the perimeter closest to homes just off the corner of Sunset Drive and Electric Boulevard....
He was at work, and Randy Adolph's grandchildren were all asleep as fire began consuming their home last month. "Could have been worse if Tim didn't knock on the door," Adolph said Monday, referring to neighbor Tim Lynch who lives a couple blocks down Camas Street in Coulee Dam. About 10 a.m. that Monday, July 14, Lynch, retired, had been headed to the post office and intended to next drive to the Downriver Trail for a walk along the Columbia River. Then he saw the smoke. It was "thick, black...
Chantel Crowe, Grand Coulee's deputy city clerk, attracted a majority of the votes in the three-way race for the mayor's office in Tuesday's primary. Crowe and Mayor Ruth Dalton will face off in the general election that concludes Nov. 4. The two were selected over Micah Seekins in the primary election. Seekins garnered 12 votes, or almost 8%. Of the 155 ballots cast, Dalton got 54 votes (35%) to Crowe's 87 (56%). There were two votes for write-in candidates, who were not listed in the Grant...
Thunderstorms have kept firefighters busy in Okanogan County and the Colville Reservation, but local area firefighters only got in about an hour's work fighting one fire this week. That was Thursday when a fire was called in alongside SR-174 in a rocky area on the right across the highway from East Heights. Firefighters quickly knocked it down. But that same day, the Mount Tolman Fire Center saw the start of the Kinkaid Creek fire that developed into a "complex" of smaller fires. That one includ...
Two local school districts passed budgets for the next school year on Monday after a Friday when the Trump Administration relented on withholding billions that were supposed to have been transferred to states by July 1. In Coulee Dam, school district directors OK’d a budget that plans to spend $416,000 less than in the 2024-25 year just ended, but still will end up next summer with less than a quarter of what it will start the 2025-26 year with amid declining student enrollment. The district will start with just under $2.5 million next month, a...
A city council member in Grand Coulee says he’d rather not have to pass an ordinance that forces property owners to get their commercial sites up to standards, but he will push for it if no progress is made. Tom Poplawski said at the city’s last council meeting July 15 that he is aware of arguments for and against passing an ordinance with punitive measures designed to encourage owners of empty or unsightly buildings to clean up. “I agree with all of it, actually, but neither one has produced any change,” he said. “And so we’re still stuck...
Local entrepreneur Micah Seekins has announced his candidacy for mayor of Grand Coulee, seeking to fill a two-year unexpired term with a campaign centered on fiscal responsibility and the fundamentals of city governance. Seekins, who has operated a business in Grand Coulee for more than a decade, is making his first run for elected office. He has not previously held elected positions and did not submit information on educational background or community service, according to the Office of the Sec...
by Scott Hunter Nothing like getting thrown right into the fire. Ruth Dalton was new to the city council in January of 2024 when the council chose her to fill the mayor pro tempore spot. That's normally simply who fills in if the mayor can't make the next council meeting. But then-mayor Mike Eylar ended up having to resign for health reasons, leaving Dalton at the helm of the city whose police chief was retiring and whose longtime city foreman was too. "It's been a huge challenge, but I have to...
Chantel Crowe thinks her knowledge of the workings of the city of Grand Coulee, along with her past experiences, would let her help the city to "move forward and upward" at the same time. Crowe has been the deputy city clerk since November of 2023. Even if she's not elected, she said in an interview, she has a goal of finding a way to help people who need it. "We have an elderly community that I would love to see supported even more - or a veteran community, a disabled community ... anybody who...
Fire took away a family's home Monday morning in Coulee Dam. Randy Adolph's home at 1004 Camas Street, where he lived with his two grandchildren and a great grandchild, went up in flames about 10 a.m. when, a neighbor the next street over said, a very loud boom was heard. Casey Brewster was behind Lake Roosevelt Schools just down the street, taking a photo of his daughter, he said. He got in his truck and drove to the house on fire. Brewster couldn't open the front door but went around to the...
Grand Coulee’s city council voted unanimously Tuesday night to direct the city government to write to others who might wish to be part of a new “fire authority” that could combine the efforts of local volunteer fire departments. The idea was the subject of a community meeting in November 2024, when the Regional Board of Mayors sponsored a community town hall meeting to talk about options for either an emergency medical services district or a broader regional fire protection authority, which could start out initially as an EMS provider, proba...
When they wrestled with how to allocate a pay boost not all covered by extra state money last month, school directors didn’t know the federal government had just announced it would not pay far more money Congress had already promised, money that would typically be paid the next day. That was June 30 as the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors learned the $136,000 the state would pay for a 2.5% cost-of-living increase next year wouldn’t cover the $679,000 of actual cost involved, leaving a $543,000 hole in the coming year’s distri...
If they’re up to their frequently used tactics, the Trump Administration will likely drag out the drama they’re causing by “freezing” nearly $7 billion in already budgeted education funds for K-12 education across 50 states, then just drop the whole thing. The chaos is often the real goal for this bunch. Make depending on the federal government for anything pure hell and people will tend to not rely on it. Local school districts are just a recent entry into that long list of people and institutions learning there is no long honor at the top...
The biggest local festival of the year drew thousands to Grand Coulee Dam to celebrate Independence Day with fireworks, live music and even the original laser show on the dam. What they couldn't see were the unusual challenges that started the week for Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce officials. With the festival looming on Friday, Krystal and Jillian Fillis, executive directors in training, knew they had a lot of organizational boxes to tick off by Thursday. But Monday morning they...
Firefighters kept at least two smaller blazes from turning into bigger ones this week as wildland fuels turned tinder dry. One blaze took off quickly about 11 p.m. July 5, right after a loud bang at the south edge of the town of Coulee Dam, setting the hillside near the Visitor Center ablaze. Several agencies responded quickly, including the Bureau of Reclamation whose land was burning near the Columbia River Inn. Coulee Dam Volunteer Fire Department requested mutual aid, bringing in Grand...