News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1425 - 1449 of 1807
There couldn't be more concrete evidence of the Pacific Northwest's support of the Seattle Seahawks for their bid to repeat last year's Superbowl victory tomorrow, than a big 12 emblazened on the great Grand Coulee Dam. Friday night, as workers doing maintenance work on the largest nightly laser light show in the country tuned the lasers at Grand Coulee Dam 90 miles east of Spokane, Wash., they made a 300-foot tall blue and green "12" light up the spillway on the face of the dam, presumably to... Full story
Local school district patrons this year have been given a huge, remarkable gift the benefits of which we are still discovering. And we will still have the privilege of maintaining it for a long time to come. Renewing the tax levy that helps do that is a must. Seeking a lower rate than the last four-year levy, school district leaders demonstrate admirable restraint and sensitivity to taxpayers. The slight increase in the total amount the district will take in comes from increased value across the district. Some property owners will likely pay... Full story
People apparently pleased with the mayor's selection of a consultant who has been helping the Coulee Dam Fire Department were not happy with the mayor's refusal last week to commit to hiring him longterm. Brought in to assess the fire department and work with member firefighters in the wake of resignations and investigations, Michael Green told The Star after a well-attended town council meeting Jan. 14, that the department's problems would not be hard to fix. Wilder asked Michael Green to tell... Full story
Perhaps there would be nothing wrong with holding onto money collected for another purpose, if just holding onto it did no harm. But it does, and it is wrong. Specifically, money collected under a state law designed to promote tourism and create jobs has been doing neither — for decades. Instead, the funds collected by Electric City from those who use motels and campgrounds within the city have lain fallow, earning next to no interest, instead of being used for their purpose laid out so clearly in statute by the Washington State Legislature. I... Full story
Readers have until next Wednesday, Jan. 21, to make their wishes known on choosing the person to be honored as the 2014 Volunteer of the Year. All letters nominating eligible volunteers are published in this week’s Star, starting on page 3. The letters are also online here. In all, nine people were nominated this year. Two other writers named persons who had already received the honor in years past, which makes them ineligible to receive it this year. Readers can make their preference known through an online poll, which will be linked in t... Full story
If you've ever found yourself wondering if it might be more efficient to have one city instead of four to govern the local area, you're not alone. The local chamber of commerce offered Monday to head up efforts to look at the question of consolidating at least two local cities. Their overture met with encouraging words from the mayors of both cities - Chris Christopherson, of Grand Coulee and Jerry Sands, of Electric City. "I'm encouraged by this," Christopherson said. "I think it would work,"... Full story
The park district that struggles to find ways to pay for maintaining North Dam Park will have an easier time financing the effort with a new grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Coulee Area Park and Recreation District commissioners learned Monday night the district will get a five-year matching grant from the USBR, totaling up to $149,703. “We can spend as much as we can match,” Commissioner and Treasurer Phil Hansen told the commissioners. Maintaining the park costs about $30,000 a year, Hansen said. The grant will help pay for tha... Full story
Readers have until Jan. 12, next Monday, to send in their nominations for the annual volunteer of the year honor to be decided by community poll. The initiative will choose a worthy volunteer to be honored as an example of selfless service to others. Any community member who has not been given the honor before is eligible. Many people give of their time and talents throughout the year to help one or many members of the community, whether through unsung efforts to help a neighbor or in much publicized widespread efforts to tackle a bigger... Full story
Readers have until Jan. 12 to send in their nominations for the annual volunteer of the year honor to be decided by community poll. The Star initiative picks a worthy volunteer to be honored as an example of selfless service to others. Many people give of their time and talents throughout the year to help one or many members of the community, whether through unsung efforts to help a neighbor or in much publicized widespread efforts to tackle a bigger problem. The Star will publish the annual volunteer of the year award in January again this... Full story
by Scott Hunter Following a shakeup in the Coulee Dam Fire Department that came to a head two weeks ago, town leaders last week stated their confidence that citizens are safe and that calls for emergency services will be met. “In terms of providing protection, we’re safe,” Mayor Greg Wilder said in an interview Wednesday, but he said there are definitely longterm issues that are being addressed. Within the week, Wilder had received three resignations of longtime fire department and ambulance personnel. First, the fire chief, Robert Jacks... Full story
Damon Eric Harrell and his wife Kymberly will usher in the New Year at midnight twice next week, if they can pull it off, and they will post to The Star’s Facebook page as they go. The Harrells (he is the son of Melvin Harrell Sr. of Grand Coulee) plan to fly to Auckland, New Zealand to watch the midnight fireworks from the 1,076-foot Sky Tower, then head across the International Dateline to catch the New Year’s Eve celebration in Honolulu, Hawaii. They plan to leave Auckland the morning of Jan. 1, 2015, taking an eight-hour flight scheduled to... Full story
Following a shakeup in the Coulee Dam Fire Department that came to a head last week, town leaders this week have stated their confidence that citizens are safe and that calls for emergency services will be met. “In terms of providing protection, we’re safe,” Mayor Greg Wilder said in an interview Wednesday, but there are definitely longterm issues that are being addressed. Within the last week, Wilder has received three resignations of longtime fire department and ambulance personnel. First, the fire chief, Robert Jackson resigned. Then Ben A... Full story
Evidently, we need a little more time to think. Each year, The Star solicits nominations from readers for Volunteer of the Year award, and each year, we receive multiple letters nominating between five and 10 individuals, any of whom deserve special recognition for the unselfish work they do in the community. But something about the timing, or mood, or perhaps just the exceptional business of this season, has limited the nominations to just three, only one of which is eligible. The other two have been awarded the honor previously, and the commu... Full story
With the Lake Roosevelt gym in the midst of getting a new roof, it hasn’t taken much over the last two weeks to send sports schedules into disarray, with schedules changing sometimes daily. The reconstruction of the leaky roof couldn’t be started until after the school district knew it would have money left over in its construction funds and has led to leaky conditions during a rainy November and December, cancelling, altering and postponing basketball games and wrestling matches. Senior high games have been moved to the old middle school gym... Full story
Below is a slideshow of 170 photos of the community taken since September, many that have not been published. You can go to Our Photo Site to see them larger, download them or share them on social media. You can even embed the slide show on your Facebook page if you like. These photos will be free to download until Dec. 31, and I plan to add more to this gallery. The password to download is Merry Christmas....
As Coulee Medical Center works to build up its business to a sustainable level, it’s finding success with a homegrown approach to recruiting talent, Chief of Staff Dr. Andrew Castrodale said Monday, and it needs to. The feasibility study that underpinned the decision to build a new hospital several years ago called for staffing the facility and its clinic with four physicians by this time, plus a variety of “mid-level” health care providers. It’s been kept open by just two staff physicians, one of whom just left town on a one-year sabbati... Full story
Remember that 911 outage last spring when the entire state had no emergency phone service? You would if you’d tried to place an emergency call that wouldn’t go through. The staff at the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission remembers, and they are recommending penalty against Centurylink of more than $2.9 million. A UTC investigation found that some 5,840 emergency calls failed to go through in that six-hour period April 9-10, the agency said in a press release. All 6.9 million people living in Washington lost 911 service durin... Full story
Here's a quick video to give you a flavor of the event happening now....
Last week, the Grand Coulee City Council reversed its earlier decision that had kept the chief of police job under the protection of the city’s civil service commission. That reversal should be reconsidered. No matter how much faith council members may have in the current mayor, who pushed for the change, such far-reaching policy changes should not be based on the dominant personalities of the moment. That can be a difficult point to defend when every-one currently involved seems to have the best interests of the community at heart. But c... Full story
Faced with various groups annually vying for tourism tax dollars, most Coulee Dam Town Council members verbally endorsed an approach suggested by Mayor Greg Wilder last week: outsource it — with provisos. Wilder advocated an approach similar to what the chamber of commerce was trying to organize last year, a separate tourism advisory board that each of the three towns collecting the tax from tourists would empower to use funds for marketing the whole area. But even if such an entity does not yet exist, Wilder was in favor of taking that approac... Full story
As local towns decide on how much money they’ll spend next year, the season always brings out what for councils is a bothersome and needlessly complicated question: How much money should we spend to promote tourism, and how should we spend it? Three local municipalities collect a tax on motel rooms and campground spaces that is supposed to be spent to promote tourism. That brings groups that qualify, and some that don’t, to the town government asking for those tax funds collected from tourists. The process is cumbersome at best and depends on t... Full story
[This story has been updated with more accurate numbers of workers that were made available.] With a massive new headquarters under construction near Nespelem for the 12 Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, plus their big new casino going up in Omak, contractors are in need of some good help locally. A job fair at the Nespelem Community Center Nov. 6 was designed to help fill that need. "It's going to get exciting and our need is going to go up quite a bit in the next three months,"... Full story
Hospital District 6 commissioners passed a budget Monday night that anticipates changes in fee structures, increased employment, new doctors and a razor thin 0.1-percent net margin, basically break even. “We’re going to start conservative and expect to get better, not worse,” said Chief Executive Officer Debbie Bigelow. She presented the budget that she said was conservative in expecting $22.3 million in net patient revenues for Coulee Medical Center. The budget news was mixed with announcements of new doctors coming on board, possibly inclu... Full story
As a matter of fact, we view the four towns as one in many ways, but in purely practical terms joining just two would be very good start. In any large city, the populations of Electric City, Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam and Elmer City would barely qualify as a neighborhood, let alone four municipalities each with separate mayors and councils, budgets to work out and utility bills to track. Combining the towns seems so obviously a good idea. But smaller steps often make the start of a long and worthy journey. Two of the cities already share so much... Full story
Even while much of the world is just waking up to what the potential spread of Ebola fever in Western Africa might mean for the rest of the globe, the local hospital in Grand Coulee is already making sure it won't be caught unprepared for the disease if it ever comes here. Major hospitals in other parts of the United States have made dangerous mistakes in how they handle infected patients, even when they'd had protocols in place. The staff at Coulee Medical Center is training for serious infecti... Full story