News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1471 - 1495 of 1840
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
A 38-year-old Mallot man walking along SR 97 was hit by a car Thursday night about 6 p.m., the Washington State Patrol reports. Tarence Marconi was walking north along the highway when a northbound car drove onto the shoulder, striking Marconi and knocking him into the ditch. The unkown vehicle continued north. Marconi was taken to Mid-Valley Hospital. The incident is under investigation.... Full story
National Park Service officials at Coulee Dam presented their proposal last week to boost boat launch and camping fees for Lake Roosevelt. One of their main concerns, said Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area Superintendent Dan Foster, is that the current fee structure doesn't comply with the law against undercutting local business rates. The NPS area's camping fees, for example are currently just $10 a night, compared to an average $18 in region, a park study found. Foster said they held pub... Full story
Wednesday night, science program students at Lake Roosevelt High School stood by exhibits offering to explain some complex subjects they've been learning lately, and those questioned by The Star seemed to know their stuff. The exhibit, held in conjunction with a meal and program by the Johnson O'Mally Indian Education committee, attracted about 60 people to learn about those programs. As a bonus, a Boy Scouts troop set up a booth and gained several interested youth. Cub scouts seemed to... Full story
Gayle Swagerty spoke for quite a few people in the entire community this week when she asked why there is no recycling program organized by the four towns whose waste disposal is governed by the Regional Board of Mayors. The mayors’ response was that it’s not economically feasible to sustain such a program in an area of this population. That may be so, but the mayors should let the market prove it. Evidently, that’s not an option currently because the waste disposal contract gives the regional refuse hauler the right to run a recycling progr... Full story
A grateful Nespelem Creek Kids 4-H club gave Merl and Linda Roberts an embroidered Pendleton blanket Oct. 7 in appreciation for working with the group's bee-raising project. Club advisor Ian Wilder said Merle Roberts, a beekeeper himself, supported the project with expertise and experience and plenty of time. The group, with 14-16 kids involved, wanted to raise bees this year to collect honey and wax, help with local pollination needs, and eventually donate to honey to the Convalescent Center... Full story
In six months, a hospital recruiting team has managed to attract at least two doctors, a third is on the way, and another health care provider who had cut her time in Grand Coulee to emergency room work only will restart her practice in the clinic. That record contrasts sharply with the prior three years of little luck as a former administration stuck to a more traditional talent search method through recruiting firms. The future now appears bright, with physicians committing to come to the coul... Full story
Anyone wondering about the kind of teaching and curriculum offered at Lake Roosevelt High School can check it out next week and make it a family night. With murder involved. Family Fun Night Oct. 15 will start at 5:30 p.m., and will not only show off what's happening in the school but offer dinner, as well (RSVP appreciated). Victor Camarena said the goal is to "show off the new school and show off the classes" offered under a ramped-up STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) curriculum. L... Full story
We cannot, without sensing the irony, report on a business owner upset about zoning laws that he only months ago argued to uphold. One of the reasons (although possibly not the most important to him) that MPH Auto owner Mike Horne objected to a home mechanic charging for repairs made in his garage was that that mechanic’s house was in an area zoned for residential use, not commercial. Be that as it may, Horne argues now that the city must live by a clerical error made when he was granted a permit to change a building just down the block from h... Full story
Doing nothing can change everything if you couch the resulting message just right. Official city inaction Monday night dashed Mike Horne’s hopes of moving his auto repair business down the street and had him threatening a lawsuit. The city council declined to appeal a building permit issued Aug. 18 to Horne by city staff, who were under the assumption the permit was for his current business address — 123 Midway Ave., next door to Pepper Jack’s Bar and Grille. But the address Horne gave the clerk to put on the permit is for 19 Midway, a curre... Full story
by Scott Hunter It's not as evident as the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce's annual Colorama parade through the main business district, but chamber committees have been working behind the scenes on both problems and opportunities, identified with a goal of boosting economic development leading to growth and jobs. And one big lead just opened up. The now vacant Center School in Grand Coulee, along with more than eight acres of land in the middle of the city, could become available to... Full story
Advances in a program designed to help high school students get a leg up on college are raising questions for the local school district. Some juniors and seniors at Lake Roosevelt High School are enrolled in Wenatchee Valley College’s new online version of Running Start, which lets students earn college credit before graduating from high school, for free. Previously, students had to travel to Omak to attend WVC to take advantage of the program, but this year the college is offering it online. Three LR students participated last year. That numbe... Full story
Despite a rocky start to the new school year, Nespelem School directors were optimistic at their Monday meeting, pointing to new leaders and attitudes in school administration. The last school year had ended with a flurry of late resignations, including that of then-superintendent and principal John Adkins. The school was bracing for budget hits as some students would switch to the new school in Coulee Dam. And as of Monday, the person they had planned on teaching fifth grade starting in October, had said she wouldn’t be coming. Despite t... Full story
The new school complex in Coulee Dam opened Monday without a serious glitch. But there were kids, kids, and more kids. Following years of declines, student numbers on Monday were 22 percent more than the district had budgeted, a number that can substantially boost the amount of operating money the state allocates to the district. The first-day count was 394 for the elementary wing, plus 350 in the junior-senior high wing for a total of 744 students. The official beginning count won't be taken... Full story