News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1562 - 1586 of 1807
A new mayor and two new council members were sworn in at Coulee Dam last Monday. Mayor-elect Greg Wilder, and council members-elect Gayle Swagerty and Duane Johnson all took their oaths of office at a ceremony at town hall with U. S. Attorney Michael C. Ormsby, United States Attorney from the Eastern Division of Washington, and Dana Cleveland of the Office of the Reservation Attorney at the Colville Indian Agency, officiating. Over 60 persons showed up for the official swearing in process....
Four individuals with records of service to the community have been nominated for the annual volunteer of the year honor, and the community will now choose. It could be a difficult choice, but the one chosen will ultimately serve as an example, as do all nominees, of how individuals can follow an ideal, a philosophy of helping others. Jerry Birdwell, Heather Downs, Fern Blaylock and Jan Erickson each have passionate supporters who appreciate their good work in the community. Their letters nominating these individuals have all been published in...
Several people have taken the time to write out some great explanations as to why they believe their particular nominee deserves to be recognized as the 2013 volunteer of the year. We hope readers will take time to review those nominations and help select the honoree by writing us a note on their choice or going to the online poll at grandcoulee.com So much needs to be done in any community to keep it moving in a good direction. Volunteers who work for the good of all simply because it’s the right thing to do make progress possible. Honoring o...
We should expect inches of snow today, the National Weather Service says. Below is their winter weather alert issued this morning: . Urgent - Winter Weather message National Weather Service Spokane WA 432 AM PST Fri Dec 20 2013 ...Heavy Snow accumulations today and tonight... Upper Columbia Basin- including the following locations...Ritzville...Grand Coulee... Odessa...Wilbur...CouLee City 432 AM PST Fri Dec 20 2013 ...Winter Weather advisory in effect from 7 AM this morning to 7 PM PST this evening... The National Weather Service in Spokane...
The Star is seeking nominations for the annual Volunteer of the Year honor to be awarded to one individual who deserves to be acknowledged for their unselfish efforts to help others or the community. To nominate someone you think is deserving of the recognition, write a letter of nomination, detailing how your nominee volunteers. Include names and contact information of more people who know about your nominees activities. Send letters of nomination via email to star@grandcoulee.com with the subject line Volunteer of the Year. Or mail letters...
Hospital District Commissioner Jerry Kennedy said Monday that a commission meeting that had been scheduled for Dec. 18 has been rescheduled for Dec. 26. Kennedy said the commission discovered that a regular monthly meeting can only be rescheduled during a regularly scheduled meeting, but the Dec. 18 change had been made during a special meeting last month. The commissions bylaws require the meeting to take place on the next business day, which is Dec. 26. Kennedy, who sits on three committees formed to respond to community concerns, said those...
A small group of parents with concerns about bullying, buses and more met Monday night to discuss ways to help the local school district improve. But if response to a posting on The Star’s Facebook page is an indication, the issues are a hot button item with much of the community. The meeting at the Grand Coulee Fire Hall, facilitated by parent Heather Downs, drew eight including Downs, plus Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson, who attended to listen. The parents attending have a total of 15 children in the d...
This week's photos, including those not used, are up on our photo site. Here's a slide show you can share: 12-11-13 Star - Images by Scott Hunter...
Doctors and other health care providers at Coulee Medical Center have vowed to quit if the hospital’s chief executive officer doesn’t leave, one frustrated doctor finally told The Star last week. Dr. Jacob Chaffee said the situation is critical and that doctors would already have resigned if they hadn’t been convinced to stay. “He’s my fourth CEO,” Chaffee said of Chief Executive Officer Scott Graham. “I’ve never seen it like this. The morale throughout the hospital is horrible.” In an interview Wednesday, Chaffee said he resigned as chief medi...
A semi loaded with cement crashed at the bottom of the hill below Grand Coulee Dam on highway 155 Wednesday morning. The big rig pulling double tanker trailers, reportedly full of cement (the dry powder, not the mixed concrete) was headed north down the steep hill alongside the dam when it left the road to the right just below the Visitor Center, just as it entered the town of Coulee Dam. It overturned about 100 feet or less off the roadway after crossing the lawn and missing trees and power...
Only Wenatchee and East Wenatchee put more kids on NCW Youth Football fields than the local effort that fielded 60 kids from 8 to 12 years of age this year. "That's awesome, considering we are one of the smallest school districts in the league," noted Brandon White, who coached one of two bantam teams of 8- to 10-year-olds through the two-month season that ended Nov. 2. The young players practice hard and play hard in full uniforms that reflect their local high school's team colors and mascots,...
Directions in the management of Coulee Medical Center are aimed at providing for the long-term survival of the hospital, despite shorter-term difficulties, its top administrator and board chairman said this week. Chief Operating Officer Scott Graham and hospital district President Greg Behrens spoke with The Star Monday, seeking to add their perspective on the developing controversy that has filled recent board meetings with citizens concerned about everything from prices charged for services to cutbacks in staff scheduling. The hospital...
The top administrator at Coulee Medical Center narrowly avoided a vote of no confidence from his board Monday night, with a decision by the hospital district commission that clearly disappointed members of his staff. In a special meeting of the Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, Okanogan Hospital District 6 commission, members voted to form a committee to immediately intervene in a deteriorating relationship between the hospital’s top administrator, Scott Graham, and the medical staff, who had taken their own vote of no confidence in him Nov. 8. With t...
The Lake Roosevelt Raider basketball players will play against each other on Tuesday to raise funds to feed families for the holiday season. They're hoping to raise enough to feed 50 needy families, and they're challenging the community to match their contribution. All proceeds from the game - both from the gate and from concession sales - will go to the RAIDERS Reach Out effort. The game starts at 6 p.m. An earlier notice had stated the game started at 7. Bags to feed a family of four will...
A Bureau of Reclamation employee was critically injured Monday as a fire started at a switch in the John W. Keys III Pump Generating Plant. Daniel McCulloch, 54, was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with burn injuries. Another employee was treated locally for smoke inhalation. McCulloch, an operator, has worked for the bureau since 2008. He was listed in serious condition at Harborview's intensive care unit Tuesday, a medical center spokesperson said. All plant employees were...
Students and staff at Grand Coulee Dam Middle School were on pins and needles Friday morning, gathered for a special assembly with a secret subject ... Until they saw the TV camera and anchors. Cheers broke out as Dan Kleckner and Stephanie Vigil of KHQ TV entered the gym to bestow the Eastern Washington University Teacher of the Month honor on Jaci Gross. Gross had been nominated by student Taylor Holeman, who called her an important part of the school and a "great community member." Kleckner...
Among the most frustrating regulations that citizens run up against when trying to fight city hall are zoning laws. But some of the most obvious problems this community faces result from a lack of them, or of their past enforcement. Zones in a city define how portions of geography are to be used: homes here, businesses there, mixed use over here. Their purpose is rooted in a great American concept — that we can do what we want with our own property, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s. Zoning is supposed to help make that more...
A Bureau of Reclamation employee was flown to Harborview Medical Center with injuries after a fire Monday in the John W. Keys III Pump Generating Plant, which a bureau press release said is believed to have been caused by a switch gear failure. Another employee is being treated locally for smoke inhalation. All plant employees were evacuated and acrid smoke rose out of the pump generating plant around noon Monday as multiple fire trucks were staged outside and firefighters were seen entering...
A meeting called by three of four hospital district commissioners, cancelled by the commission president on Friday, will take place anyway, a commissioner said. President Greg Behrens cancelled the meeting on the advice of the district’s attorney, who said calling the meeting, while not already in a meeting, violated the state’s Open Public Meetings Act, which forbids a majority of such a governing body to convene without proper notice to all its members and to the news media. Kennedy disagrees, and said at that at least two members of the boa...
Three of four commissioners of the public hospital district that runs Coulee Medical Center have called a special meeting of the commission for Monday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. Special meetings must adhere to a pre-announced agenda. The agenda emailed along with the notice to The Star Thursday night is a full one, including several non-standard items. Those include the selection of "independent counsel," followed by an executive (closed) session, followed by personnel action, then a "Reorganization of...
An accident two miles north of Keller has resulted in a death, the Washington State Patrol stated this afternoon. A WSP press release indicates the single-car collision took place on SR21 at milepost 119 in Ferry County at 3:50 p.m. today (Nov. 14) and that the road is partially blocked. A second notice states that Colville Tribal Police will handle the incident with state assistance....
The public hospital district that runs Coulee Medical Center is aiming for zero next year. That is, a net gain of nothing on its bottom line, which would be an improvement over this year and last. Commissioners for Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, Okanogan Hospital District 6 approved a budget Oct. 30 that sets out that break-even goal on total patient revenues of $37.3 million, which gets cut to $22.9 million after adjustments for Medicare, Medicaid and insurance payers, charity care, bad debts and other deductions. The hospital is on track to lose...
• The Missoula Children’s Theater, which the local PTA paid to put on an impressive musical with local kids in less than a week, is a happy symptom of a depressing malady in society. We need more resources to go toward such humanities efforts, less for educational testing ad nauseam. • It will be interesting to see what a judge makes of the dispute between a local mechanic working out of his house and the city, which fined him for not having a license and practicing the trade in a residential zone. He claims his services have basically gone...
A tribal store in Ferry County has been cordoned off by police following a bomb threat, according to the Washington State Patrol. WSP says Ferry County officials advised them of the bomb threat, reported at 3:42 this afternoon. The Tribal Waters Store is at Barney’s Junction on U.S. 395, about 5 miles west of Kettle Falls on the west side of the Columbia River. Tribal Police, Ferry County Sheriff’s deputies and a WSP officer are at the scene and the road is blocked and the buildings have been evacuated....
A standing-room-only overflow crowed packed the monthly meeting last week of the hospital district commissioners who oversee Coulee Medical Center, speaking out on issues some feared are weakening the hospital's viability. Issues they wanted to address ranged from the name of the facility itself to the addition of administrative positions during a challenging financial period and staff cuts. But discontent centered around the decision to stop offering laboratory tests for low cost during...