News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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.... Full story
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... Full story
• 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... Full story
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.... Full story
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... Full story
Tribal police are investigating the death of a 29-year-old woman whose body was found in Nespelem, just before 5 p.m. Oct. 31. Colville Tribal Police Chief Cory Orr said in a press release that the woman had been identified at Maria Victoria Sanchez, born May 31, 1984. Orr said police are currently investigating "the cause and circumstances surrounding the female body" and that no other information would be released until after a medical examination scheduled for Sunday. No updates were available as of deadline Tuesday. Community sources,... Full story
If citizen involvement is a key ingredient in the health of a community, this one should feel pretty good about itself. The upside of people complaining about what they think is going wrong is that they care and they act as caring citizens should: they complain. This week we feature stories that reflect citizen concerns: local political races for 11 contested seats because people cared enough to want to serve; and folks confronting the hospital district commission on issues that matter to them. As uncomfortable as such controversy can make... Full story
NESPELEM (Nov. 1) — Tribal police are investigating the death of a 29-year-old woman whose body was found in Nespelem, just before 5 p.m. Oct. 31. Colville Tribal Police Chief Cory Orr said in press release that the woman had been identified as Maria Victoria Sanchez, born May 31, 1984. Orr said police are currently investigating "the cause and circumstances surrounding the female body" and that no other information would be released until after a medical examination scheduled for Sunday. C... Full story
Residents of Coulee Dam reported hearing, and feeling, a loud explosion coming from Grand Coulee Dam Wednesday afternoon. It was basically man-made thunder. Workers getting ready to test a generator under repair in the left powerhouse opened a gate to the penstock that flows water from behind the dam to the turbine that powers G-8, the generator under repair, explained Public Affairs Officer Lynne Brougher. Excess water in that process overflows through a bypass valve and out onto the face of the dam through a large tube that opens onto the... Full story
Coulee Medical Center’s governing commissioners passed a resolution Friday night that sets out Public Hospital District 6’s typical meeting agenda and policies for handling unruly meetings. Resolution 815 adopts normal agendas for regular and special meetings, essentially identical to what the commission has used for years. A section on public comments restricts them to the end of the meeting agenda, allotting three minutes per speaker and other rules, including those set for the removal of “individuals who interrupt the orderly conduct of an... Full story
Hospital District 6 commissioners will meet in a special session Friday night to discuss, in a closed session, to discuss legal matters with their attorney and to consider an employee’s performance. Following the the closed executive session, the commission meetings agenda finishes with “Board Agenda/Order of Business Policy”. By state law, special meetings must adhere to the announced agenda, which must be delivered in writing to each board member and relevant news media 24 hours in advance of the meeting. The announcement was emailed to Th... Full story
This week The Star presents a candidates’ forum, in which we publish the responses of candidates for public office to questions we emailed to each. Not all responded, but many of the candidates seeking voter approval for 11 contested local offices sent in their thoughts to answer the questions posed. Below is the text of the email we sent. Their answers follow inside this issue. Dear Candidate, As a candidate for a contested local public office, you are the subject of an important community focus for the next few weeks — the upcoming election.... Full story
Our diverse region and readership have decisions to make. We hope this week’s Local Candidates Forum provides some help for voters who open their mail-in ballots to cast decisions on races they may not have even realized were occurring. Readers should know that candidates were notified that we wanted them to answer three simple questions, but only via an email and a front-page article in last week’s paper. If you don’t see a reply from them this week, there could be several reasons for that, including that they’ve been away and didn’t... Full story
The Star will publish next week responses to questions recently posed to candidates for local office. Star readers will decide among 22 candidates in 11 local races this year. We sent each candidate an email asking for their responses to a set of questions. If no email address was provided on their candidate declaration on file with the county, we placed a phone call to them. Voters will soon receive their mail-in ballots for the election that concludes Nov. 5.... Full story
Bob Hinkey spends a lot of time, energy and money making Halloween a kick for all those brave enough to trick or treat at his Coulee Dam home. We found him busy Saturday afternoon with preparations for this year's spectacle....
Last Friday, eighth graders at Nespelem Elementary School gained something in common with students in far-flung school districts around the continent intent on making sure students are prepared for the future that’s already here. Each Nespelem eighth grader received a new laptop computer to use for all their school work. While many “one-to-one” districts are opting for cheaper tablet computers (the Los Angeles Unified School District just launched a $1 billion program), the Nespelem Schoo... Full story
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... Full story