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 city of Grand Coulee will be able to fix a lot of dilapidated sewer lines with funding from the state of Washington’s Public Works Board for $4 million, the board said in a press release Monday. The city’s sewer improvements project will replace or rehabilitate approximately 10,200 linear feet of deteriorating sewer mains and manholes, PWB said. Planning for the project has already been started while the city engineer has been working with city leaders on updating its wastewater treatment plant, a job that will cost more than $10 mil...
The Raider football team played the closest thing they've had to a home game so far this season on Saturday in an exhibition game against ACH at the Warrior's Brickhouse Athletic Field in a version of football for which they had one day to prepare. Almira Coulee Hartline, a 1B team, plays 8-man ball; the 2B Raiders play 11-man, which may not sound too different. The game proved otherwise, leaving a 92-44 ACH imprint on the Raiders' backsides. The game replaced a canceled Soap Lake home game for...
The Raider varsity football team will have a game this week after all. It starts at 5 p.m. Saturday in Coulee City against ACH. A Friday game scheduled against Soap Lake was canceled due to a lack of eligible players at Soap Lake, Athletic Director Casey Brewster told the school board Monday night, not long after learning of the cancellation. He was trying to fill the slot, for what had been a home game for the Raiders, by Wednesday but apparently was unable to do so. Lake Roosevelt and Soap... Full story
The town of Coulee Dam gained its fifth police officer, completing the department last week. Following his graduation from the Washington State Police Academy, Phillip Ogren was sworn in as an officer Sept. 15 and took the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor in a brief ceremony and reception at the Town Hall Ballroom. Chief Paul Bowden administered the oath of office. City officials, and Ogren's family and friends attended. Coulee Dam's police department also provides policing services for Electric...
The Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation have been planning on launching fast fiber-optic internet access, including for Elmer City and Coulee Dam. Elmer City’s town council at its last meeting didn’t have objections to a plan for the buildout, including adding some utility poles in town. The town took plans for review and will likely be ready to sign a franchise agreement with the tribes at the October council meeting. That likelihood is a turnaround from a few months ago, when council and staff took exception to a plan presented wit...
Several local businesses came together to arrange for weekend snacks and meals for certain local kids who might otherwise go hungrier over the weekend. A Second Harvest van rolled up to Lake Roosevelt Elementary School Thursday with about a month's worth of supplies for feeding 55 kids who can use a little extra help on the weekends. The delivery was the start of Second Harvest's Bite2Go program that partners up local donors with school staff who know which students would seem to benefit from...
The city council in Grand Coulee voted Tuesday to get started adopting a new ordinance intended to encourage commercial property owners to use their property, clean it up or sell it. Councilmember Tom Poplawski said he’s had no contacts from the owners of what he estimated were 10-15 local properties that are deteriorating instead of housing some business. Poplawski in July had brought to council examples of similar programs in other cities, including an actual ordinance from Medical Lake. A study undertaken in Blaine, Washington was also inclu...
by Scott Hunter The driver of a late model car left Spring Canyon Road after apparently losing control Saturday afternoon about 3, landing in dry brush and starting a fire. The crash happened right in front of a home at 4550 Spring Canyon Road. Firefighters got there quickly, according to Coulee Dam Police Officer Josh Watkins, who was at the scene for traffic control. No injuries were reported, other than financial. Only a metal hulk was left of the apparently late model car. Firefighters...
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...