News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Six local municipalities will receive nearly $3.9 million in funding help for street projects in 2024, having been selected by the state Transportation Improvement Board, the agency announced this week. Coulee Dam will get more than $1 million for two projects: $546,185 will go for chip sealing many streets in the city. Another $486,406 will go to wheelchair ramp upgrades in multiple locations. Electric City will get $155,000 for street maintenance. Grand Coulee will get $126,875 for Spokane Way improvements from Alcan Road...
Ken Stanger is retiring from the school board after 14 years and received official thanks for his service at Monday night's meeting. Rich Black, president of the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors, presented Stanger with a framed letter of commendation Monday night at their regular meeting. "Your service has had a lasting, positive impact on the local community, the Grand Coulee Dam School District staff, the parents of district students, and most...
A plan to aid the police department in Grand Coulee was awarded a large federal grant that may help pay for a school resource officer, training, community engagement, and more. It’s the plan that officer Matt Gilbert pitched to his city council last week after learning the Justice Department grant he’d applied for last May had actually been awarded, the same plan he put forth to the Grand Coulee Dam School District board Nov. 13, a plan for which they would each have to significantly adjust their budgets. Gilbert told bot...
She was just filling in this season, but Lake Roosevelt's Lady Raider volleyball team head coach, Kasey Garvin, was honored as "Coach of the Year" in that sport among Central Washington B League schools. No newcomer, Garvin has previously coached the sport she once took part in as a Raider athlete but had not planned to take the lead this year until she was tapped when last year's head coach needed to take a time out. Raider varsity volleyball players joining her in the list...
A local chef approached the school board last week about the possibility of using a school classroom to teach cooking classes to the public for a fee if it wouldn’t go against a district policy. Patty Oliver, owner of PK’s Culinary, told Grand Coulee Dam School District directors she would start with one-day cooking workshops on “endless topics,” including, for example, cooking pastas, sauces, sushi, appetizers and more. “I’m just looking for a space to do it,” she said, and teacher Susan Duclos’ room at the school is the b...
A police officer pitched to the school board the idea of writing grants to get a “resource officer” into Lake Roosevelt Schools. Matt Gilbert, an officer with the Grand Coulee Police Department, spoke to the Grand Coulee Dam School District directors Nov. 13 after having met with Superintendent Rod Broadnax earlier. Gilbert said he’d actually written a grant application earlier that could have paid for new locks the board had just learned, in previous presentation that night, would cost the district about $28,000. “We were de...
Electric City’s council last week raised questions and concerns about the funding and staffing of the only ambulance service for the area. The service is run by the city of Grand Coulee’s volunteer fire department, which depends on voluntary staffers responding to calls. The city council’s attention was drawn to the question a month earlier when Grand Coulee City Councilmember Tom Poplawski visited to ask Electric City to consider contributing toward the costs of calls that Grand Coulee can’t bill for because it doesn’t...
A local lending business is looking for a larger space to operate and is eyeing Coulee Dam’s “Community Building” as a future possibility. Jordan Ruiz, the newly appointed executive director of the Northwest Native Development Fund approached the city last week about the building that houses, a closed movie theater, an operating bowling alley, the Rio Grande restaurant, and the city’s fire department. She said NNDF wouldn’t need any of the occupied spaces but would like to explore altering the space the theater used to o...
In local elections Tuesday, Electric City voters demonstrated a preference for change, favoring two newcomers over one current and one former city council member, and giving another current councilman a fairly close race, with two of the three Grand Coulee Police officers who ran for council poised to take office. Incumbent Councilmember Brian Buche appears to have survived a challenge from Thomas Levi Johnson for council position 3 by a vote of 117 to 89 or 57-43%. But Matt Gilbert clearly won the race for position 4 seat...
The Raiders ended their football season with a drubbing at the hands of Northwest Christian in the District 6/7 Crossover game at Riverside High School in Chattaroy Friday night. The Crusaders (10-1) took down the Raiders 76-14, ending the season for Lake Roosevelt with a 5-5 win-loss record overall. Lake Roosevelt's team scored two touchdowns in the first quarter, one on Francis Louie's long run after he had the presence of mind to pick up a still-live ball near the end of a...
The Lady Raiders lost their last volleyball game of the season in three sets Saturday to the Lind-Ritzville-Sprague Broncos at Mead High School in Spokane. The teams met in a District 6/7 2B Volleyball Crossover game in which the Broncos prevailed in three sets 25-14, 25-14, 25-9, sending them to the state tournament this coming weekend in Yakima. Lake Roosevelt finished the season with a 9-5 win-loss record in the Central Washington B League, 10-9 overall....
Caden Portch competed at the state cross country meet at the Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco last Saturday, turning in his best time ever in the 5,000-meter race. The sophomore Lake Roosevelt Raider completed the course in 18 minutes, 13.3 seconds, a time he fairly steadily whittled down all season from a high of 21:56.9 in Manson on Sept. 16. when he finished 21st. Two weeks later, he took the top honors at Tonasket in 19:35.8, then trimmed his time to 18:58.0 in Omak a...
Inside this issue of The Star and inside Lake Roosevelt Schools this week are two things designed to help you remember what Veterans Day is all about. And if that were not enough, how about adding a good breakfast. At Lake Roosevelt Schools this Thursday, the public is invited to a special assembly in honor of veterans at 9 a.m. in the gym. The assembly both honors the veterans and impresses on students the importance of understanding their commitment to the country. At the annual assembly students personally honor attending...
Inside this issue of The Star and inside Lake Roosevelt Schools this week are two things designed to help you remember what Veterans Day is all about. And if that were not enough, how about adding a good breakfast. At Lake Roosevelt Schools this Thursday, the public is invited to a special assembly in honor of veterans at 9 a.m. in the gym. The assembly both honors the veterans and impresses on students the importance of understanding their commitment to the country. At the...
The Raiders beat the Tigers in Tonasket Friday 34-14, in their last North Central 2B League game of the season. “We had a good night throwing the football and a great defensive effort to get the win,” Raider Head Coach Geary Oliver said. The Raiders gained 190 yards in the air, 166 on the ground. They made 41 tackles in the game. “We played a tough Tonasket team that is better than their record would indicate,” Oliver said, noting two Tiger losses were to 1A teams and two more were to a couple of the best of 2B teams in the s...
The Raider girls beat Liberty Bell in their first District 6 playoff game Saturday at Omak High School 3-0, but lost three hours later to Okanogan in three sets. Then on Tuesday, Halloween night, at 6 p.m., Lake Roosevelt met the Bears in the Omak gym, this time falling 1-3 to Brewster and taking fourth place in District 6. Now it's time to broaden the competition. LR's girls will move on to the District 6/7 2B Volleyball Crossover Saturday, Nov. 4 at Mead High School in...
If you live in Grant County and power your home with Grant PUD electricity, you pay below the utility’s cost to produce it, and discussions are underway now on how to gradually increase rates to get back on track toward “target goal posts” after a four-year hiatus. Grant PUD commissioners told an audience in their packed boardroom Oct. 24 that their ongoing “discussion over how to set electric rates and arrive at a rate increase for 2024 will take into account all the county’s economic sectors and ensure ‘core customers...
Coulee Dam Police Chief Paul Bowden briefed the city council last week on a couple possibilities for expanding the kinds of services his agency can provide. They include connected cameras that read license plates, and also trained police dogs that can search for drugs. Bowden would like to consider the purchase of four cameras, two for Coulee Dam , two for Electric City, which his department serves, to mount and record license plates as they come through town. He said he was considering applying for an available grant to pay...
Birdie Hensley is running for Electric City Council to find out what’s going on, and to fix some earlier mistakes. “I just think if you’re in the community, you should be involved,” she said. “And if you’re not on city council, you don’t find anything out about the city.” She’s been on council before, when the council made new rules on development requirements for curbs and sidewalks. That was during a time when the city annexed land with an eye on possible expansion to the south. Now she sees that push had some unintended c...
Blake Martin thinks the Electric City Council has a relationship problem with its citizens. If he were to win the election for a seat at that table, he could help change that, he says. "I don't feel like community concerns are being heard and responded to as they should be," he said. "I feel as there is a current disconnect there between our elected city officials and the general public." Although Martin said he is a fan of the community meetings the city has been having,...
The Raider volleyball team scored two wins this week to put them third in the Central Washington 2B League with a 9-5 win-loss record. The Lake Roosevelt girls put away the Brewster Bears Oct. 19 in three sets on LR's home court on senior night, a label that applies to two-thirds of the varsity team. LR bested Brewster 25-23, 26-24, 25-21, with displays of discipline and versatility. Precision setting by Shy Marchand preceded several Carly Neddo kills like clockwork, a...
Levi Johnson sees public safety as the most pressing issue facing Electric City. So do his fellow officers. Johnson is a police officer in Grand Coulee, as are two other candidates running against incumbents for Electric City council seats. Johnson, who joined the Grand Coulee Police Department in 2015, says that's no accident. When the Electric City Council decided to change its police services contractor, choosing Coulee Dam over Grand Coulee last year, they took notice. "I...
Brian Buche sees himself as a voice for the community. Running for re-election to the Electric City Council seat he's held since 2020, full-time UPS driver and now part-time farmer says he takes pride in talking one-on-one with people. "Anybody can approach me and tell me what it is they think or they don't like or whatever," he said. "I'm an open book." Elected when council members at the time were taking considerable heat for some controversial projects, Buche said...
Tension simmered last week during a discussion of what staffing direction Grand Coulee will ultimately take in staffing its wastewater treatment plant. Council members Anita Eylar and Ruth Dalton pressed others on which direction the council was leaning: filling the need with the city’s own employees or continuing to contract it out. The latter was the course the council took earlier this year, but only on an emergency basis. The city’s current contract with a union allows for contracting out city jobs in an emergency onl...
Lake Roosevelt Schools took an unplanned day off Monday after the district learned on Friday it would not have a school nurse. Superintendent Rod Broadnax said he learned as he was out of town Friday that the nurse who had been supplied to the schools for two days a week by the local hospital district would no longer be available. Registered nurses are in short supply in Washington state, and Coulee Medical Center spends large sums to bring in temporary nurses, as do many, if not most, hospitals. Broadnax said Monday night...
