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 local school levy was passing by a better margin after vote tallies continued Tuesday in the four county election offices involved, with more ballots yet to count in two counties Thursday and Friday. With a total vote so far tallied at 630-571 in favor, Grand Coulee Dam School District’s Proposition No. 1 was winning in all counties but Grant by 52.46% of the vote as of 6:13 p.m. Tuesday night. That 4.92% margin had slimmed down from 5.66% an hour earlier after Grant County counted another batch of ballots, bringing their uncounted e...
Electric City will change from hiring Grand Coulee’s police department to enforce law in its city to contracting with a city slightly further away — Coulee Dam — after reviewing proposals from both departments for future police services. Details are still being smoothed out following a Monday city council meeting in Coulee Dam in which council members asked for clarifications, but their consensus was to accept the agreement in principle after clarifications were made. The deal will require Coulee Dam’s two-man department to double personn...
School board members Monday night accepted new “tuition agreements” between districts that have already been doing for decades what the new contracts will make legal, in the eyes of federal regulators. Grand Coulee Dam School District directors voted to OK the so-called “tuition” pacts with Nespelem and Keller school districts, whose students eventually attend junior high and high school in Coulee Dam, bringing with them federal “Impact Aid” funds to help pay for it. Because those schools get paid at a higher rate than the Coulee Dam distric...
The school levy was barely passing Tuesday night by a margin of just 1.38% of the 866 votes counted so far. The measure, which asked to replace the Grand Coulee Dam School District's current levies with one at half the combined rate of expiring levies, had slipped into the fail bracket by the slimmest of margins, two to five votes, in each of the four counties involved except Douglas, where it held a 23-vote favorable margin. Ballots could be postmarked by Tuesday, or inserted in a ballot drop...
Utility line crews in Okanogan County were still fixing outages from Monday's storm late Monday afternoon. In the immediate Grand Coulee Dam area, only a few flakes fluttered here and there, but a bit north it was a different story. Okanogan County reported at 10:38 a.m. Monday that electric utilities were experiencing small outages around the county, including Nespelem Valley Electric Cooperative. "It was the heavy, wet snow that was the culprit," NVEC General Manager Kevin Black said Tuesday as his linemen were finishing repairs near Bridgepo...
An Electric City couple pressed the city council Tuesday to start a discussion on the in-town deer population, which they said is now increasing and becoming a problem. Robbin and Carol Boyce said they’ve lived in the area since 1989 but never had problems with deer before 2010, and now it’s getting worse. Carol Boyce described problems with deer now ranging from her apparently tasty forsytvuhia bushes that are “just about toast” to an overly familiar buck who spooked her visiting adult granddaughter by coming too close behind her in the yar...
Lake Roosevelt High School postseason sports came to an end Friday night when the Raiders lost to Liberty High School's Lancers at Spangle, 15-6. That loss came a day after the Lady Raider volleyball team lost in Omak in their bid to advance past the District 6 semifinals in three sets to Manson on Thursday and in three sets to Okanogan on Saturday afternoon. They finished the season with a 10-8 record overall, 8-6 in league. Raider Coach Bubba Egbert was disappointed not to get to advance this...
A federal funding problem that could have cost the Grand Coulee Dam School District millions in future years, and several just past, has apparently been averted, Nespelem School District Superintendent Effie Dean said Monday. Federal authorities reviewing a practice the two districts have used for decades to share federal Impact Aid took exception to it last spring. The two districts, since 1995, have operated under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that some of the money from the federal Impact Aid program coming into Nespelem would be...
A tragedy that unfolded in Keller Thursday quickly spread to Nespelem as police searched through the night for suspects in the killing of two people and the shooting of a police officer in Keller. As police from agencies far and near answered a call not heard by residents listening to scanners for clues about what was happening, Colville Tribal Emergency Services posted a warning on Facebook about 7 p.m. asking Nespelem residents to stay in their homes. The mayor also issued that plea and added...
The Colville Tribes and top federal officials of the Environmental Protection Agency met Tuesday to discuss and announce proposed changes to air quality regulations that affect some Indian reservations, including the Colville Reservation. The Federal Air Rules for Reservations (FARR) apply to all residents and businesses on or within 39 reservations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation hosted the EPA's deputy administrator, Janet McCabe, and...
Police were not giving out any information tonight as officers from various agencies arrived from far away to diverge on Nespelem, where tribal police were searching for an active shooter. Colville Tribal Emergency Services posted a warning on Facebook about 7 p.m., asking Nespelem residents to stay in their homes. The mayor also issued that plea and added that a car chase was happening with someone shooting at police. Many commenters on Facebook made statements on social media giving other... Full story
Maybe she thought she could trust me, or maybe she just really needed to tell someone right then. We were both about 10, and our conversation then sheds light for me on a minor item in today’s report from the Elmer City Council meeting last week. She’d come over to our house with her parents, who were friends with my parents. Sally and I didn’t know each other well, but got along OK. She was with me when I fell off the cliff, but that will come a little later on in this story. This is about her, and all of us. We lived at the foot of Marshal Gr...
The reduced amount elected school board directors at the Grand Coulee Dam School District are seeking in the upcoming levy should be an easy yes for voters. Sensitive to the times we’re in and emerging from, the board changed course in July after getting feedback on an earlier proposal. In essence, they cut their ask in half. That doesn’t mean the needs are fewer, but it does show there’s flexibility in meeting long-term needs for maintenance and upgrades. Unless your property was assessed this year at more than twice what it was before (high...
After a nice break for a couple weeks, the infection control nurse at Coulee Medical Center had to get back in the saddle the third week in September with three employees out with Covid-19. And as of Monday night, reported CEO Ramona Hicks to the hospital district board, five more employees were isolating due to exposure and 10 more were testing for it. The hospital has lost 710 working days among staff, due to the covid pandemic. Covid-19 isn’t going anywhere, officials say, but there are still precautions to take to prevent yourself, and o...
The wastewater treatment plant that takes care of all the sewage from Grand Coulee and Electric City has been in operation continually since 1985, treating 127 gallons a minute on average. The two cities have not grown out of it capacity-wise, but it’s “aging out” and needs an update, according to consulting engineering firm Gray and Osborne, which is working on a plan to update for the next 20 years. “What the guys are largely running up against is that … some of the equipment is just no longer made,” Gray and Osborne Engineer Nancy Wetch...
People in Nespelem opened up a new ball field Friday, complete with dugouts, fencing all around, bleachers, a tall backstop, and synthetic turf. The baseball/softball field can also be used for other activities, such as soccer and flag football. To underscore that point, after speeches concluded, the first game played was a game of kickball with players of all ages. Little bits of black rubber rose like heavy dust behind runners, then falling immediately back below the fabric that serves as the...
It was constructed nearly three years ago, but people behind putting up an informative kiosk at North Dam Park, delayed by circumstances, decided to hold a ceremony to officially open it last Saturday. The kiosk tells historical information about the area, and gives overviews of some of its features. Washington State Parks' Coulee Corridor Area Manager Dennis Felton and board member Birdie Hensley were joined by longtime corridor president Tim Alling, who cut the ribbon on the basalt...
Rep. Dan Newhouse’s call on this page for the U.S. Senate to pass his Farm Workforce Modernization Act repeats his longtime call for reform, and it’s by most accounts a reasonable and necessary legislation for all the reasons he states in his column on this page. There are factors he doesn’t mention that you might want to know, and I have one question. First, not everyone agrees the bill is a good one. Some farm workers organizations say it would cause hardships on their constituent population and even allow pitting them against one anoth...
The wildfire smoke in the air, which may come from this or that fire depending on which way the wind is blowing, is unpleasant and unhealthy to breathe, and has an effect on local events. Grand Coulee Dam School District leaders discussed air quality at their board meeting on Sept. 12 when Superintendent Paul Turner discussed www.purpleair.com, showing how sensors installed at volunteer locations measure air quality. Local sensors on the network include one south of Osborn Bay, one near Spring Canyon, one in downtown Grand Coulee, another in ea...
A Nespelem man and two women from Omak ran into trouble and fruit crates Monday evening before Okanogan County Sheriff's deputies arrested them on several charges, the sheriff said. When a deputy tried to pull over a Ford F-250 in connection with thefts from a Tonasket retail store, the driver wouldn't stop, reached a dead end, then turned and tried to run into the deputy's vehicle, Sheriff Tony Hawley said in a press release. "Deputy Ray was able to accelerate and swerve away to narrowly avoid...
The recent suggestion that the area consider forming an emergency medical services district is a good one and could lead to a better service for everyone in the area when help is needed. Local leaders should consider it carefully, openly, and with open minds. They should also be mindful that at its core, the idea may be another attempt at an end run around a fundamental problem this community has always had but never faced constructively: lack of unity, even artificially induced disunity. An EMS district could be a great solution if local fire...
When the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services flew from Washington, D.C. to Seattle a couple weeks ago on a fact-finding mission, the CEO of Coulee Medical Center was on hand to give her some. Like the fact that in 2019, only fog or wildland fires could stop the transfer of a patient to another hospital for needed care, and that was rare. Now it happens from three to 10 times a week, and not because anyone is overrun with Covid-19 patients. Chief Executive Officer Ramona Hicks...
President Joe Biden likes to promote “union jobs” whenever he can, recognizing the tremendous contribution the union movement made in American history in the last century. This century, it’s less clear cut, as union numbers were decimated in most industries over recent decades, but it’s still worth recognizing and pondering. Today, some argue that with the emergence of artificial intelligence and robotics coming on, the role of human workers is actually somewhat questionable. Note that China is planning a large new hydroelectric dam — to be...
A computer system shut down the water system supplying Coulee Dam residents with drinking water sometime last weekend, but nobody knew it until pressures dropped low enough Monday morning. City Superintendent Mike Steffens said a computer programmer worked on restoring the system Monday morning, but the city crew still had to manually operate different valves across the system to equalize pressure and restore functionality. At Steffens' urging, the city purchased a new computer system to replace...
A neat trick in American politics is taking advantage of our collective unwillingness to really pay attention to what’s being said. So, when they talk about a real problem, attributing it or at least insinuating it’s due to some nefarious plot or stupidity by the other side, we nod our heads and sleepily agree when in the next sentence they offer a solution that is completely unrelated but liked by their own side. They’re relying on us to be long-blinking right past the propaganda, especially in the dog days of summer. That’s like naming a colu...