News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Coulee Dam is preparing for what organizers say will be its biggest Festival of America yet, stretching to two and a half days and expected to draw between 20,000 and 25,000 visitors. Speaking to the Coulee Dam Town Council Wednesday, Chamber representative Krystal Fillis said last year’s oneday festival drew about 15,000 people. But with the Fourth of July falling on Saturday this year, the decision was made to expand after securing bigger-name entertainment and additional support. The festival will run Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with T...
A group of volunteers organized by Reel Recreation responded Saturday to their call to help clean up the area around Osborn Bay, where garbage has been piling up over time. The effort resulted in several trailers full of junk picked up from the area. "Thank you to everyone who showed up and helped us clean up Osborn Bay - this is what community looks like," Reel Rec posted in a video on Facebook. President Nic Alexander noted the help and equipment use of Clay Hearne, Boutain Equipment Rentals,...
A local couple says they are nearly ready to sign a lease and begin work to reopen the former theater space in Coulee Dam as a combined movie house and creative media center. Appearing before the Coulee Dam Town Council, Ben and Naomi Dupris reported that they have “got our loans kind of taken care of” and have some key people on board to help in the venture. The Dupris have been interested in the theater for a long time, and had spoken at council a few months ago about their interest, saying they some things to work out before moving ahe...
From the people who are adopting the Gerkhe Windmills for restoration to those volunteers who picked up a ton of trash around Osborn Bay this weekend, or those dedicated folks working to bring about assisted living homes, it seems there is no shortage of people eager to make this a better place. That goes for those preparing to put on events, too, whether it’s fixing up the Colorama Rodeo grounds, or working to boost the next Festival of America with extra oomph for America’s 250th birthday. It just feels like we’re all leaning toward somet...
The Lake Roosevelt Raiders dropped both games of a doubleheader to Okanogan on Saturday, falling 13-0 in the opener and 14-4 in the second game. In Game 1, Okanogan took control early and never let up, scoring four runs in the first inning and pulling away for a 13-0 victory. The Bulldogs added a run in the second and broke the game open with a seven-run fourth inning. Lake Roosevelt was limited to just two hits in the contest, with Hoss Lauseng and catcher J. Zaugg each recording a hit....
The Lake Roosevelt Raiders wasted no time getting the bats going Monday, erupting for 14 runs in the first inning and cruising to a 23-4 win over Liberty Bell in a fastpitch matchup. Lake Roosevelt sent 18 batters to the plate in the opening frame, capitalizing on patience at the plate and timely hitting to build a lead it never relinquished. The Raiders added nine more runs over the next two innings to end the game early. “We capitalized on our base running and stole base after base,” Coach Khani Priest said. Cambry Brown sparked the off...
Several people were honored Thursday as the chamber of commerce threw a bash to hand out community awards and celebrate its own 90th birthday, with cake. Gathered at the Siam Palace for the annual awards dinner, kudos went out for the Nonprofit of Year, the Business of the Year, the Start-Up of the Year, and the Legacy of the Year. It was that last one that had some eyes a little wet. The Legacy of the Year award was presented posthumously to Kachane Piturachsatit via his son, Mark, who now owns...
The job of taking care of North Dam Park was awarded to Vital Essentials last week. The Coulee Area Park and Recreation District received three bids on the job. Vital Essentials got the bid for $30,000 for 2026. The work will essentially last from mid-March to mid-November and includes mowing lawns, including on two softball fields, trimming grass and weeds, spraying for weeds, emptying trash cans, general cleanup, and prepping the area for festivals, and tree maintenance. The company is owned by John Carson, a local man who grew up in the...
Lake Roosevelt Schools will lose at least six teachers, and up to eight, after this school year to a reduction in force (RIF) authorized by the school board Monday night following reports and deliberations on how the school district “got here” and what the way forward will be. Unlike the federal government, school districts must run on a balanced budget, so when revenue falls, so must expenses, most of which is in salaries and benefits mandated by the state, but not necessarily paid for by it. The deficit before adjustments are made is pro...
Elmer City leaders Thursday heard their consulting engineer give a rough estimate of $8 million to build an evaporative lagoon system to treat their sewage instead of sending it to Coulee Dam's new facility. Nancy Wetch, of Gray and Osborn, estimated the overall cost at around $8 million, and the cost of all the planning involved could be as high as all the funding available to Elmer City through the state Public Works Board - $800,000, half of it in grant, half loan. A separate facility plan...
Electric City officials are waiting for a formal proposal from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation after an initial discussion about a possible interlocal agreement for permitting and inspections at the tribal golf course area. Mayor Blake Martin reported to the council March 10 that he and another city representative met with tribal officials at the golf course in early March. In that meeting, the Tribes expressed interest in an arrangement that would allow them to issue their own permits and conduct their own inspections for...
Solveigh Chaffee has been trying to buy the dilapidated building next to her Voltage Coffee House for 10 years. Tuesday night she asked Grand Coulee's City Council to reject a bid to tear it down that would cost much more than it's worth, likely leading to more liens against it. Instead, Chaffee said she would like to bid on the property at auction when the county puts it up for sale for overdue taxes. It was once a little museum that showed people the work of Constantine Vlachos, a local invent...
The height differential was obvious from the start, but it didn't matter. Thursday night's Seniors vs Staff Basketball Game at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High gym was more about having fun while beating the other team than just beating them. The fundraiser for the senior class drew lots of community support and winded their teachers and coaches several times, although staff coach Brad Oliver kept his team rotated and fairly fresh for a bunch of old folks. The first quarter turned out to indicate the...
One person visited with the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board on Monday regarding district plans for handling their budget emergency. "After reading some of the letters to the editor in The Star this week, I wanted to come and just kind of get an understanding from the board as to what cuts are being made and why," Sam Halvorsen said. Halvorsen visited on a day the board had just put off a discussion on an upcoming emergency budget resolution, opting to discuss it at a "workshop" on...
All four local towns are suing each other. You could be forgiven if you didn’t know this; the biggest beef between them involves the spectacularly uninteresting subjects of their shared sewage treatment plants, which are spectacularly expensive by your and my standards. Which is sad, because that’s who has to pay for them. That seems obviously unavoidable, as sewer plants are one thing we don’t want to do without. But making them even more expensive than they already are by deciding to sue each other over disagreements regarding them just rubs...
After a season that may have started out with more modest ambitions, the Lady Raiders competed in the WIAA State 2B Girls' Basketball Tournament at The Arena in Spokane March 4, where they played the Ducks, of Toutle Lake, staying ahead through halftime, outscoring them five points, 21-16. Toutle Lake took off in the third quarter, however, holding LR to 10 points while adding 26 to their own score for a 42-31 advantage going into the fourth. The Raiders beat them back by only a point after...
The geologist Nick Zentner "popped up" at Dry Falls State Park Visitor Center last Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m. in one of his "pop up" events, where the popular prof just shows up to talk with the geologically curious. That was a curiosity he piqued by putting forth a new old idea about the formation of the Grand Coulee. An estimated 120-plus people showed up to the cliff-top venue, where Zentner lectured with his back to the 400-foot chasm and promised not to step backward. Zentner, the "Science...
Coulee Dam is hoping to finally get the grant funding it applied for to replace over 30 old maple trees removed during a sidewalk replacement project in 2023. The city applied for a grant, which was awarded in February of 2024 for over $71,000 to do the work. The money comes through the state Dept. of Natural Resources with federal funds awarded to the state-managed program. City Clerk Stefani Bowden told the city council Feb. 26 that a federal funding freeze in February of 2025 kept the project from moving forward. as funding was held up kept...
If you'd told Head Coach Jeremy Crollard during the Lady Raiders' first 10 games of the season that they'd being going to state this year, he'd have thought you were crazy. But the young team that started out less than stellar became a strong, competitive unit that battled in the last half of the regular season, and on Saturday in Wenatchee vanquished the Orcas Island Vikings 66-42 to survive the opening round of WIAA's 2026 2B Girls State Basketball Tournament. Freshman Paisley Fury-Smith led i...
A proposed reduction in high school secretary hours has become a flash point in the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s broader struggle to close a mounting budget gap, with staff warning of strained student support and administrators describing a years-long squeeze of rising costs and falling enrollment. High school secretary Tammy Norris told the school board that trimming one secretary position from 9 to 7.5 hours a day is more than a simple line-item cut. “In a district our size, there is no extra, there is no cushion,” Norris said during th...
The geologist Nick Zentner will be at Dry Falls State Park Visitor Center this coming Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m. in one of his "pop up" events, where the popular prof just shows up to talk with the geologically curious. If you're me, that sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon. (If you're new here, this is one of the most interesting geological areas on the planet.) Zentner, the "Science Outreach and Education Coordinator" at Central Washington University, shares his knowledge in entertaining... Full story
Grand Coulee’s recently adopted Ordinance 1105 is headed back to committee after city officials concluded they need clearer direction on how to enforce it and how quickly property owners must comply. The council briefly revisited the ordinance near the end of its Feb. 17 meeting, focusing not on whether to keep it, but how to implement it. ClerkTreasurer Lorna Pearce told council members that as staff prepared notification letters to business and property owners, several unanswered questions emerged. Chief among them: Who is the designated o...
The Lady Raiders will head to the first round of state Saturday, after vanquishing Mabton in the game for third or fourth in District 5 last weekend. The Vikings (13-11) are the top team in the Eastern Washington Athletic Conference East, but the Lady Raiders (14-10) took them down in East Wenatchee last Saturday, 61-37. Despite that score, Lake Roosevelt took some time catching up after Mabton's early five-point lead and did not pull decisively ahead until late third quarter. which ended for...
If you’ve ever dealt with a construction project, you may realize the near certainty of finding more problems than you planned for. Now apply that concept to an industrial plant built decades ago. The Grand Coulee City Council on Feb. 17 approved a significant electrical upgrade at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and advanced several related engineering agreements with Gray & Osborne, Inc., moves aimed at improving safety, reliability, and longterm compliance at the regional facility. The most expensive of the actions was a roughly $24...
Facing a steep jump in sewer treatment costs, the Elmer City Council voted last week to shift its utility rates, raising sewer charges while cutting water rates in an effort to limit the impact on residents. During a public hearing on Ordinance 393, ClerkTreasurer Kelly Ross laid out the numbers now confronting the town. Under an injunction stemming from a legal dispute with Coulee Dam, Elmer City is being billed $98.98 per household per month for sewer treatment and plant loan repayment alone. That does not include the town’s own sewer c...