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 has lost revenue from late fees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Proclamation 20-23, first issued in March of 2020, doesn’t allow utilities to be shut off for a resident, nor for late fees to be charged. At Grand Coulee’s Nov. 17 city council meeting, City Clerk Lorna Pearce told the council that the city has about $18,000 in outstanding utility bills from people not paying. In 2019, Pearce told The Star, the city brought in $5,127 in revenue from late fees. Pearce said one frustration is th...
Grand Coulee Police 11/16 - Police assisted law enforcement officers from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington State Patrol with a vehicle that was not pulling over for a Grant County officer while heading north from Coulee City and travelling at speeds as high as 110 miles per hour. The vehicle eventually pulled over near milepost seven along SR-155. The driver and passenger, two men, both appeared intoxicated. There were empty beer bottles in their car. The WSP trooper processed the driver for driving while intoxicated and t...
Billboards along Main Street in Grand Coulee will be allowed to stay, at least until leases for the billboards are over, and a committee will be looking at ways to possibly allow them to stay indefinitely. Following a couple of complaints, Sam Hsieh, who owns Coulee Plaza, a lot of grass and picnic tables on Main Street, was told he’d have to take down his advertising signs that line the property. The money brought in from those signs helped pay the mortgage and maintenance costs of the property. After being told he’d have to take them dow...
After Washington families were asked last week not to gather with people outside their households over the coming holidays, the governor added more details and broader restrictions in a modified order Sunday. If you get together for Thanksgiving with people not living with you, you'll be going against that ask, - unless you had already begun to quarantine by Friday and you keep it up until Thanksgiving, or keep it up for seven days prior and get a negative COVID-19 test result within 48 hours...
COVID-19 cases are up and down all over the map and the state is seeing record high days. The Seattle Times reported Nov. 16 that "for the third day in a row, state health officials have reported a record number of daily cases in Washington, with 2,309 new COVID-19 cases as of Sunday afternoon." That compares to statewide case rates in the 600s two weeks ago. As of Nov. 17: Okanogan County has reported 1,204 total cases, including 14 deaths. There have been 15 cases in Coulee Dam, five in Elmer...
The fate of Electric City’s potential Ice Age Park may be decided at the city’s Dec. 8 council meeting. At their Nov. 10 meeting, the council discussed the park following the failure of a levy to raise funds for maintenance of the park for one year. That levy failed 330-192 in the Nov. 3 election. During the public comment period of the meeting, Mayor Diane Kohout read aloud an email signed by Ian and Cara Turner. The email offers “some insight from the perspective of a community member, planning commissioner, and parent to young child...
Anthropologist to speak online Robert Moïse will be the guest speaker at the Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club’s Zoom meeting Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 5:15 p.m. and the public is invited. Moïse, a consulting anthropologist, has worked a lot in Africa, and he’s been tapped to share his insights, derived from a career of helping big organizations trying to do good in small communities. You can join the meeting from your phone or computer. If you don’t have a Zoom app, just search in google for “join zoom meeting” and follow the prompts. In the Zoom ap...
From left, music teacher Karen Pace, BrieAnn Whittaker, Skylar Armstrong, Nathan Weldon and Channell Smith gather in the student Hub at Lake Roosevelt High School to sing a few tunes and read some tributes for scaled back Veteran's Day non-assembly Nov. 11 via a Zoom connection with dozens attending remotely. Inset: the choir's view of their sound equipment and the audience on Zoom. - Susan Duclos photos...
Public health authorities are asking anyone from multiple communities who attended a large wedding near Ritzville Nov. 7 to get tested for COVID-19 and self-quarantine through Nov. 21. Grant County Health District said it knows of nearly 40 cases in their county resulting from the Adams County event with more than 300 attendees. More cases are being added daily. Weddings are supposed to be restricted to no more than 30 attending. “Due to the multi-jurisdictional impact of this large event, GCHD felt it was necessary to notify the public,” GCHD...
Coulee Dam residents will likely soon pay about another $1 a week to have their trash picked up at the curb. The city council in a Monday budget workshop found that a hike of about $4 a month is likely inevitable, following a boost in dumping fees Grant County’s landfill near Ephrata will charge the Delano Transfer Station to haul garbage there. That, coupled with the city taxing its own funds with a large B&O tax as a means of systematically transferring funds to its “current expense” general spending account has led to a shortfall in payin...
Elmer City residential sewer rates will likely go up by about 20% in 2021. The raise was discussed by the city council during a budget discussion meeting Nov. 12. A sewage lift station pump replacement in the Lone Pine area may cost up to $25,000, Public Works Director Jimmer Tillman explained. With 166 sewer customers, the council and mayor discussed, a $10 boost in rates would raise $19,992 a year, which would go towards the pump and any future sewer-related expenses that may come up. In-town rates would go from $51 to $61, and out-of-town...
Grand Coulee Police 11/7 - A woman at the Hill Avenue apartments reported a boy threw a bottle at her window. No damage was caused. The boy’s mother said he knew better and isn’t allowed near the other woman’s apartment. 11/10 - A woman driving a blue Honda Element was heading west on SR-174 and neglected to yield to a man driving a green Mazda driving north on SR-155, striking him at the four-corners intersection on the passenger side, causing damage to the passenger side mirror and door. - A woman at the Center Lodge motel reported that...
Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High School students will start returning to in-person school on Dec. 7 with a phased approach. The Grand Coulee Dam School District board of directors again discussed reopening in person school to 7th- through 12th-grade students at their Nov. 9 board meeting. Just two weeks ago the board chose not to bring back Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High students until maybe the second semester, which starts Feb. 1, 2021. Kindergarten through sixth graders are already going to in-person school part time. During Monday’s m...
After Washington families were asked last week not to gather with people outside their households over the coming holidays, the governor added more details and broader restrictions in a modified order Sunday. If you get together for Thanksgiving with people not living with you, you'll be going against that ask, - unless you had already begun to quarantine by Friday and you keep it up until Thanksgiving, or keep it up for seven days prior and get a negative COVID-19 test result within 48 hours... Full story
All four local counties: Grant, Okanogan, Lincoln, and Douglas, have seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. As of Nov. 10: Okanogan County has had 1,188 total cases, including 13 deaths. There have been 15 cases in Coulee Dam, five in Elmer City, and 34 in Nespelem. The county has had 33 new cases in the past 14 days, making for an incidence rate of 77.2, up from 37.4 on Oct. 27. Grant County has had 3,809 total cases; 28 deaths; 15 cases in the Grand Coulee Dam area, nine in Coulee City; and an incidence rate of 279, up from an... Full story
SOAP LAKE, WA – Grant County is experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak in one long-term care facility (LTC), McKay Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Soap Lake, WA, with over 30 cases reported in residents and staff. At this point in time all COVID-19 residents have been moved out of the facility. Unfortunately, one resident has recently died due to COVID-19 complications, which was reported in yesterday's press release. McKay had remained COVID-19 free since the on-set of the pandemic. F... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District's Supplemental Educational Programs and Operation passed with 51% of the vote last Tuesday. Results of the Nov. 3 general election show that Okanogan County voters liked the levy more than voters in Grant, Douglas, and Lincoln counties, and liked it enough to help it pass. A majority of school district voters in Grant County voted against the levy 544-481; in Douglas County said no by a 98-89 vote; and in Lincoln County 55% voted no, 105-86. But in Okanogan...
Voters hung the fate of Electric City’s proposed Ice Age Park in the cold November breeze as a levy for funding maintenance for the park failed to pass last week. The levy failed with 303 (62%) against it, and 182 (38%) for it. The one-year levy asked for 14.2 cents per $100,000 in property value, or $14.22 for a $100,000 property, and would have gone towards maintenance of the park estimated at $7,000-$10,000 a year. The levy itself costs about $5,000 to get on the ballot for the Nov. 3 general election. Now that the levy has failed, the c...
The group that puts on popular events such as Colorama and the Harvest Festival is seeking to raise funds in a virtual auction and dinner to help them to keep functioning and hosting these events. With a slew of events canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce has lost out on a lot of revenue to pay expenses such as rent and wages for its lone employee. “We really want the chamber to survive into the future when we can do live events again,” said board member Solveig Chaffee, who is wor...
When Robert Moïse was sent home from work last March as the federal government responded to the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic, he had a long way to go to his east Coulee Dam home. He was in Africa at the time. Moïse, a consulting anthropologist, has spent a lot of time there, and he's been tapped to share his insights, derived from a career of helping big organizations trying to do good in small communities, in an upcoming Rotary meeting open to the public via Zoom. Moïse will be the guest sp...
Locals want to attend public meetings both online and in person, recognizing the benefits and drawbacks of each, a quick survey of readers over the last several days seems to indicate. A short survey posted in The Star online Thursday asked respondents what they thought of public meetings, such as school board and city council meetings, being held online, and how those compare to meetings held in person. The survey only received 18 responses, but those responses show a variety of perspectives, with only one respondent saying they haven’t a...
Chinook salmon have successfully spawned in the San Poil River for the first time in decades after Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam have "prevented the migration of salmon into the northern reaches of the Columbia River and its tributaries for nearly seven decades," The Tribal Tribune reported Oct. 29. In August, Colville Tribal Fish and Wildlife trapped and hauled 100 adult chinook salmon from Wells Fish Hatchery and released them into the San Poil River, a tributary of the Columbia, at...
Grand Coulee Police 11/5 - A woman reported that kids may be throwing rocks at her Spring Canyon Apartments window. An officer didn’t locate any kids but noted strong winds at the time. - A wallet found near Safeway was turned into police, who drove to the Elmer City address on the driver’s license but found no one home. Another officer recognized the driver as an employee from Coulee Gas. An employee there contacted him and he retrieved his wallet from the police. - A woman on Miller Avenue reported that she thought someone stole her cat. Pol...
The ability to hold public meetings of all kinds has become commonplace. We'd like to know what you think about that. Take our 1-minute survey below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8F7B3XS... Full story
A Main Street property owner is working to change Grand Coulee’s mind toward letting him advertise with signs on his lot, a practice the city says goes against code but which is gaining supporters online. Sam Hsieh, who owns Coulee Plaza on Main Street, was told by the city following a complaint that signs advertising businesses on his property are against City Code Chapter 17.60. That code states that only one freestanding sign is allowed for single-occupancy buildings, as well as for multiple offices or businesses within a structure or planne...