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 Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Department this week stressed the importance of fire safety on the Fourth of July and reiterated that fireworks won’t be allowed at North Dam this year, but a federal agency doesn’t consider the ban temporary. “Fireworks will not be legal to use anywhere in the city limits of Grand Coulee in July 2019 per ordinance 1036,” a press release states. “When the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management declared fireworks banned on their property, including the North Dam Area, because of extreme d...
The Colville Business Council election last week resulted in five incumbents reelected and two unseated. In the Nespelem District, current CBC Chairman Rodney Cawston was reelected to Position 1, winning 397-303 against challenger Charlene Bearcub. Jarred-Michael Erickson defeated incumbent Andy Joseph Jr. 407-297 for Position 2. In the Keller District Position 1 race, incumbent Jack Ferguson defeated challenger Edward Cohen 122-101. In the Omak District, incumbents Norma Sanchez and Karen Condon were reelected, with Sanchez winning 391-137...
School board changes meeting time The Grand Coulee Dam School District voted to hold two regular meetings each month on the second and fourth Monday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Previously, one of those meetings was considered a “special” meeting, and meetings were held at 6 p.m. The meetings are held in the library at Lake Roosevelt. Coulee Dam paying for roof repair estimate The city of Coulee Dam will pay $1,500 to Five Star Roofing for an estimate on repairing the roof of their Community Building, a building that currently houses the Melody a...
From small town Washington to Music City, Lila Rose is an outlaw in song only, and performing on the Fourth of July at the Festival of America at the Grand Coulee Dam. Lila Rose Bowden is the daughter of Coulee Dam Police Chief Paul Bowden and Coulee Dam City Clerk Stefani Bowden. She performs under the name Lila Rose. "I'm sure this confuses some people around here that have known me my whole life," she said, "but I like to keep my last name out of my music so that someday when I get married, a...
Locals can expect new options for television, internet, and phone services soon with a new service provider investing in area infrastructure. Spectrum, the brand name that Charter Communications uses to sell cable television, internet, and phone services, is almost done with upgrades to their system here in the Coulee area that will make those offerings possible. Charter/Spectrum expects to set up "pop-up shops" to answer questions and take orders at Coulee Dam City Hall in August, said Senior...
Three weeks into her latest foray and seven years after starting this adventure, the self-proclaimed most-decorated National Park Service junior ranger made it to Coulee Dam on Monday. Aida Frey, 17, has, along with proud and devoted parents, been to more than 300 national parks since she was 9 years old. That's when they met a couple dedicated park rangers who brushed aside quitting time at 5 p.m. to sign her up for the junior ranger program. She completed a workbook about the park at Effigy...
The National Park Service will be offering free astronomy tours both at night and during the day throughout the summer. Nighttime stargazing tours will be held on July 5 from 9 p.m. to midnight in the Crescent Bay Area, July 6, from 9 p.m. to midnight at the Spring Canyon Day Use Area, Aug. 2 from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at the Crescent Bay Area, and Aug. 3 from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at Spring Canyon Day Use Area. “Our nation’s national and state parks are some of the few places left where the night sky isn’t obscured by light pollu...
Them Dam Writers, a local group that has existed in one form or another for decades, has been putting their stories on the internet, helping preserve both-well known and lesser-known local history, and sharing photos both old and new. The group was started in 1985 and helped focus the efforts of locals who had been helping record local history for decades before that, eventually publishing a book titled "Coulee Collection" in 1998. Most recently, Jay Kemble has helped revive the group, bring it...
Grand Coulee Police 6/27 - A burglary alarm at the Banks Lake Pub turned out to be a guy who was there to clean the taps. - Colville Tribal Natural Resources informed police about a vehicle that appeared to have been stripped and dumped on the reservation. Police were unable to contact the registered owners of the vehicle. Natural Resources said they would be towing the vehicle. - A Safeway employee said a bluetooth speaker, an MP3 player, and some CDs were stolen out of his car, which had been locked but with the windows down a bit because of...
OLYMPIA – June 20, 2019 – The Washington State Parks Boating Program, safety advocates and law enforcement agencies are asking boaters to help keep everyone safe on the water by not consuming alcohol or marijuana while when operating a boat or paddlecraft. As boaters prepare for the Fourth of July holiday, law enforcement agencies are preparing for Operation Dry Water — a nationally coordinated effort that focuses on boating-under-the-influence (BUI) awareness and enforcement. Boaters will notice an increase in patrols across Washington from...
Citing a dry landscape, federal officials this week put a halt to what has become something of a tradition in recent years at North Dam, where local families have set off fireworks on Independence Day. The Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Reclamation issued a fire restrictions order on public lands where BLM fights wildfires, which includes North Dam, according to a June 19 press release from BLM. A release from Reclamation Monday afternoon clarified that that includes the top of North Dam. “Dry, fire-prone vegetative conditions i...
Poll results are in for the general election for the Colville Business Council, with the absentee ballot count to be held on Thursday. At the polls, incumbent Joel Boyd leads Larry Allen 89 votes to 47 for the Inchelium District’s Position 1. Roger Finley leads 95 votes to incumbent Elizabeth Allen’s 42 for Inchelium District Position 2. Incumbent Jack Ferguson leads 43 to 25 against challenger Edward Cohen in the Keller District Position 1 race. In the Nespelem District, incumbent and current Colville Tribal Chairman Rodney Cawston leads 82...
• The city of Coulee Dam forbids fireworks year round. • No fireworks will be allowed in Grand Coulee this July 4 because of a federal ban on them in the only normally designated spot: North Dam. • Elmer City, being on the Colville Reservation, follows tribal code. The Elmer City Council June 24 discouraged any fireworks use. “Fire danger is high this year,” states a draft letter to their citizens that addresses fire danger and fireworks. • Last year, fireworks were only allowed on the reservation at East Side Park in Omak and Round Lake...
A fire about 4.7 miles North of Elmer City burned approximately 1,979 acres Sunday, calling out 100 firefighters and nine aircraft and prompting the evacuation of 250 residents. The fire around the Rebecca Lake area, the cause of which is still under investigation, started at about 3:47 p.m., according to a press release Monday from the Colville Tribes Department of Natural Resources. A fire map shows the point of origin close to SR-155 and indicates it was stopped at Buffalo Lake Road. "The...
The Bureau of Reclamation held an employee appreciation event June 19 that included a picnic, some games, and guest speaker Bill Sims, an author who spoke about safety and wrote a book called "Green Beans and Ice Cream" on the topic. Employees from the switchyard won the "Coulee Cup" in the barbecue competition. "It's a chance for people throughout the project to come together," Public Affairs Specialist Lynne Brougher said, mentioning employees who work inside and outside of the dam and adding...
A buffer zone between the residential neighborhoods of Electric City and Osborne Bay, where the discharge of firearms will not be allowed, was made official at the June 11 Electric City city council meeting. The 500-foot-wide, 7,281-foot-long buffer zone, required the cooperation of various entities to establish: the Bureau of Reclamation, the state’s departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Wildlife, Sunbanks Lake Resort, and the city of Electric City. The zone is being established to create a safety zone for residents who don’t live far...
The Ice Age Park in Electric City may be done as soon as the late summer of 2020. The city council June 11 approved to have SPVV Landscape Architects, who designed the master plan for the park in 2018, move forward with specific designs for the park. The city applied for grant money from the Washington State Recreation & Conservation Office and is ranked 15th out of 91 applicants to get a grant in the amount of $257,649, which the city must match, for a total project cost of $515,298. Jena Jauchius of SPVV said the park will be Electric...
Grand Coulee Police 6/20 - A man was reportedly walking his pitbull on a leash near Coulee Boulevard when a “weiner dog” came running out of a garage toward him and his dog. The dogs fought, and the man was bitten on his hands by both dogs, he said. He wasn’t seeking treatment. The man who owns the weiner dog has been warned in the past about his dog being at large and aggressive. The police report recommends the Electric City Council declare the dog potentially dangerous. 6/21 - Responding to a report of a suspicious person at the entra...
Coulee Dam will move ahead with applying for a grant to fix the sidewalks on Ferry Avenue, several portions of which have been heaving several inches as tree roots underneath push up the concrete. Councilmember Fred Netzel and the city’s consulting engineer Kurt Holland, of Varela Engineering, pulled together a grant application just in time to submit to the state’s Transportation Improvement Board to replace all 1,200 feet of walkways along each side of the street. Coulee Dam is asking for some $103,600 in grant funding. If the state gra...
The Electric City council voted unanimously to not allow short-term rentals anywhere in the city. Short-term rentals are instances in which a home owner who doesn’t live in a residence rents that residence out to someone for less than 30 days. Residents Mark Jenson, Jim Bailey, and Nancy Brown attended the June 11 council meeting to speak against short-term rentals. “I don’t believe they are compatible with residential zones,” Jenson said. Brown said that the primary concerns with short-term rentals were “commercializing and destroyin...
A fire burned a patch of land near the canal near North Dam on Saturday night. A fireworks show put on by the Northwest Pyrotechnics Association went awry when a fire erupted and burned between two and three acres. The permitted event had fire personnel standing by for such an occurrence, with four trucks on standby. A press release from Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Department Chief Rick Paris said that the fire started at 10:30 p.m. and that Grand Coulee and Electric City Volunteer Fire Departments were called in to assist Bureau of...
Several canoes launched from the Crescent Bay boat launch near the Grand Coulee Dam Friday on an eight-day journey toward Kettle Falls. The Inchelium Language and Culture Association, in association with River Warriors and the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT), organized the event for the third year in a row. A film crew from KSPS was present at the event, which included speakers from these various groups, the singing of a traditional song, and mingling between the paddlers and well-wishers...
The man who leads the state's legal bureaucracy, basically the state's own law firm, told an audience in Grand Coulee last week that the smaller part of their work gets the most headlines, but costs taxpayers nothing. That's because that part of the Attorney General's Office that takes others to court - actually sues other agencies or private companies - is in essence a state-owned law firm that operates off the settlements or judgments from those suits. But the vast majority of their work is...
The city council approved the creation of the position of “city administrator” and to have current clerk Russ Powers fill the position. The council discussed the need for the position and the justification for the added pay that comes with it for Powers at their June 11 meeting. “So the idea here,” Councilmember Aaron Derr asked, “is we’d have someone at city hall that can make more decisions, given that our mayor will typically have a full-time job and can’t be here on a day-to-day basis?” “Correct,” Mayor John Nordine said. “It makes sen...
Imagine how traveling to another country can change your perspective on life. Local cosmetologist Aly Van Geystel doesn t have to imagine, having returned from a month-long trip to Cambodia, where she taught the trade of cosmetology to former victims of sex trafficking so they can start their own careers. She found out about the Justice and Soul Foundation last year, and decided she wanted to be involved in what they do. A lot of the time," Van Geystel told The Star before leaving, former...