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 Keller Ferry, which connects SR-21 from the Wilbur area to the Keller area, will be out of service from April 1 to April 7 for a permanent repair to be done on a weld crack that had closed the ferry from Jan. 25 to Feb. 2. A temporary repair had been done to reopen the ferry, and when the weather warms up a permanent repair can be made, explained Ryan Overton, who works for the Eastern Region Communications of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Overton said the repair may actually take less time, but they are giving the...
The Native American Voting Rights act was signed by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at a widely attended ceremony, Thursday. “We believe these three steps will allow tribal members to help us form a more perfect union and make good decisions about our destiny,” said Inslee of the changes the bill makes. The state House of Representatives passed an amended version of the bill with a 95-3 vote on March 5. House members voting against were Reps. Bob McCaslin, R- Spokane Valley, Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, and Matt Shea. R-Spokane Valley. The bill passed the...
Grand Coulee Police 3/13 - An officer responding to a 911 hangup call originating at the senior center was assured by volunteers who work there that there was no emergency there. - Someone allegedly driving under the influence was reported leaving the hospital in a grey sedan, but an officer was unable to find such a driver. 3/14 - A car reported as stolen out of Coulee City a few days earlier was found on Cardinal Road. A resident in the area didn’t know where the car came from or who was driving it. The owner of the car came and got it. - A...
People who felt the loss of convenience when The Variety Store in Grand Coulee closed down will welcome the news that a new proprietor will open a new store by the same name in the same building. Launi Ritter, who had attempted to come to rental terms with former owners of the building between Safeway and Coulee Hardware over a year ago. She and her parents, Doug and Mary Lou Lockard, had researched the business and were ready to start it up, but could not find a location with the right terms. That changed Feb. 27, Ritter said, when A. J. Gerar...
Darnell Sam has been appointed to the Nespelem District Position #2 on the Colville Business Council, following the expulsion of Andrea George, who had filled that position. The CBC named Sam to the council seat following a 94-53 vote by tribal members held at a March 5 Nespelem District meeting, according to a March 6 press release from the Colville Tribes. The council had expelled George Feb. 21 on ethics charges including improper influence, gross misconduct and malfeasance. George’s supporters insisted she was being expelled for calling int...
Discipline issues at Lake Roosevelt Elementary School are going down, and students are performing better in English Language Arts and math, according to the principal. Principal Lisa Lakin spoke to the Grand Coulee Dam Area School District board of directors March 11 about the elementary school, and presented a draft of an “Elementary School Improvement Plan.” Lakin discussed the need to improve students scores in English Language Arts and math, but said that scores are going up. “We have students that have already made, this year, two or th...
Out of five candidates, Kirk Marshlain has been chosen as the new Lake Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School principal. The Grand Coulee Dam School District board approved giving Superintendent Paul Turner the go-ahead to hire Marshlain at their March 11 meeting. “I think he’ll be a great addition to our team,” Turner said about Marshlain. Marshlain currently works as a special education teacher in the Wenatchee School District and has worked at a home for troubled youth, Turner said. He’s currently finishing an administrative internship in Wena...
The walls of the Grand Coulee were populated with ice climbers Saturday, that breed of outdoor enthusiast who enjoys scaling giant icicles hundreds of feet high. The pair in this photo, one at the top and one midway up, scaled the ice just north of the Million Dollar Mile on SR-155. Here's a video - Climbing Ice from The Star on Vimeo....
3th District reps to hold town hall meeting Reps. Mike Steele, R-Chelan, and Keith Goehner, R-Dryden, will hold a “town hall” meeting on Saturday, March 23, at Wenatchee Valley College’s Grove Recital Hall, 1300 Fifth Street from 10 a.m. to noon. The lawmakers will provide an update on the 2019 legislative session. Community members in the 12th District, which includes much of the Grand Coulee Dam area, are invited to attend, ask questions and share their comments about state government-related issues. Local kids to star The Missoula Children...
After a delivery last week had added to the meager stores at the Care and Share Food Bank a couple weeks ago, volunteers came once again to unload another truck on Thursday, this time stuffing shelves with the proceeds made possible by local donations last fall. If you wondered exactly when that donation you made at Safeway to the local food bank last November or December would actually arrive, the answer is last week. "This is the time of year we really need that," said Carol Nordine, the...
Not only did dozens of gigantic floods shape the local landscape thousands of years ago, they raced across the solid-rock remains of hundreds of layers of lava flows that built the local bedrock millions of years earlier. So said Geologist Nick Zentner to roughly 130 people at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center on Saturday, brought to town by the Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club. Zentner, who hosts the video series "Nick on the Rocks," spoke for over an hour in the upstairs theater in the Visitor...
Grand Coulee 3/4 - A man said he had been kicked out of his grandmother’s Dill Avenue house, and that his girlfriend was still there, felt unsafe, and wasn’t allowed to leave. The man also said he was told his uncles would kill him on the grandmother’s order if he returned to the place. An officer spoke to the girlfriend, who said she did feel unsafe and wanted to leave. The grandmother told the officer that the man had threatened to burn the house down, and that the girlfriend was under her foster care, for which she had no paperwork. The g...
Are you interested in helping make a difference in the local cities, parks, schools, hospital, or elsewhere? There are 28 local offices up for election this fall, including positions on city councils, school boards, and various districts in the area. Those interested in running need to file their candidacy with their county elections office between May 13 and 17. Cities Electric City has four city council positions, as well as the mayor’s office, up for election this fall. Three of the four council positions are for four-year terms; the fourth...
Snow drifts across U.S. 2 west of Davenport Wednesday in conditions that had Lincoln County Sheriff Wade Magers and others cautioning motorists about hazardous roads, some of which were closing frequently with drifts, even as basketball teams were heading to a state tournament in Spokane. With low temperatures at night and not much melting, if any, during the day, snow conditions remain suited for drifting, something this region hasn't seen much of in recent history. The forecast is on page 8....
Nearly new sidewalks that Grand Coulee had installed in 2015 are already cracking and crumbling, a situation that could require time in court to work out. Grand Coulee's city council voted at their Feb. 19 meeting to have their lawyer send a letter to Travellers Insurance, which insures Davenport-based Halme Builders, who installed the sidewalks. The 2015 project to install new sidewalks and gutters on Federal Avenue and Main Street cost $407,816.53, paid for with money from a state...
Geologist Nick Zentner will be making a free presentation related to the coulee area at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center March 9 at 1 p.m. Zentner hosts a series called "Nick on the Rocks" that has aired on PBS and is available on YouTube. Zentner, a professor of geology at Central Washington University, is being sponsored for the local visit by the Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club. "We know when and why the coulee was carved," Zentner told The Star, "but we're still looking for clues as to how...
Elmer City’s council approved a resolution Feb. 21 allowing the city to apply for funding to build its own wastewater treatment facility. There was no discussion of the resolution before the vote at the council meeting. There has been bad blood between Elmer City and Coulee Dam regarding their shared sewage treatment plant and Coulee Dam’s process for building a new one that Elmer City representatives have felt left out of, feel overcharged for, and that they say violates a 50-year contract from 1975 between the two cities. “It has been well...
The Care and Share Food Bank, located at the Nazarene Church on SR-174, filled their almost-empty shelves with food from Yakima-based nonprofit Northwest Harvest last week. Carol Nordine, who manages the food bank, was present, and a number of volunteers helped unload the food onto the shelves Thursday. Nordine noted that Shawn Neider, who pastors the Zion Lutheran Church, helps her a lot with food bank efforts. Neider helped clear the parking lot of snow before the food arrived. "The food is ne...
The Natural Helpers program at Lake Roosevelt High School has been a success, staff members and students say, and they want to keep it going. The program, which used a student survey to identify 21 students to whom other students feel comfortable turning in a time of need, took those students on a multi-day retreat to K Diamond K Ranch outside of Republic last fall. There, the Natural Helpers learned how to help peers deal with issues such as depression, suicide, drugs, alcohol, and physical and emotional abuse. The program was discussed at a...
Grand Coulee Police 2/24 - A Batchelor Square man complained about his neighbor’s wood stove, saying that the odor and smoke cause him respiratory problems, and he believes the wood being burned isn’t seasoned. An officer told the man he couldn’t test the air quality, and suggested the man write a detailed complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency to see how they handle these types of issues. 2/26 - There was a dispute involving an intoxicated woman who left the Hi-Dam Tavern and a man who was called to give her a ride. The intoxicated m...
Park district commissioners Monday voted to accept the resignation of one commissioner, then immediately filled her position with a young recruit. Commissioner Debbie Bigelow, who has served for nearly three years despite being retired. "Although I will continue forever to support this organization," she said, "I no longer have the energy or community connections that are so important to the success of this organization." Bigelow, who retired as chief executive officer of Coulee Medical Center,...
The Colville Business Council, meeting in special session Thursday with all tribal representatives present, expelled fellow council member Andrea George from their ranks on ethics charges, which she denied in a detailed statement. George, elected last summer to represent the Nespelem District on the Colville Tribes’ governing body that serves as both the tribes’ legislature and head of its executive branch, is a lawyer whom her supporters insist was being expelled for calling into question procedures and actions the council takes, not for act...
Fog fills in the valley through which the Columbia River flows downstream from Grand Coulee Dam, which rises above it in the background Thursday morning. A weather forecast for the coming week can be found on page 4. - Scott Hunter photo...
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Grand Coulee Dam School District disagree on the impact a bureau project will have on local schools. The USBR is planning a 10-year project to update three generators, named G19-21, in the Third Powerhouse starting in 2023, similar to the ongoing project of updating G22-24 that started in 2010, and is estimated to cost $100 million. The USBR’s Environmental Assessment for the proposed G19-21 update states that the project would have at most 103 workers and “could result in an increased enrollment of five stu...
The Lake Roosevelt High School gym will likely be closed during the summer to upgrade its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. The new HVAC system will be installed on the roof, keeping the noise from the system out of the gym, and granting easy access to the system. The board and superintendent of the Grand Coulee Dam School District discussed the upcoming project and others at their Feb. 25 meeting. The projects will be paid for with about a million dollars from the district’s Capital Projects Levy, which will bring in roughly h...