News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 2866 - 2890 of 6735
Grand Coulee Mayor Paul Townsend welcomes Nicolaus D. Johnson as the city's newest patrolman after swearing him in Tuesday. Coming from Yakima, Johnson was recruited laterally, meaning he's already fully qualified to serve without the city having to send him to state academy training. That's important, Townsend noted, because he can immediately take part in the city's contract supporting the Bureau of Reclamation. The city now has eight officers, Townsend said. - Scott Hunter...
Turn your eyes to the sky on Aug. 13, when the Perseid meteor shower will illuminate the darkness, all the darker due to a new moon, as the National Park Service Sky Rangers give guided tours of the heavens on August 10-11. On Aug. 10, from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m., rangers will be at the Crescent Bay area, where the public is welcome to join and look at planets, constellations, and more through their telescope. “We have everything you need to look up, but you are welcome to bring your own telescopes, spotting scopes, or binoculars plus bug spray, a...
Coulee Dam Police 7/23 - A Coulee Dam woman reported that someone had entered her vacant River Drive rental property. A bent window screen was the only damage, and the woman noted that the intruder didn’t even take the half case of beer that was in the fridge. An officer found three cigarette butts as evidence. 7/24 - An officer spoke with a woman on Spruce Street who said that she wanted another woman, who was there to clean, to leave. The woman who was there to clean said she had permission from the complainant’s father to be there. The compl...
The Grand Coulee branch of North Cascades Bank is collecting backpacks and school supplies for local children in need. Cash donations are also welcome and will be used to purchase additional supplies. All items will be distributed to schools in the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Donations will be accepted at North Cascades Bank during the month of August and will continue through September as well. Please help us prepare our local youth for the new school year! Supply lists will be available in the bank’s lobby. If you have any questions abo...
Evacuation levels on the Grass Valley Fire have not changed since last night, officials say. Although milder conditions have allowed the fire behavior to settle down today, that could change, and hot areas still close to towns flare up with a new wind. I would expect a new assessment in the near future, after firefighters get a better overall look at the total fire from the air. SR-174 is still closed from Leahy Junction to Grand Coulee. SR-155 is open, as is SR-17. Businesses are open in the...
The owner of a popular restaurant was arrested on domestic violence charges last week and remains in jail. Juan Moreno, the owner of The Melody restaurant in Coulee Dam, was arrested by Grand Coulee Police July 23 after his estranged wife and her boyfriend told police he threatened them with a knife and baseball bat, abducted her and tried to run over him. An Elmer City woman, who had called 911 about a disturbance next door to where she was visiting in Electric City, told police details that backed up what the two alleged victims had said....
Volunteer firefighters in Grand Coulee responded quickly to local fires recently, stopping them before they could grow in size and do major damage. Firefighters responded to a fire right in Hometown Pizza's backyard on July 26, the second fire that week following a July 23 smoldering fire in a pile of manure. The Hometown Pizza fire was responded to by 14 firefighters, five fire engines, two law enforcement officers, and two Grant County PUD linemen who kept the grass and brush fire to approxima...
A young Nespelem man died early Wednesday morning when the motorcycle he was riding went off the highway five miles north of Coulee Dam. Patrick J. Morin, 18, was riding a 2017 Yamaha FZ-09 south on SR-155 when he entered a curve too fast, lost control and struck a tree, according to the Washington State Patrol. The patrol report stated the July 25 crash occurred at 4:21 a.m. at milepost 35.7. That is in the area known as Belvedere. It was not known whether drugs or alcohol were involved, the report stated. Morin did not have a motorcycle...
In the face of requests for power that total more than three times what they typically sell, Grant County PUD is considering raising electricity rates for "evolving industries" that suck up a lot of power, such as bitcoin mining operations. Atlas Blockchain Group Inc, formerly Atlas Cloud, is a Canada-based company that purchased the former Young's Welding building in Electric City to house such a facility, a decision made to take advantage of Grant County PUD's low electricity rates....
Joel DeWinkler stands on a lift drilling into a wall of the operations/laboratory building at the north end of Coulee Dam's new wastewater treatment facility. To his south is the "aero-mod basin" with clarifiers and digesters. The headworks building is at the far left. The complex is currently scheduled to be completely finished in December, an engineer at the site said on Thursday. - Scott Hunter photo...
Coulee Dam seemed likely to follow a path already pursued by Electric City and Grand Coulee last week, when the town council heard nothing but favorable remarks during a public hearing on allowing people to drive four-wheelers on city streets. About a dozen people attended the hearing Wednesday night, not all of them from Coulee Dam. "It's a cheap way to get around," commented a man named Wes, who Councilmember Keith St. Jeor said was from Wenatchee. "It's a boon to the city." Coulee Dam is...
Grand Coulee Police 7/23 - An officer who was asked by an unknown person to check on the welfare of some chickens on Stevens Avenue in Electric City found the animals to be in good health. - A Spokane woman’s car was damaged in a hit-and-run incident at the La Presa restaurant parking lot. Video surveillance showed a man carrying a child get into a black Ford pickup truck and strike the vehicle, but the footage wasn’t high enough quality to read the license plate. Damage to the vehicle, a dent on the rear passenger side door, was estimated at...
Healthcare professionals at the local hospital were alarmed last week at a big spike in people who had died by suicide. In the space of as many days, seven people took their own lives and one also took the life of another, hospital officials said. Suicide often happens in conjunction with taking alcohol or drugs, which can lead to deeper depression at the same time decision-making capabilities are impaired. If you are someone who is thinking about it, there is help available, if even just by phone through a hotline or by merely calling 911. If...
A young Nespelem man died early Wednesday morning when the motorcycle he was riding went off the highway five miles north of Coulee Dam. Patrick J. Morin, 18, was riding a 2017 Yamaha FZ-09 south on SR-155 when he entered a curve too fast, lost control and struck a tree, according to the Washington State Patrol. The patrol report stated the July 25 crash occurred at 4:21 a.m. at milepost 35.7. That is in the area known as Belvedere. It was not known whether drugs or alcohol were involved, the report stated. Morin did not have a motorcycle... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District will have to figure out how to not go broke in four years. That was one of the darker notes presented at the district board meeting Monday night, where Business Manager Sally Ryan presented the proposed 2018-19 budget, as well as a projected budget for the next four years, which shows the district running out of money by the 2021-22 school year. The 2018-19 school year budget is $12,003,678, up from $11,250,133 last year. With a projected enrollment of 733.5 full time equivalent students (FTEs) in...
A boy slides on a water toy in North Dam Park at the weekly Wednesday evening market sponsored by the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, which is offering kids activities, along with local goods and produce. The senior center sponsored the slippery coolness that was a big hit last week. North Cascades Bank is offering finger painting tonight (Wednesday) and The Star will sponsor a slime-making activity next week. - Scott Hunter photo...
City gets firefighting agreement with BLM The federal Bureau of Land Management, which has an agreement to operate on United States Bureau of Reclamation land, has entered into an agreement with the city of Grand Coulee. The agreement allows Grand Coulee firefighters to take care of fires on land the BLM is responsible for, and the city can in turn bill the BLM, as well as use resources from them, such as fire-fighting aircraft. “It’s a one-way deal,” said Grand Coulee Fire Chief Rick Paris, referring to the city benefitting from the partn...
Three elementary-age girls walking down Central Drive in Coulee Dam were approached July 20 by a man who asked the girls to get in the truck with him. The girls stated that the man was persistent in his attempt to get them to get into the truck with him before he drove away. The girls described him as having short gray hair, dark red skin and driving a blue or gray pickup truck. Two dogs, one black and white and the other brown, were in the back of the truck, described as an older model Ford with poles sticking up out of it, the kind used when...
What do students think about the educational system? The system, most often run by older people who haven't been students themselves in decades, doesn't receive a lot of input from the student body, at least not in the Grand Coulee Dam School District. But students Ashlyn Olsen and Raven Clark made a presentation to the school board on Monday night. Olsen and Clark expressed their desire for change within the school dress code, making points such as the difficulty of shopping for items that fit...
The city council in Grand Coulee voted to go out to bid for the demolition of the "Vlachos building," on Spokane Way. The building, once belonging to inventor and mechanic Constantinos Vlachos, has been boarded up and abandoned for some time now. Thomas Geiger, an attorney who represents the Vlachos estate, had requested an extension to work out a deal selling the property. The city, tired of granting extensions, moved instead to seek bids to demolish the property that is in a decrepit...
Alpacas allow kids to pet them at the library, brought for a special showing from Spring Canyon Farms. - Scott Hunter photo...
Coulee Dam 7/9 - An officer investigating a report of a .22 caliber gun being fired on River Drive instead found someone using a high-powered air rifle to shoot at gophers in the backyard. 7/11 - An officer took a form to an out-of-town victim of car theft so she would be able to report her vehicle stolen. - A driver on Lone Pine Road was told that his clocked speed of 73 miles per hour was “a little excessive” for the 35 mph zone. The driver was issued a citation for speeding. 7/12 - A burglar alarm was set off by a door not being closed all t...
Buzz LeBret works Tuesday, at his home at 905 Central Drive, on severing tree roots from a dead city-owned tree that was cut down this spring by the city of Coulee Dam. LeBret said city officials initially said they'd be back to take out the stump, at right, with a stump grinder, but later said they couldn't do that because the city would have to rent the equipment. LeBret said he's a Native American who has had his Central Drive home for 25 years and chose to keep his property taxable because...
Elmer City could be up to its knees in a messy problem if leaders don’t find a solution to their waste water treatment facility issue with Coulee Dam, which was discussed by the town council last week. A meeting between council members and mayors of the two towns is planned within the next weeks or so to casually discuss viewpoints on the issue in the hopes of coming to a solution. Coulee Dam is building a new wastewater treatment plant at a higher elevation than the previous facility. The increase in elevation will require new lift pumps to g...
A 385-acre wildfire burned on Washington Flats across the Columbia River from the Seaton's Grove area near Elmer City last week, and was handled by crews from the Department of Natural Resources and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as local firefighters. The fire, first reported at about 2 p.m. on July 11, had helicopters scooping water from the river to dump on the fire, as well as four single-engine air tankers and one air-attack aircraft. People watched the action from the parking...