Re: "Consolidation touched upon briefly at mayors meeting"

Re: “Consolidation touched upon briefly at mayors meeting”

I find it interesting that the idea of consolidating our town is coming up again. For a point of clarification, a town in Washington does not need to be in one county.

Coulee Dam is in three counties: Okanogan, Grant, and Douglas. Grand Coulee is in two counties: Grant and Lincoln, Elmer City is in Okanogan and Electric City is in Grant.

Some years back a lot of time and money was spent trying to consolidate the towns, but the effort never reached a vote. We even formed a hospital district to buy our closed hospital and reopen it. To test a couple of good ideas, ask, “Would you close our hospital or divide our schools?” Not likely.

There is not a crisis here, but I think it is time to once again consider some form of consolidation of our towns. Maybe an engagement instead of a marriage, similar to our mayors getting together but also sharing our resources and employees. Or maybe we could just jump in and get “town married.”

David Schmidt

Resident of Elmer City, Electric City, Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam

(Lived in all of these over the past 55 years!)