News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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An effort to put a school resource officer at Lake Roosevelt Schools and add another policeman to Grand Coulee’s department has been stopped, and grant funding for it turned down. Funded partially by a federal grant, the effort would have expanded Grand Coulee Police efforts to enhance community relations and allay potential future problems with an in-school presence. It also would have required coordination of two budgetary processes right at a time when both the city and the school district needed to finalize budgets by law. The city had u...
Nespelem School is hoping to find extra land on which to expand with a future sports area. The board voted last week to formally inquire with the Colville Tribes about land across the street currently held in trust status that the school board members recall being acquired by the tribes for that purpose. The board met in special session Dec. 26 specifically to authorize a letter to Colville Business Council Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson to address the topic. “It was years ago that the tribe had let us know that they had purchased the p...
Electric City will ask voters to approve a ballot measure in February that will remove four parcels of land from the city that had been added in an earlier annexation. The city had started to add the question to last month’s ballot but had missed the deadline to do so. The city council Dec. 12 unanimously passed Resolution 2023-14 to put the measure on the Feb. 13, 2024 ballot. The proposal would de-annex all of the state and federal lands surrounding Osborne Bay east of the causeway, which the city annexed several years ago, along with l...
Coulee Dam is planning street and sidewalk improvement projects in the new year that will smooth out streets, build or rebuild sidewalk ramps and plant trees to replace those lost on Ferry Avenue in last year’s sidewalk replacement project. The city has been awarded two grants, one for a chip seal street project for $546,485. An ADA ramp replacement project will cost $481,406. Both projects are totally funded by grants, funds that don’t have to be paid back, not loans. TD&H Engineering representative Marisa Stevens said they had actually mea...
Remember the Coulee Card. It was handy and fun and I wish it would make a comeback. It is awesome to call the Coulee home. Here are a few people and places I’m proud of that make the Coulee area so special – Caden Portch represented Lake Roosevelt well at the State Cross Country Championships. Kasey Garvin did an amazing job with the high school Volleyball team. She’s always been a winner! “Clap for the Wolfman” Edward Wolfe and his staff have the top ranked Raider Boys Basketball team rolling with the 1000-point club member Chase Marchand...
Lake Roosevelt sent 10 girls to the mat at the 2023 Powerhouse Girls' Tournament at LR Thursday, taking third place among 11 teams of girls with 64 wrestlers entered. LR's Nelly Selam won the 100 weight category, defeating athletes from White Swan and Leavenworth, pinning each. Phenyx Marchand also took a first, at 155, besting wrestlers from Omak and Tonasket. The team's only senior, Arianna Waters took second place at the 135 weight category, pinning two opponents, including White Swan's...
Four of Lake Roosevelt's nine wrestlers at the Powerhouse Tournament they hosted Dec. 21 placed in the tournament, putting the team in the middle of the 16-team tourney with 74 team points. Tonasket won the tourney with 216.5 points. Wrestling at 150 pounds, Francis Louie pinned Tonasket's Casen Clark in 1:55 to take third place in the weight and earn 22 points for the team. Along the way, he pinned three opponents and got pinned once himself. Dillan Yazzie, at 113, lost 5-3 to a White Swan...
Events for or featuring kids marked the week before Christmas, with a school pre-holiday musical event kicking off a mood of celebration Friday that packed the Lake Roosevelt gym with a "mind-blowing" number of adults, according to the emcee, Jess Tufts. That spirit of community support seemed to carry through the weekend, with Santa hearing children's Christmas wishes in at least three venues in town on Saturday - at the Moose Lodge's annual party, at Les Schwab Tire Center, and at a new...
Lake Roosevelt's relatively short Raider basketball team seriously beat up on their league's perennial powerhouse Brewster Bears Friday night, 90-56, signaling with a lot of talent that Raider fans will continue to like this basketball season. Head Coach Ed Wolfe had touted the varsity team's defensive chops earlier in the season, but they've got some serious scoring ability too, and it's widespread - over the court and through the team. They scored on fast breaks a lot, with Chase Marchand...
The Lady Raiders had a mixed week with two losses and a win, all on their home court, that puts them at a 3-3 overall win-loss record so far. Lake Roosevelt fell hard to Brewster Friday night, 65-34, but took down 1A Omak 64-23 the next night. Mabton flipped that score to claim the win Tuesday night 68-40. The Lady Raiders (3-3 overall) will meet Nine Mile's Lakeside Eagles (6-0) Dec. 28 in Reardan at 2 p.m., then take on Okanogan (4-1) there Jan. 2 at 6 p.m. LR will host Waterville-Mansfield...
Not only did four Raiders place well at last Saturday's Brice Williams Invite in Spangle, but Lake Roosevelt's wrestling team also turned out to be the most underestimated at the 16-team tourney. The Raider wrestlers, taken all together, scored the most match points of any team there (151), and ended up with the largest difference between their seeding into the event and where they actually ended up among the team rankings. When it was all over LR came in eighth with 81 team points racked up by...
The Raider boys scored their fifth straight win Tuesday night, defeating the Mountain Lions at Liberty Bell 61-52. "The game started out very slow and sluggish for us but once we got our tempo picked up things turned around for us," said Head Coach Ed Wolfe. Brandon Pino picked it up early and finished with 22 points to lead in Raider scoring. In the first quarter, Chase Marchand scored the 1,000th point in his high school basketball career, a rare feat and "huge milestone for him," Wolfe said....
Grand Coulee will offer a new police chief a starting salary range from $95,000 to $110,000 a year. That was decided at the Nov. 21 city council meeting to prepare for the coming retirement of Chief John Tufts, who is currently paid a salary of about $127,200 per year, the mayor said. That outpaces salaries for chiefs in many other cities of similar size in Washington, according to Councilmember Anita Eylar, who looked up several with populations around 1,000 currently paying in a range of $4,800-$6,100. Others pointed out that population size...
Elmer City residents should look in their utility bills for a link to a survey that is the first step in the town's planning efforts toward coming up with a plan to improve its park or outdoor recreation offerings, and apply for funds to make them real. In addition to the online link, paper copies will be available at the town hall. "It is important that the Town receive a high return rate in order to accurately assess community desires," a press release on the subject states. "It is fine for...
Six local municipalities will receive nearly $3.9 million in funding help for street projects in 2024, having been selected by the state Transportation Improvement Board, the agency announced this week. Coulee Dam will get more than $1 million for two projects: $546,185 will go for chip sealing many streets in the city. Another $486,406 will go to wheelchair ramp upgrades in multiple locations. Electric City will get $155,000 for street maintenance. Grand Coulee will get $126,875 for Spokane Way improvements from Alcan Road to East Grand...
A plan to aid the police department in Grand Coulee was awarded a large federal grant that may help pay for a school resource officer, training, community engagement, and more. It’s the plan that officer Matt Gilbert pitched to his city council last week after learning the Justice Department grant he’d applied for last May had actually been awarded, the same plan he put forth to the Grand Coulee Dam School District board Nov. 13, a plan for which they would each have to significantly adjust their budgets. Gilbert told both the council and the...
Ken Stanger is retiring from the school board after 14 years and received official thanks for his service at Monday night's meeting. Rich Black, president of the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors, presented Stanger with a framed letter of commendation Monday night at their regular meeting. "Your service has had a lasting, positive impact on the local community, the Grand Coulee Dam School District staff, the parents of district students, and most importantly, the students that...
Over a month after Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel and her people, both parties have agreed to a deal on hostage and prisoner exchanges, and a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. While civilians will receive food, water, and emergency care amid the exchange negotiations, Hamas’ radical indoctrination of antisemitism will continue to spread. “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: O’ Moslem, there is a Jew h...
Electric City’s council last week raised questions and concerns about the funding and staffing of the only ambulance service for the area. The service is run by the city of Grand Coulee’s volunteer fire department, which depends on voluntary staffers responding to calls. The city council’s attention was drawn to the question a month earlier when Grand Coulee City Councilmember Tom Poplawski visited to ask Electric City to consider contributing toward the costs of calls that Grand Coulee can’t bill for because it doesn’t result in a patient t...
A police officer pitched to the school board the idea of writing grants to get a “resource officer” into Lake Roosevelt Schools. Matt Gilbert, an officer with the Grand Coulee Police Department, spoke to the Grand Coulee Dam School District directors Nov. 13 after having met with Superintendent Rod Broadnax earlier. Gilbert said he’d actually written a grant application earlier that could have paid for new locks the board had just learned, in previous presentation that night, would cost the district about $28,000. “We were denied it based upon...
A local chef approached the school board last week about the possibility of using a school classroom to teach cooking classes to the public for a fee if it wouldn’t go against a district policy. Patty Oliver, owner of PK’s Culinary, told Grand Coulee Dam School District directors she would start with one-day cooking workshops on “endless topics,” including, for example, cooking pastas, sauces, sushi, appetizers and more. “I’m just looking for a space to do it,” she said, and teacher Susan Duclos’ room at the school is the best she’s found in...
I have waited approximately eight years for a determination on when we, Colville Tribal Members, were going to be compensated for the 2015 North Star fire. Since I haven’t heard of any compensation, I decided to file a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request with the BIA Regional office in Portland, Oregon. I filed this request on January 13, 2023, and I have received two answers as of this writing and will receive a final third response in the near future. I am going to share a portion of what I received because I believe it is in the b...
She was just filling in this season, but Lake Roosevelt's Lady Raider volleyball team head coach, Kasey Garvin, was honored as "Coach of the Year" in that sport among Central Washington B League schools. No newcomer, Garvin has previously coached the sport she once took part in as a Raider athlete but had not planned to take the lead this year until she was tapped when last year's head coach needed to take a time out. Raider varsity volleyball players joining her in the list of league honorees...
A local lending business is looking for a larger space to operate and is eyeing Coulee Dam’s “Community Building” as a future possibility. Jordan Ruiz, the newly appointed executive director of the Northwest Native Development Fund approached the city last week about the building that houses, a closed movie theater, an operating bowling alley, the Rio Grande restaurant, and the city’s fire department. She said NNDF wouldn’t need any of the occupied spaces but would like to explore altering the space the theater used to operate in to accommoda...
Since day one in the White House, President Biden has touted that his administration would promote “the most ambitious climate change agenda in history” and “expand affordable clean energy to every American.” While this is a talking point we continuously hear from both the President’s campaign and at the White House’s daily press briefings, I fear President Biden has a misunderstanding of how we can actually achieve the clean energy future he talks about. We cannot face our climate challenges today by viewing the issue through a straw hole....