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 Tropical Pig, a new eatery in Electric City, will open within the next few days. Owner Robert Dzurich has taken a small space, formerly housing a t-shirt shop, and turned it into a colorful and spacey restaurant. Dzurich said the business will be largely “take-out” but that there will be some tables for those wishing to eat on premises. The Tropical Pig features barbecue-style food, including baby back ribs, and all the trimmings that go with it. Prices will range from $7.95 for hot san...
Cory Willis is the new Les Schwab manager, taking over his duties at the tire and service store Aug. 1. He replaces Terry Strawn, who took a position as manager of a Les Schwab store in Snohomish. Willis comes from Reno, Nevada, where he was assistant manager in one of the four stores in that city. The new manager and wife, Shannon, along with Sam, 16, and Shalayne, 13, are looking for a place to live here. Willis said Sam, a baseball pitcher is involved in a program to develop his skills there...
The Ridge Riders will beef up the summer next Wednesday night with another bull riding event. The rodeo grounds open at 6 p.m., Aug. 15, for what could become a frequent event next year. Bull riding begins at 7 p.m. Ridge Rider President George Kohout, whose organization has been especially active this year with a number of new events, would like to put on a series of mid-week bull riding events during the 2013 tourist season. Next week, Sorrel Katich, a Keller area rancher, will supply about 36 head of bucking bulls for a cowboy list of riders...
Colville Tribal members have until Aug. 11, to return a referendum ballot on whether enrolled members want to have the tribe disburse another 30 percent of settlement funds. Members received about $4,000 each last Friday, which amounts to 20 percent of a $193 million settlement with the federal government. Tribal election officials said ballots need to be postmarked by Aug. 11, and they didn’t know when the ballots would be counted. The Colville Business Council made its pitch to retain the money and invest in reservation needs in an e...
The port district has invested over $100,000 in Banks Lake Golf Course since it took over in April, a financial report revealed last week. The cost of running the course through July 27, was $143,216, with golf course receipts totaling only $42,963.79. Port District 7 stepped in this past spring when it became apparent that the golf course would have to close. Commissioners told interested golfers who turned out for a public meeting then that they would keep the course open this year. Initially, the port district sought a golf course operator,...
Elmer City Mayor Mary Jo Carey told Coulee Dam’s town council last Wednesday night that high wastewater treatment rates could spell the end of Elmer City as a town. “We just can’t afford the high rates proposed and may have to go back into Okanogan County,” she said as she pleaded with Coulee Dam to take a new look at its $4.9 million wastewater treatment project. She seemed to endorse Coulee Dam resident Greg Wilder’s plea for a $2.7 million version of the same project. He spoke last Wednesday night before the Coulee Dam council and said the...
Visitors to the area in 2013, will see a brand new laser light show at Grand Coulee Dam. The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $1.6 million contract to LumaLaser of Eugene, Ore., recently to develop the new show. Funding for the new laser show and equipment comes from Bonneville Power Administration and will be used to not only develop the show but upgrade equipment as well as sound quality. Under the new system, authorities say, there will be an energy savings of about 75 percent. LumaLaser will...
Elmer City Mayor Mary Jo Carey told Coulee Dam’s town council last Wednesday night that high wastewater treatment rates could spell the end of Elmer City as a town. “We just can’t afford the high rates proposed and may have to go back into Okanogan County,” she said as she pleaded with Coulee Dam to take a new look at its $4.9 million wastewater treatment project. She seemed to endorse Coulee Dam resident Greg Wilder’s plea for a $2.7 million version of the same project. He spoke last Wednesday night before the Coulee Dam council and said the...
Organizers of a “community watch” program plan a town meeting at the Electric City fire station beginning at 7 p.m., Monday, Aug. 6. The point of the meeting is to get like-minded citizens together to fight crime in their neighborhoods. City Council members Birdie Hensley and Lonna Bussert have been working together to get the program going. While it isn’t an official city function, it has been a subject discussed at several council meetings. The interest was fanned by the monthly police reports of illegal activity in the city. People are a...
The town of Coulee Dam and the school district teamed up early this week to get sufficient power to A.E. Wright Elementary so the abatement of hazardous materials could begin before the old facility is torn down to make way for a new school. IRS Environmental, a sub-contractor, was on site Monday getting set up to build containment areas so they could work on removing asbestos that laces the old school. General contractor Elder Demolition of Spokane, said the abatement process will take several weeks and then demolition will begin. Elder will...
The town of Coulee Dam and the school district teamed up early this week to get sufficient power to A.E. Wright Elementary so the abatement of hazardous materials could begin before the old facility is torn down to make way for a new school. IRS Environmental, a sub-contractor, was on site Monday getting set up to build containment areas so they could work on removing asbestos that laces the old school. General contractor Elder Demolition of Spokane, said the abatement process will take several weeks and then demolition will begin. Elder will...
There’s still considerable danger from trees damaged by the July 20 wind storm that swept the area, Colville Tribes spokesperson Kathy Moses said Tuesday. Moses said that tops of trees damaged by the wind are falling off in wind as low as six mph. When they break, it sounds like gunshots, field workers have reported, Moses said. And many trees have been splintered underneath the bark, making them dangerous, Moses stated. “With the hotter weather, we are finding more tree problems here on the reservation,” Moses stated. Meanwhile, tribal autho...
Jerry Birdwell was named last Thursday as a Port District 7 commissioner. Birdwell replaces Larry Maier, who resigned a month ago after serving nine years on the board. Birdwell will have to file next year and win in the November election to remain on the board. Maier told commissioners that he was resigning because he wanted to spend more time with his family and do a little ocean fishing. Birdwell is retired as maintenance director for the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Birdwell was seated last Thursday on the board....
There’s a whole lot of bull going on. And they are coming to Grand Coulee Aug. 15 for the Ridge Riders’ bull riding event. Sorrel Katich will provide about 36 bulls for the one-night event, stock from his ranch south of Keller. Katich said Tuesday that he would supply 30 long-round bulls and six short-round bulls. The difference is that the short-round bulls have a better record of discarding their riders. “Make no mistake,” Katich said, “all of the bulls do a pretty good job of bucking off their riders.” The mid-week event is a test to see...
People that have been around the area for a long time said last Friday afternoon’s storm was the worst they had ever seen. A National Weather Service warning at 12:54 p.m. said it was moving north through Grant County at about 30 miles per hour. The warning was issued until 1:45, but the storm hit the Grand Coulee Dam area with force about 3 p.m. In its wake, there were many reports of upended trees and roof damage, and the driving rain kept people indoors for the half hour or so of the s...
A lack of fresh air that allows irritating contaminants to build up is the source of many complaints at Center School, a new report concludes. The air quality report on Center School raises serious concerns, but presents manageable solutions, Superintendent Dennis Carlson told the school district directors Monday. The anxiously awaited study was prompted by a complaint from staff members at the school, who said staff and students had for some time been suffering from burning eyes, sore throats and headaches, as well as other poor health...
Officials from Elder Demolition, of Spokane/Portland, which won the bid to demolish A.E. Wright Elementary school, walked through the school Monday afternoon to review the work that needs to be done to remove hazardous materials. Also on the walk-through was Carl Berman, a representative of IRS Environmental, a sub-contractor, who will do the abatement of asbestos and other hazardous materials. Elder’s project manager, Justin Arrand, said the abatement will take place in two stages. The south wi...
An Electric City man received some degree of clarity from the city’s attorney about speaking at city council meetings. Jeff Eiffert had problems with the council’s recent policy decision to limit people from bringing complaints directly to the council in public session. Eiffert then contacted the state’s attorney general, who stated that if the council had a time for public discourse in its meetings, members couldn’t limit what people wanted to talk about. The city then sent a copy of the attorney general’s letter to City Attorney Katherine L....
Gray & Osborne, an engineering firm out of Yakima, has been selected by Grand Coulee to do the design work on a sidewalk project from SR-174 along Spokane Way down to Federal Avenue. The project’s cost is listed as $215,000, of which $204,250 is funded by a grant from the State Transportation Improvement Board, according to the TIB website. In its pitch for the work, Gray & Osborne stated that in recent years the firm has completed many similar sidewalk projects for communities of all sizes. The Yakima firm has done a number of much larger p...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District board has awarded a double contract to OAC Services of Spokane to oversee two phases of the K-12 new school facility construction process. The board awarded dual contracts for “value engineering” and “constructability review,” both state requirements. OAC will, in its value engineering contract, determine if the planned structure is a wise use of state tax revenues and if the plans are the most efficient way of construction. “Essentially, this provides an extra set of eyes to make certain we are getting t...
Coulee Dam police are still trying to figure out what happened in the “exploding guitar” shooting incident that happened July 14, on River Drive, where a woman was shot in her arm. The badly injured Nicole Stice went to the door of her home at 1017 River Drive, calling out, “Somebody help me.” Stice had received a gunshot wound to her arm, but she told police that her guitar “had exploded” as she was playing it. Police found a .45-caliber gun nearby and a guitar with a bullet hole in it. Police tried to interview Stice, but she was under sedat...
Electric City is wading its way through the benefits package it provides its employees. Front and center is its vacation leave package, which is essentially a standard 40 hours (one work week) of vacation time after a year, two weeks from 2-5 years, three weeks from 6-12 years and four weeks after 13 years. The city credits employees by the month, such as 3.34 hours per month in the first year. It’s the fractions that bother Councilmember Birdie Hensley. She raised the concern at the July 10 council meeting, saying it was awkward figuring v...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District board has approved a raise for Superintendent Dennis Carlson: 20 percent of his current base salary during pre-construction of the new K-12 school complex. The increase is due to the amount of extra time the superintendent will spend while all the details of the construction project are worked out, a board report stated. Carlson’s base salary is $104,000; however, he had voluntarily taken a 3-percent reduction in salary during the last budget period. The board had recently added a year to his contract, t...
Fire crews have had quite a workout over the past week, particularly in Douglas County, Grand Coulee’s fire chief Rick Paris reported Monday. Just as a Type-3 incident management team was cleaning up and leaving from the near 500-acre Cache Butte fire on north Banks Lake late last week, the area experienced another lightning storm that started several small fires and a larger one. Douglas County Fire District 3 and District 5 battled a fire between Mansfield and Bridgeport near Foster Creek that turned into a major fire, starting about m...
A woman on River Drive who suffered a gunshot wound to her right forearm last Saturday night told officers that her guitar had exploded. Coulee Dam Police Chief Pat Collins said Tuesday that there was a bullet hole in the woman’s guitar and that police pulled a bullet from a wall. A 45-caliber handgun was recovered near the room where the incident occurred. When Officer Joshua Dies arrived at 11 p.m. at 1017 River Drive, he found the woman, Nicole Stice, standing in her driveway yelling, “Somebody help me,” according to the police repor...