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 Electric City woman finds herself needing help before she can help her two grandchildren out of foster care. Mardee Davis, who lives at 103 West Grand Avenue, is trying to get custody of her two grandchildren who are now in separate foster homes. The two grandsons, ages 8 and 7, are separated from their parents for a variety of reasons. Davis moved here just over a year ago from Lake Stevens and took over a mobile home that was formerly occupied by a son. The interior and exterior of the... Full story
Liveability and infrastructure took up a good share of the time at Electric City’s retreat last Friday, the mayor said. Topics discussed included crime, raising sewer rates and a new car fee, among others. The need to do something about crime problems, particularly drug activity, was one of the council’s focal points during its six-hour discussion in Ephrata where council members gathered to take a look forward. The council’s “crime watch” or “block watch,” as it’s being called, got a boost from council members who seemingly are getting tir... Full story
Two sitting Colville Business Council members lost out to challengers in the primary “poll” count last Saturday and will not make it to the general election June 16 unless absentee ballots put them over the top. The two biggest vote getters in each race go on to the general election. Leading candidates in the Omak district races are members who have been fired from tribal leadership posts in the past, including Lynn Palmanteer-Holder, whose ouster as executive director led to a movement to encourage change in tribal structure last year. In the... Full story
Grant County Sheriff Tom Jones spoke to the concerns of a dozen Electric City residents who turned out Monday night at Pepper Jack’s Bar & Grille. His visit was all part of a plan to hold town hall meetings in 10 communities this year. Jones said his office would support and help organize a “block watch” program in Electric City sometime in the near future. The idea came up at an Electric City Council meeting a couple of months ago and has been fostered by Councilmember Birdie Hensley, who w... Full story
Getting the state’s attention, is one thing, keeping it is another. School Superintendent Dennis Carlson and new-school architect Laurence Rose both had encouraging remarks after meeting with officials in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction last week. Their task was to convince state officials that the district here is really on the fast track for getting its K-12 new school project started. At issue is whether state school officials will see this project as “shovel ready”. The state education office has a certain routi... Full story
“We’re on a fast-track project,” Superintendent Dennis Carlson told a handful of people who turned out last Thursday to get an update on the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s plans for a new K-12 school complex. The group heard architect Laurence Rose provide a best guess timeline for the $46 million project. Look for bids to go out in January, 2013, with construction starting soon afterward, Rose told the audience, “and students occupying the new building in late August, 2014.” However, both Rose and Carlson explained that in order for t... Full story
A portion of the Coulee Dam and Elmer City councils will meet Friday, May 4, at 10 a.m. at Coulee Dam City Hall to discuss the new wastewater treatment plant project. Mayor Quincy Snow asked that two council members from his public works committee free themselves up for the meeting. The meeting was requested by Coulee Dam to update Elmer City on the progress of the wastewater treatment plant project. Elmer City said the meeting was just between mayors Quincy Snow and Mary Jo Carey, two council members from each town and Jeff Stevens, from the... Full story
Leaders in Electric City are putting together items they want to talk about out of town. At a 38-minute meeting of the Electric City Council last Tuesday night, members said they wanted to discuss short-term and long-term goals for the city. A mission statement was suggested as a way to get council members moving together in the same direction. The retreat will be held in the Grant County Public Works building near the Ephrata airport and will last from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. this Friday. The meeting is open to the public and information and a map... Full story
Commissioners of Port District 7 got a taste of how expensive it is to run a golf course as they poured over a massive number of golf course related bills last Thursday evening. It prompted chairman Orville Scharbach to ask: “How long can we remain solvent?” Secretary/Treasurer Kary Byam responded, “Not long at this rate.” Port district commissioners went on and made plans to spend $10,000 to purchase a new mower to mow the rough along fairways at Banks Lake Golf Course. When one person asked how they could get by without getting a new rough mo... Full story
Sam Stanczak, who owns a small mobile home park in Electric City, informed the council last Tuesday night that he would like to build some houses on his property. Stanczak who has been in a running battle with the city on the age of trailers he can have in his park, asked what he had to do to change direction at his park site. He reminded Mayor Jerry Sands that Sands had tried to purchase the property from him in 2008. The property is zoned R-2, with lot sizes for a single family residence at 6,000 square feet and 9,600 square feet for a... Full story
Jennika Hill has turned a page in her book and is anxious to get on to the next. Hill placed fourth in Women’s Physique bodybuilding competition last Saturday at the Northern Quest theater in Airway Heights. “Boy was I nervous,” Hill stated Tuesday. But, as she says, “as soon as I started to perform everything was okay.” Hill continued, “When I walked out on the stage for my one-minute routine, a big roar went up and that helped settle me down.” The roar, in part, was from a handful of Credit Un... Full story
The school board, Monday night, finally agreed to next year’s calendar after nearly an hour-long discussion that ended only when Superintendent Dennis Carlson recommended one of two options before the board. The agreed-to option was the closest calendar to one adopted a couple of months ago by Nespelem School and was in concert with the district’s effort to build a calendar that was as close as possible to the one from Nespelem. Board member Ted Piccolo wanted school to begin after Labor Day and objected to the 3-day 4-day 5-day start of the... Full story
Lake Roosevelt High School announced its 10th Gates Millennium Scholar this week. Winning a free ride to a university of choice was Matt Timentwa, a Nespelem resident, who has attended school here since kindergarten. Timentwa’s specialty is math and science. The Lake Roosevelt senior received news that he had won the Gates scholarship last Friday. The scholarships are given to minority students who come from lower income families and who qualify under an extensive process. Students selected m...
A teenage girl was killed in a car accident last week near Nespelem. Rickey Lynn Louie-Burris, 15, a sophomore at Lake Roosevelt High School, died last Wednesday evening in a one-car accident on Gold Lake Road. Reports were that speed could have been the cause of the accident. One person at the scene said the automobile was pretty well demolished. Details of the accident were not provided by Tribal Police after numerous attempts to obtain information. A person close to the scene stated that... Full story
A man who has had a running battle with the town of Coulee Dam over water charges, appeared at Elmer City’s last town council meeting, charging that the town there is being overcharged by Coulee Dam for its sewer service. Greg Wilder brought agreement documents between the two towns and took issue with the way Coulee Dam is drafting its sewer charges, maintaining that Elmer City’s quarterly bill is 25 percent higher than it should be. Wilder said this has been going on for the past 10 years or more. Wilder told town officials that they sho... Full story
Comments from residents of Burdin Boulevard turned personal as a number of people addressed the Grand Coulee City Council April 17. Mel Toulou Sr., took issue with Becky Billups, who had attended two previous council meetings to tell members that her area on Burdin looked like a “ghetto.” Toulou told Billups, “I am not a ghetto rat.” Billups replied, “I didn’t say you were a ghetto rat, I said that the area looked like a ghetto.” The discussions almost got out of hand and Mayor Chris Christopherson stepped in and warned parties who were ther... Full story
Paul Gauron owns a document shredding business, United Data Security, out of Spokane. His firm will be set up Saturday, April 28, at Strate Funeral Home, from 9-1 p.m., to shred your documents, courtesy of the Grand Coulee Dam Rotary Club and as part of Electric City’s Earth Day celebration. Gauron, a former mortgage banker, will have two large shredder trucks here to shred business and private-party documents and papers, free of charge. The firm was here last year, and Gauron told chamber of commerce members last Thursday that he would be here... Full story
The cause of a 42-year-old Grand Coulee woman’s death in February was an overdose of methamphetamine, the Grant County coroner said this week. Jamie Breckenridge was found dead along SR-174 near Spokane Way on Feb.12. Grant County Coroner Craig Morrison released information about Breckenridge’s death last Thursday after receiving a report from Washington State Laboratory. Breckenridge had last been seen Jan. 8, after telling people that she planned to go to the Snohomish area. She was found less than a mile away from where she was last see... Full story
There’s going to be a little bit for everyone at Electric City’s second annual Earth Day this Saturday. While the program is geared for kids, there’s a little bit of kid in all of us, so you better show up and have a little fun. Probably one of the popular features of the day will be the Belgian horse team and wagon rides that will take off on Sunny Drive, kids and all. The day’s activities begin at 11 a.m. and conclude around 2 p.m. Always popular is the ride on a fire engine. Look for firemen and the big red truck in the area near city ha... Full story
A crowd estimated at 1,200 attended the Colville Tribal Earth Day celebration last Friday in the dance arbor near the Indian Agency. The event was crowned by scores of school-age children in native regalia providing dance entertainment for the crowd of visitors. About 60 Earth Day booths circled the pavillion, giving away information on recycling and other topics. Visitors got raffle tickets for visiting at least 10 of the booths, and a wide variety of prizes were available. A Native drum team provided a serious mood and entertained the crowd.... Full story
Work is going on -- most of it behind the scenes -- on the new school project. Chief architect Laurence Rose said last week that his firm, Design West, from Pullman, is reviewing all of the information it has accumulated to lay the proper groundwork to finish drawings for the project. Accordingly, he has called a meeting of the community planning group to get together this Thursday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the district office in an effort to fine-tune the planning on the K-12 project. The district is also planning a 6:30 p.m. community meeting... Full story
Two lucky ospreys in Coulee Dam moved up to a new high rise apartment last Friday. Now you will see them, about two flaps of the wing north, sitting atop a 115-foot pole overlooking their favorite fishing grounds below Grand Coulee Dam. Their former home was atop the steel transmission tower, now removed, that anchored the end of the park below the Visitor Center. While it was new digs for the ospreys, the apartment was familiar. Bonneville Power Administration had Wilson Construction carefully... Full story
The hunt is still on for $14 million for the proposed new school complex. The announcement last week that the Grand Coulee Dam School District is getting $17 million from the the state Legislature to build new schools isn’t the end of the effort, but another beginning. When the K-12 school complex was planned, the estimated cost was $46 million. The $17 million approved in the state’s capital budget last week, added to $14 million the district already had is “enough to build the educational portion of the project,” district Superintendent Denni... Full story
by Roger S. Lucas The Grand Coulee Dam School District is on its way to finding out why so many students and staff at Center Elementary School are complaining about bad air quality and its effects. Staff concerns were expressed at a recent school board meeting, and a study of air quality is underway. Superintendent Dennis Carlson said Fulcrum, Inc., from Spokane, an air quality firm, plans to place air monitoring equipment in the school to test the air quality 24 hours a day for a month. Carlson stated that preliminary indications are that air... Full story
Banks Lake Golf Course’s membership drive has been highly successful, Port District 7 Chairman Orville Scharbach said Monday. Current memberships stand at 52, and the course operations are moving forward, Scharbach stated. The golf course came under control of the port commission April 1 after operators of the course walked away from it. Port district officials moved quickly to encourage golfers to return and take out memberships by reducing fees by half. An individual memberships is now $400 compared to $750 a year ago. Some 39 golfers were tr... Full story