News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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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...
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...
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...
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...
The public is invited to the Colville Tribal “Earth Day” celebration, Friday, April 20, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Indian Agency powwow grounds. Organizers were hoping for over a thousand people turning out to take part in activities and visiting displays and information booths. Joaquin Bustamante said that last year about 600 attended the event and that he has been working to expand activities and increase attendance. “We have over 50 booths scheduled and many of those will be giving away...
Electric City’s council retreat inched a bit closer to home Tuesday night when members voted to hold the six-hour meeting in Ephrata instead of Moses Lake. What swayed council members was that City Clerk Jackie Perman found a free room at the Grant County Health Board. The city would have had to pay for a room at Big Bend Community College, but the Health Board room is free. It wasn’t exactly clear why the council wanted to meet out of town. About the only item for the agenda that cropped up was one suggested by Councilmember John Nordine. He...
Sometimes dreams do come true. The Grand Coulee Dam School District’s plans for a new school appear to be a go. After long budgeting hassles in Olympia, the governor, the House and Senate finally agreed today, mostly, on a budget — one that includes enough money to build a new school for the Grand Coulee Dam community. Added to the $14 million already approved two years ago for the project, a $17 million line item in the supplemental capital budget appeared virtually assured of passage early thi...
Getting the city cleaned up was again a topic at Grand Coulee’s city council meeting April 3. Becky Billups, who lives on Burdin Boulevard, appeared for the second time to ask city officials what they were going to do about the mess in her neighborhood. Two weeks earlier she had told the council that it was getting to look like a “ghetto” on Burdin Boulevard. Billups argued last week that if she wanted to improve her property permits would be required and there would be a penalty if she didn’t pay for them. But, she said, “people can let their...
Recycling was again the main topic at the Regional Board of Mayors meeting on Monday. The mayors all paid lip service to the idea but by the end of the day nothing had changed. The recycling idea had come up at the mayors’ March meeting when Kimberly Christensen informed the mayors that she wanted to start a recycling program in the area. She had already developed her own recycling company called Ever-Green Recycling. Christensen said she wanted to get locations in each of the towns for recycling bins. She also suggested to the mayors that t...
A proposal to spray mosquitoes from the air brought an exchange between Chairman Randy Gumm and new Commissioner Holly Allen at last Wednesday night’s Mosquito District 2 meeting in Electric City. Commissioners, in one of their last actions in November, had budgeted $100,000 for aerial spraying this year in the hopes of controlling the mosquito population and to prevent a serious outbreak again this summer. Gumm, who was elected chair of the group Wednesday, said possibly the only way to prevent another major outbreak of mosquitoes was to s...
A request for nearly $17,000 for police software was put on hold by Grand Coulee’s city council last Tuesday night. The police department is seeking the funds to pay licensing fees for new software for patrol car laptop computers. The request was for 10 licenses at $1,675 each, prompting Councilmember David Tylor to ask if “police could write more tickets to pay for the licenses.” The new software will allow officers to gain information about vehicles and their owners or drivers before confronting a possible felon or someone wanted by autho...
Oasis Lawn Care was awarded the contract to keep up North Dam Park and the softball fields, Coulee Area Parks and Recreation District Chairman Phil Hansen said last Thursday. Two bidders submitted proposals, Oasis and Mr. E’s. Hansen said the Oasis bid was under $22,500 and details of the bid were more complete. Hansen said the two bids were close. North Dam Park came under the park district’s control last year after Grand Coulee gave up maintenance and the Bureau of Reclamation, owners of the park land, stated that it didn’t have money budge...
Electric City’s council will retreat, May 4. That is, they will go on a retreat. The council members, at the urging of Councilmember Birdie Hensley, agreed to set aside a day to go to Moses Lake for discussions. The council, at their regular meeting last Tuesday night, wasn’t specific on what members wanted to talk about. City Clerk Jackie Perman was working with Big Bend Community College for a meeting room. Members of the council, Mayor Jerry Sands, and any city employees the council wanted in attendance will go to Moses Lake in the mor...
Golf play is open at Banks Lake Golf Course, and the port district has slashed membership rates significantly. Individual memberships have dropped from $750 a year to $400 and membership for couples or families has been trimmed fom $950 to $450, less than half. Port District 7 commissioners said last Thursday that this was an effort to soften the blow to some 39 golf members who pre-paid for the season, and whose money and memberships got caught up in the closing of the course a month ago when officials of the Banks Lake Golf and Country Club...
Brad Wilson’s resignation as boys’ varsity basketball coach at Lake Roosevelt High School was accepted by the school board at its last meeting. Athletic Director Rich Black said the district will start advertising for a replacement within the district in the next few days and then, if he doesn’t receive any viable candidates, outside the district. He said he would like to get the position filled by the time school begins in the fall, if not sooner. “It is going to be difficult to replace...
All seven Colville Tribal Business Council members up for election this year are being challenged for their two-year terms. A total of 29 have filed for the seven seats with the primary election barely four weeks away on May 5. Both positions in the Nespelem District received four challengers. In Position 1, incumbent Harvey Moses, Jr., will have four challengers: Jonnie L. Bray; Milton “Jewie” Davis, Jr.; William “Billy” Nicholson II; and Tum-chis-Lii-wit Mylan Williams, Sr. Incumbent Ricky Gabriel, in Nespelem Position 2, faces off against La...
Electric City’s city council approved agreements with three entities last week. • An agreement with the Grand Coulee Veterinary Clinic details rates for euthanasia and disposal fees for animals brought into the clinic and also for boarding them. Killing animals and disposing of their carcasses will range from $83.50 to $151, based on weight. The city and clinic also agreed on a $13.50 daily fee to hold animals. • Electric City will help provide fire protection coverage within Fire District 14 for a fee of $4,000 a year. • And council reverse...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District has received an energy grant from the state of $580,268, district officials said Monday. Coupled with energy incentives in the amount of $174,243, and net costs to the school district of $406,025, the energy saving upgrade is $1.16 million venture. Superintendent Dennis Carlson said Monday that the district learned of the grant being awarded late last week. The grant was submitted only a few days before. The monies will enable the district to replace outdated and obsolete lighting, and pay for modernized...
A Coulee Dam man was found dead Monday about noon in Fiddle Creek, near 402 Columbia, an apparent suicide victim. Lyle Allstot, 30, was a graduate of Lake Roosevelt High School in 2000 and a longtime employee of Harvest Foods. Coulee Dam Police Chief Pat Collins said two children saw the body and told an adult who reported to police. Collins said Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Curtis Flatray is the lead investigator in the case. No autopsy was planned, according to the sheriff’s office. Collins said strangulation was the apparent cause of dea...
A number of fire departments will be in training April 11 and 12, at Electric City, for “red card” wildfire certification. Firefighters who go out on range fires need eight hours of training each year in order to keep their “red cards” up to date. Fire official Mark Payne said the group will receive four hours training, from 6-10 p.m., each of the two nights. Firefighters from Electric City, Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam, Elmer City, and Douglas County will take part. About 70 firefighters will be involved. In a separate training program, new vol...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District board approved an E-Rate project totaling some $232,000, at its meeting March 26. Of the project total, the district will put in just over $57,000. E-Rate funds come from both state and federal governments and are based on rates the district pays for its various services. The project will update the district's phone system, provide new network wiring, and provide some $99,000 worth of network hardware. Board members asked if the district had the $57,000, for its share of the project, and were told by...
A Grand Coulee woman complained that her area was turning into a “ghetto,” and two men complained about loud music at last Tuesday night’s Grand Coulee City Council meeting. Becky Billups, who lives on Burdin Boulevard, told council that the collection of old cars, boats, trailers and debris was making her residential area look like a “ghetto.” The area’s new hospital, Coulee Medical Center, is but a half block away on the same street. One man referred to the general area as being owned by “slum” landlords. Ross Clune and Jerry Ratcliffe told t...
The city of Grand Coulee has collected $47,900 in ambulance billings for 2011, the city council was advised last Tuesday night by Fire Chief Rick Paris. That sum represents about 26 percent of all billings for 2011. Statistics provided the council show that there is still $133,059 pending and an additional $4,710 has been disallowed. An additional $35,000 is owed by private parties, the report showed, putting the total accounts receivable not yet paid for 2011, at $165,924. The city hadn’t made ambulance billings since July, 2009, until P...
An energy savings project for Grand Coulee Dam schools got a little momentum Monday night when the board of directors approved a production schedule submitted by the firm of McKinstry. Superintendent Dennis Carlson said the schedule was based on the assumption that the district will receive a grant from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. He told Grand Coulee Dam School District board members that the district faces a tight construction schedule and that by approving the schedule in advance the project can be moved on...
A Ridge Riders riding clinic begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, continuing daily through Tuesday. At the helm is veteran organizer Janet Doughty, who this year is putting on her 36th riding clinic. The clinic offers riding instruction in four categories: Intermediates, beginners, advanced and adults. Doughty said that well known clinic instructor Tara Johnson returns this year, and will offer instruction in the four categories all four days. In addition to the 9 a.m. intermediate class from 9 -11; beginners ride from 11 a.m. to noon; those with...
