News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Port District officials have taken the first step in getting Banks Lake Golf Course open. District officials hired George Davis III, as grounds and greens keeper. Davis had worked the past year in that capacity, but was released when the operators of the course announced that it wouldn’t open this year. The port’s announcement that it would open the course, and run it until a new operator was found, brought hope to area golfers. The port will have its next regular meeting next Thursday, March 29, at 5 p.m. at offices at the airport. Port Com...
by Roger S. Lucas The town of Coulee Dam has received a Washington State Department of Transportation grant for $302,750, for major improvements to Lower Crest Drive, the council learned at its meeting last Wednesday night. Public Works Director Barry Peacock said the work would involve grinding and replacement of, or a new roadway and possibly sidewalks for, lower Crest Drive from River Drive to the end of the city limits, a distance of a little over two blocks long. Peacock said an additional $47,250 might be coming from the Transportation...
The creation of a new water service for Elmer City has garnered an award for those who made it happen. Elmer City’s water extension team, made up of Mayor Mary Jo Carey, Town Clerk Renée Tillman and Public Works Director “Jimmer” Tillman, along with the Colville Tribes and Indian Health Services, have been recognized with a “Recognition of Excellence” award for working together successfully for creating a regional water service. The local groups were nominated for the award by the Portland Area Indian Health Services. The project brought ne...
Grant County Port District 7 has suddenly found itself in the golf business. At a special meeting Thursday night, commissioners reclaimed a lease formerly held by the Banks Lake Golf and Country Club, and then assured golfers that the course would open and be maintained by the port district until commissioners find a new operator for the course. About 50 people jammed a banquet room at Pepper Jack’s Bar & Grille to see if they were going to be able to golf on the Banks Lake course this year. The...
Dakota Columbia will operate the Seven Bays and Keller Ferry houseboat concessions for another year, the National Park Service confirmed Tuesday. The agreement was reached after an attempt to attract proposals for a 10-year contract failed. There are good reasons why no one offered a valid proposal to operate houseboats at Seven Bays and Keller Ferry, a man familiar with the two businesses asserted. Elmer Little, a former employee of Seven Bays, contended in a letter to the Davenport Times and to The Star, that anyone seeking the contract to...
Grand Coulee Police arrested and jailed two Electric City residents March 2 on charges of delivering meth within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. Robert Day, 34, and Heather McClain, 35, were arrested and taken to Grant County Jail, under charged with delivery of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), violations committed in or on certain public places (within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop). With a warrant, police entered the residence at 58078 W. Second, in Electric City, and found what they thought were methamphetamine crystals packed...
A Grand Coulee woman pitched the area’s four mayors Monday to begin a recycling service, and suggested that they start up their own garbage collection system. Kimberly Christensen said she intends to begin small with a new recycling service, placing collection bins in strategic places, and then work toward curbside collection. Operating as Ever-Green Recycling, Christensen said that her program is starting in Wilbur and she hopes to get started in the Grand Coulee Dam area very soon. She told mayors at their Monday meeting that they should look...
Tribal Recycling manager Joaquin Bustamante said last week that he hopes “Earth Day” on April 20, will attract some 1,200 visitors to the grassy area near the Trading Post at the Colville Indian Agency. The event is catering to school children and is affording space for those who identify with “Mother Earth” to present areas of interest. At a recent Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Bustamante invited local businesses to put up a booth to take part. Schools on and near the reservation have been invited. Free hot dogs will he...
Port District commissioners will host a meeting of golfers and those interested in keeping Banks Lake Golf and Country Club open this Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m. at Pepper Jack’s Bar & Grill in Grand Coulee. Speaking for the commissioners, Larry Maier stated that golfers who have prepaid memberships and golf cart storage are particularly invited. Maier said Port District attorney Chris Ries would be there to help answer questions. The community found out in late February that majority shareholders Russ and Ida Horn planned to turn the course b...
The public is going to be able to take part in naming a new Keller Ferry that will replace the Martha S. next year. The state Department of Transportation is asking the public to submit names for the 116-foot ferry now under construction in Rainier, Ore. A DOT spokesperson stated that the name of the ferry should carry “statewide significance and represent our state’s image and culture.” Specifically, the DOT announcement stated the name should represent state adopted symbols, tribal names, name...
Local schools could see a boost in energy efficiency under a proposed project. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson was instructed by the board at its late February meeting to work with McKinstry, an energy company, to pursue incentives and a grant to improve lighting and controls in its three schools. Jayson Schmidt and Mike James, from McKinstry, made presentations at the board meeting about a grant from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to bring energy savings to the district. The project could...
Horse enthusiasts from far and near can saddle up “Old Paint” and join both youngsters and adults in the Ridge Riders riding clinic, March 31- April 3. It will be Janet Doughty’s 36th year as head organizer of the clinic, which attracts riders of all ages from all over central Washington and beyond. Doughty said she plans four categories: Intermediates (from 9 a.m. to 11); beginners (from 11 a.m. to noon); advanced riders (1-3 p.m.); and adults (3-5 p.m.). It becomes somewhat a family thing...
Coulee Dam plans to submit an application for a 1.5-percent loan from the State Drinking Water Revolving Fund, which would enable the town to refinance a current U.S. Department of Agriculture loan on which it is paying 4.5 percent. Jeff Stevens of Gray & Osborne, the town’s engineering firm, advised town officials that the application was due March 1, and if Coulee Dam is successful in its request, it would save the town some $800,000 and cut 12 years off its present loan. The town currently pays nearly $80,000 a year now on the $1.35 m...
It could be the largest concrete pour since the Third Powerhouse project in the 1970s. An official from Wilson Construction, Gerald Turner, said that pours in late spring on the six towers in the Bonneville Power Administration powerline replacement project will require continuous pours on each footing under the new 300- 350-foot towers. Turner said each leg of each tower will require a hole eight feet across and from 46 to 50 feet deep, filled with steel and concrete to support the tower. Once the pour is started on a hole, the pour will be...
Electric City accepted a contract with its engineering firm for design of a new plant to treat drinking water for arsenic. City council members OK’d the contract with Gray & Osborne last Tuesday night for $176,119. Another $34,352 was approved by council for specialty services associated with G&O. Mayor Jerry Sands advised the council that officials from Clearwater Construction, the successful bidder on the project, will be in town March 8, to review details of the job. Clearwater submitted the lowest bid of 14 companies hoping for the p...
A local man said Monday that he was “almost” the victim of a scam. Everett Leishman had advertised a snow blower on craigslist, an online classified ad service, for $200, and got a suspicious response. The interested party sent two postal money orders for $950.25 each to Leishman with the instruction to cash both, keep his $200 for payment of the snow blower, and send the remaining funds ($1700.50) to a Missouri address. “Everything seemed strange to me,” Leishman stated. Leishman ended up turning over all the postal money order forms and ema...
Thrivent Financial, working through the Zion Lutheran Church, gave over $9,000 to local charities in 2011, church officials reported. The Care & Share Food Bank received a cash donation of $3,120 last December in addition to food items. The senior Meals on Wheels was also the recipient of a check, this one for $2,512. Partnering with Second Harvest Mobile Food Bank program, enough fresh produce, bread, beverages and beef (nearly 3.5 tons) was brought in to help feed 148 households. Thrivent also presented Second Harvest with a check for...
Grand Coulee Fire Chief Rick Paris got the go-ahead from the city council to fix three projects he brought up before council members. He explained to council that the second bay in the city’s fire station had developed what he feared was a “sink hole” in the floor where the city’s new fire engine is situated. He said the floor had sagged about eight inches. Paris estimated it could take $10,000 to get the floor fixed. Paris said last Wednesday that workers would have to remove the 14- by 32-foot slab the fire engine is parked on, take care of...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District has entered into an agreement to provide facilities and coaches for junior high and high school track and tennis with Almira-Coulee-Hartline schools. The board made the decision at its February meeting. The ACH schools made the inquiry because they don’t have track or tennis facilities. The agreement would allow parents of students turning out for those sports to transport them to this area, be coached by GCDSD coaches, and then be transported to meets where they would compete under their own school name. T...
Members were informed by email last week that Banks Lake Golf and Country Club will not open this year. The announcement was made by Russ and Ida Horn, managing partners of the course. The email stated that the course would revert back to Port District 7, which leases the land of the 18-hole course to golf shareholders. Port Commissioner Larry Maier heard about the decision Friday and Port Commission Chairman Oroville Scharbach still hadn’t heard early Monday, but the news was spreading through the community like wildfire. Commissioner, Stan C...
The Colville Business Council has approved an agreement to settle the Colville Tribes’ claims against the United States for an accounting of trust funds and mismanagement of tribal trust assets, CBC Chairman Michael O. Finley announced Friday. The settlement will pay the Colville Tribes $193 million, making it one of the largest Indian trust mismanagement settlements in U.S. history, Finley stated. Some of the settlement funds will be used to restore tribal forests, rangeland, and other natural resources. The agreement approved by the CBC also...
A recent increase in requests for public documents will lead to an extra employee at town hall. Coulee Dam’s town council approved the hiring of a “records management” person at its meeting last Wednesday night. Town Clerk Carol Visker asked council members to approve the new position, which will bring the city hall staff to three full-time employees. Visker stated that she plans to meet with the council’s personnel committee, made up of members Bob Poch and Ken Miles, soon to determine that position’s job description, required qualifica...
Payments by Bonneville Power Administration to the town of Coulee Dam related to its power line project are inching upward. The town council learned last Wednesday that BPA has agreed to pay the town $5 a cubic yard for dirt it intends to deposit on town property on the hillside between town hall and the switchyards. The dirt will come from road improvement work and dirt from drilled footings for the towers. Earlier, the BPA had offered to pay $2 a yard. Gary Wilson, BPA’s realty agent, told the council that the dirt placed on town property w...
Staff members of Center Elementary School took their complaints about air quality in their school directly to the school board Monday night. An aide at the school, Aaron Derr, addressed the board to highlight a list of illnesses claimed by teachers and other staff members at the school. But it was like preaching to the choir. The board was fully aware of the air quality concerns. In fact, the district had emailed the school a week earlier seeking information about reports of air quality concerns. “We had asked ESD (Educational Service D...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District board Monday night approved a number of sports appointments and resignations and dealt with a request for a leave of absence Sports appointments included Jenny Wilson, to Grand Coulee Dam Middle School head volleyball coach. Wilson has been the head volleyball coach at Lake Roosevelt. Kate Olin was named Lake Roosevelt assistant track coach. Resigning sports positions were James Caddy, as Lake Roosevelt varsity football coach; Tammy Norris, middle school assistant volleyball coach; and Charlene Tracy,...