News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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What happened to the osprey nest on the tower at the park below the Visitor Center at Grand Coulee Dam? You may see it again soon, at its new location, atop a pole that will be put in place by Wilson Construction and the Bonneville Power Administration. The osprey nest was removed last Wednesday from the 160-foot tower by a Wilson Construction lineman who climbed the tower and lowered the 100-pound nest to the ground. The nest was removed in preparation for the removal of the two powerline...
Chamber of commerce members and “Over the Dam” run officials got good news Thursday when they learned that despite work at the dam, the race can likely go on as scheduled. Public Affairs Officer Lynne Brougher told chamber members that there would be a free lane over the top of the dam and that the run could likely be held. A year ago, there had been some discussion the race might not be held across the dam because of construction. She told the 26 that turned out for the meeting that there would be heavy equipment on the top of the dam but tha...
The mayor of Coulee Dam last week asked other mayors to help with the cost of entertainment for the July 4 celebration. The last couple of years, Coulee Dam’s town council has voted funds from its hotel/motel tax collections to put on entertainment during the area’s July 4 celebration. Coulee Dam is asking the other municipalities that collect hotel/motel taxes to contribute to the cost of entertainment and related expenses. Mayor Quincy Snow told the other mayors at that he has been in touch with a “Cajun” band to highlight this year’s enterta...
Nespelem School District voters approved a four-year $118,000 replacement maintenance and operation levy last Tuesday with a 68.8-percent “yes” vote. Only 125 voters out of 392 ballots mailed out returned their votes as of Feb. 17 in what is an important funding result for the district. Of that number, 86 voted “yes” on the levy issue and 39 voted “no.” The result was a welcome Valentine’s Day present and will enable the district to collect some $1.4 million in state equalization funds. The replacement levy will start off the first year co...
Three dates have been set for community cleanup this year. The Regional Board of Mayors last week set three dates when residents of the various cities and towns can get rid of lawn and garden debris. Electric City Mayor Jerry Sands, whose city manages the Delano Regional Transfer Station, said the spring cleanup drive where residents can get rid of lawn and garden waste is scheduled for Saturday, April 21, through Saturday, April 28. The methods the different cities and towns use for the cleanup vary, and residents can call their respective...
A $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will provide funds for the Colville Indian Housing Authority to start work on its Lovejoy housing project in the Omak District, Executive Director Elena L. Bassett said. Bassett said the project will provide 20 single-family homes and probably be completed and occupied in 2014, at a cost of $4-5 million. She said a community center might be added if additional funding becomes available. Last year the Indian Housing Authority completed a 27-unit project called B...
Electric City’s city council meeting lasted just 18 minutes Feb. 14, but it gave members plenty of time to rebuff a request by Grant County’s Economic Development Council on a funding request. The EDC had asked for $532.50 from Electric City, only to have Councilmember Bob Rupe ask, “What have they done for us on this end of the county?” Fellow Councilmember John Nordine said the work of the EDC helped keep taxes lower for everyone, including people in Electric City. Mayor Jerry Sands said the last time the city had responded favorably to an E...
“The kids were better than excellent,” Lake Roosevelt High School counselor Sue Hayes said of 87 students who got a day-long trip to Spokane as part of “Rewards Day.” Students at Lake Roosevelt are rewarded in late winter for a combination of favorable experiences which include attendance, grades and personal discipline. “A total of 116 students from freshman to seniors qualified for the trip, but 29 chose to stay home and work on academic projects,” Hayes stated. Two buses took the students to roller skating, lunch of pizzas, shopping at...
The body of Jamie Marie Breckenridge, 42, who had been missing since Jan. 8, was found Sunday afternoon, about a quarter of a mile from where she was last seen. The woman was found near W. Grand Coulee Avenue by a friend of a resident who lives nearby and reported to police shortly after 3 p.m. The last known contact anyone had was when Breckenridge was seen near Four Corners and stated she planned to leave the area and go to Snohomish. There has been a statewide missing persons alert out since...
For Rod Desjardins, making pizzas is more than a job, it’s a way of life. His “Hometown Pizza” restaurant was honored last Thursday by the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce as the local “Business of the Year.” Desjardins’ first job as a teenager was in a Seattle area pizza parlor, and he’s been at it nearly ever since. Always modest, Desjardins lays the firm’s success and last Thursday’s honors directly at the feet of his employees. “They are the ones being honored,” he said....
The chamber’s own president, Scott Hunter, was named “Achiever of the Year” during a special luncheon last Thursday. Annually, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce names both a “Business of the Year” and an “Achiever of the Year” at its annual meeting. Hometown Pizza was named “Business of the Year.” Hunter, president of the chamber, and owner and publisher of The Star newspaper, was honored for his many “behind the scenes” contributions he makes to the community the chamber serves, S...
The Ridge Riders got $4,000 support from Coulee Dam Town Council Wednesday night. The council had budgeted a total of $1,500 for the Ridge Riders from the town’s hotel/motel tax fund but upped it $2,500 after George Kohout and Kathy Baty appeared to outline the group’s plans for the year. The town had originally set aside funds for an entrance sign, only to learn that they couldn’t use hotel/motel money for that, and then shifted enough of that budget item to make up the difference for the Ridge Riders. Before Kohout could finish his prese...
Greg Wilder and Coulee Dam Mayor Quincy Snow had a heated exchange at the town council meeting last Wednesday night. Wilder appeared to ask why the town hasn’t replied to his letter request of Oct. 10, 2011, for water service to a property he owns on 803 Yucca. Wilder asked why he couldn’t receive the same service offered to residents on the west side of the river, a request he has been pressing for sometime. At one point Snow asked Wilder to sit down and got this reply: “You can be smug all you want, I have to put up with you.” In his letter...
All you wannabe cowboys and cowgirls, here’s your chance. Organize and become part of the Ridge Riders Ranch Rodeo activity this season. The Ridge Riders hope to tap in to a regional ranch rodeo network where teams of four -- three men and one woman -- compete in a variety of typical real ranch skills. If it all fits together, local rancher Bubba Egbert says, competition would go on from Tonasket to Republic and Winthrop to Grand Coulee. Grand Coulee has two dates on the circuit, June 30 and (tentatively) Sept. 22. Anyone can put a team t...
The start of a Bonneville Power Administration project to replace power lines from the Third Powerhouse to the switchyards above the town of Coulee Dam has hit a delay. BPA had announced that it would begin the project the second week of February, but only recently requested the town of Coulee Dam schedule a public meeting so the agency and its contractor could explain and answer questions about the project and work schedule. That meeting has been set for 4-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, at the city hall community room. BPA’s Senior Project M...
It’s a real Valentine story. Frank and Elaine Sanford celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last Saturday with family at their home at the top of the hill on the Bridgeport Highway. This is home for the popular pioneer couple, as both went to school in the area and never left it. They married Jan. 22, 1942, after a two-year courtship that started on the dance floor at a Nespelem dance hall. “He was an excellent dancer,” Elaine said of her husband. The two danced their lives away for 68 ye...
Nespelem School District is hoping for a good Valentine’s Day present, passage of its four-year maintenance and operations levy. Nearly 400 voters received their mail-in ballots recently to approve a four-year levy for $118,000 in funding. Although that’s among the very lowest levy amounts in the state, Superintendent John Adkins notes, it accounts for far more critical funds to the district than just the levy dollars themselves. Passage of the levy would also make the district eligible for state “Local Effort Assistance” or levy equalization f...
The Bonneville Power Administration and the town of Coulee Dam still have issues to work out on the project to stretch power lines from the Third Powerhouse to the switch yards. That became apparent last Wednesday night when Mayor Quincy Snow told BPA officials that they didn’t “have the right to do this,” meaning using the city’s access road behind city hall. He was referring to BPA telling the town that it had the right to use the access road behind city hall to move heavy equipment and loads up the hill where high towers will be built....
The Coulee Area Park & Recreation District got the $11,000 it asked for from Coulee Dam’s hotel/motel fund as a result of discussions last Wednesday night. While talking about how vague some of the detail was in developing North Dam Park as a tourist spot, Councilmember Karl Hjorten said it was like “taking bad medicine.” But the recreation entity got some praise also when Hjorten and fellow Councilmember Ben Alling both stated that Phil Hansen, chair of the district, had supplied fairly good documentation for being the first year that it ha...
An effort by the National Park Service to get concession proposals for houseboat operations at Keller Ferry and Seven Bays drew a blank. Contracts at both operations had lapsed and were being renewed on a year-to-year basis. The NPS was seeking proposals from interested parties for a 10-year lease, and had a tour of the two facilities for interested parties last fall. At that time several parties showed up, but none proceeded to submit proposals before the Jan. 24, deadline. Marsha Buchanan, who handles leases for the Lake Roosevelt National...
Hotel/motel tax money flowed freely in Electric City last Tuesday night when the city council voted to provide the Ridge Riders $4,000 and the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce $13,000. The money collected as a tax on motel rooms and campsites, must be used to support tourism. Both groups made presentations at the meeting showing how the money would be used. George Kohout explained to the council the new features the Ridge Riders group planned this year. They included a riding clinic, a dinner and auction, a bull riding event the day...
Carol Ann Estrada is still wrestling with the disappearance of her daughter, Jamie Breckenridge. Breckenridge, 42, was reported missing Jan. 8, after she told friends that she planned to go to Snohomish. Her mother just returned from Snohomish, after going to the area for a family funeral, and talked with people who had seen her daughter, the week before she went missing. Breckenridge’s car is still in the local area. “She had told me that something was wrong with the starter,” her mother said....
The Village Cinema has become a new family affair. Carole Fisher, of Changes in Electric City, recently purchased the theater from Lori Crabtree, and Fisher’s daughter, Lynette Zierden, has become the new manager. Three of Zierden’s children, Mara, Alisha and Jimmy will all play a major part in the operation. Fisher and family have worked with the town of Coulee Dam, owners of the building, to establish a two-year lease. At the town council meeting last week, the council committee dealing wit...
Town officials will have another opportunity tonight (Wednesday) to offer input on the Bonneville Power Administration’s Third Powerhouse powerline project. BPA’s senior project manager, Mark A. Korsness, said he planned to be at tonight’s meeting, set for 6 p.m. at town hall, to again review plans to string the high power lines from the Third Powerhouse, across the river and up the hill to the switch yards. BPA officials were in Coulee Dam in mid-December to review plans to get the proje...
School district and federal officials met last week to talk about federal impacts on local schools. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson met with Bureau of Reclamation Project Manager Mark Jenson and others last Thursday so the two parties could exchange views on the school position that work being done on the Third Powerhouse generators and on the John W. Keys III Pump-Generator Station impacts the school district. While doing the Environmental Assessment for its Third Powerhouse upgrade, the Bureau of Reclamation...