News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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At least one resident in Delano was upset when he saw a dead horse being dragged down Alcan Road onto Cardinal Road at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The horse, which had been cared for at the Grand Coulee Animal Rescue, died earlier in the day after at least two people active at the rescue had sat up with the horse most of the night. Mel Hunt, former Grand Coulee police chief, now retired, said he and his wife, Joyce, were shocked to see a pickup pulling the dead white horse down the street. According to a Grand Coulee police report, the horse was d...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District board voted to donate playground equipment at Center School to Electric City and will take a look at giving two portable buildings at the high school to a Carlton Complex Fire group at its next meeting. The district had offered up the playground equipment to other agencies, as required by law, with no takers, and voted to donate the equipment to the city of Electric City, to be used in a proposed park. Some of the playground equipment at Center School has been relocated to the new school site, and the...
Grand Coulee’s volunteer fire department responded to 216 ambulance calls within its jurisdiction in 2014 and the department made an additional 51 ambulance calls in Coulee Dam, Fire Chief Richard Paris told the city council recently. The ambulance crews were busy with 112 transports from Coulee Medical Center to other hospitals or to the airport where patients were picked up by MedStar and flown to other sites for treatment. Four additional transports were made for other jurisdictions, Paris reported at the council’s Jan 6 meeting. Fir...
School district patrons will vote on a four-year $1.13 million replacement levy, Feb. 10; one that reduces the current rate of $4.55 per thousand to $3.95 per thousand of assessed valuation for taxpayers. Locally, a levy committee is meeting weekly to see that information gets out to taxpayers. The levy committee meets again today (Wednesday) at 4 p.m. at the library at Lake Roosevelt Junior and Senior High School. Volunteers are encouraged to attend and assist in the levy campaign, said chair Karen Depew. The levy replaces the current four-yea...
Students from the second to sixth grades are getting an extra boost in art history and training by a volunteer who continues to provide help and information for students who are interested. Kathy LaPlace, who had a similar program at the middle school last year, continues the program in the new art room at the high school once a month, on Mondays, from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. This week, students learned about Frida Khalo, a surrealist artist from Mexico. Students, about 10 in number who are signed up for the class, learned about the artist and her...
The Regional Board of Mayors contracted with URS, an engineering firm, to do its quarterly and annual groundwater testing and reporting for 2015. The firm has been doing this service, and the RBOM’s agreed to a new contract for the current year at its meeting Monday. URS will prepare groundwater monitoring reports presenting data for the four quarters and an annual report. The firm also will provide, if necessary, negotiations with the Department of Ecology and the Grant County Health District. The estimated cost for the quarterly and annual r...
Grant County Health District was notified this week that a Grant County woman has died as the result of influenza complications. “Since the beginning of December, there has been a significant increase in influenza cases in all age groups in Grant County,” said county Health Officer Dr. Alexander Brzezny. According to the Washington State Department of Health, 16 other Washington state residents have died this flu season. The county health office declined to name the recent death of the county resident. The symptoms of the flu include tem...
Electric City citizens still have police protection in the wake of a last-minute, inter-city agreement that came together before the year 2014 came to an end. The Electric City Council voted unanimously last Tuesday night to stay with Grand Coulee for its police protection. The evening had its moments as the meeting started with Councilmember Aaron Derr proposing that the city accept a proposal for a contract with Coulee Dam for police services. Derr argued that the Grand Coulee contract was for too much and Electric City couldn’t afford it. I...
Two ceremonial rifles are missing from American Legion Post 157 in Electric City. Both of the missing rifles had been reported stolen back in 1990. The Legion post gets its ceremonial rifles from the Army and on a regular schedule turns them back for replacements. The two missing rifles, one of them a Springfield M1903 and the other an Enfield M1917, had been reported stolen back in 1990 by Colville Tribal Police and San Antonio, Texas police. The two rifles were part of a six-rifle batch...
A committee to help the Grand Coulee Dam School District pass its Feb. 10 special maintenance and operation levy will meet at 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, at the new school secondary library on the second floor, Chair Karen Depew said this week. “We need volunteers to help,” Depew stated. Depew said that she encourages local citizens to turn out and assist the district in promoting the levy. The district is asking voters to approve a four-year levy of $1.13 million annually. The school board accepted the recommendations of a special levy exp...
A Grand Coulee man told police that he had found a backpack on a picnic table at North Dam Park, Dec. 24, and when he started to go through it found that it contained some drug paraphernalia. The backpack contained many jewelry items, lock picking equipment and crow bars. The man took the backpack to the police department, where an officer checked its contents and found the following: A black leather wallet, two broken glass smoking pipes, an iPod Shuffle, a cell phone with chargers, miscellaneo...
Grand Coulee’s legal counsel has advised the city’s Civil Service Commission that their list of top candidates for police chief must be delivered to the mayor, not the city council. In an email, City Attorney Chuck Zimmerman advised the city that the Civil Service needs to follow the “rule of three” as outlined in state law. Earlier, Civil Service Commission Chair Alan Cain had stated that the top three candidates would be given to the council, bypassing Mayor Chris Christopherson. Zimmerman told the CSC that it must forward the top three c...
If you are at least 18 years of age, the welcome mat is out for you at the Grand Coulee Dam Senior Center. “It’s really a community center,” new President Birdie Hensley said last week. While the center is widely used by seniors, with 184 members, there is lots to do for people of all ages, she said. Like to play pool? The center offers an open pool table. Like to play cards? You can find card games going on most days when the center is open. One thing Hensley is focusing on as the new year begins is to develop the Senior Center volun...
A man who allegedly keyed nine cars in front of the Banks Lake Pub, Dec. 12, is accused of doing it again, this time with a cellphone and in the Electric City Bar & Grill parking lot, according to police. They once again arrested and took to Grant County Jail, Nicholas Swartz, 26, who gave his address as Everett, Wa. He was arrested this time on New Year’s day after allegedly scratching the trunk lid of a car owned by Mary Adkins. Bartender Jessica Sumner told police Swartz scratched the trunk lid with a cell phone, then fled on foot up W...
The Grand Coulee Civil Service Commission will offer up its top three candidates for police chief to the city council, not the mayor, Chairman Alan Cain said last week. Cain said the decision was made after talking with a couple of council members who liked the idea. Cain said oral examinations of the six candidates will take place in early January and the top three will move up for interviews by the council. “We plan to have just oral exams, not written ones,” Cain said. “They have all been through the written exam phase in order to becom...
Electric City was set to make a decision late Tuesday on providing police protection for the city after its current contract with Grand Coulee expires at the end of the year. The Star, which had an early deadline due to the New Year’s holiday, will file an online update at grandcoulee.com with the results of the 8 p.m. special council meeting. Council committees from both Electric City and Grand Coulee met Dec. 23, in an effort to see if they could come to an agreement differing from one they had reached earlier. The two council committees ...
A plan for improvements to Coulee Dam's wastewater treatment plant is "a work in progress" that could cost residents a quarter of the amount financed in an earlier plan, Mayor Greg Wilder told the town council and a good number of residents during a December meeting. Wilder said he is exploring the possibility of several improvements to the plant, but he plans on further public meetings before doing anything. One of the meetings will be scheduled in January, Wilder stated. Wilder is trying to...
Grand Coulee and tribal police are looking for a 28-year-old Nespelem man who avoided capture after a 100-mile-an-hour chase Dec. 12, that ended up on the Colville Indian Reservation. Michael D. Desautel, Jr., was seen by Tribal Police Cpl. Harold Allan Oneal, at Coulee Gas and informed police dispatch of the incident. Oneal knew the red 2012 Ford Escape had been reported stolen from Melvin Zacherle, a Nespelem resident. Dispatch notified Grand Coulee officer Dan Holland, who saw Desautel get into the car at the gas station, across the street...
Grand Coulee’s new police chief will have civil service protection because of action the city council took Dec. 16. The council undid work from its previous meeting when members had been persuaded by Mayor Chris Christopherson and city attorneys to remove civil service protection when the city hires its new chief of police. The back-and-forth council action came after the mayor previously had stated that he would let the Civil Service Commission do its work in advertising for and testing police chief applicants. A few weeks ago the council h...
A Grand Coulee woman who lost her life savings in gold Krugerrands has charged that police here show no interest in pursuing ideas she has offered on who might have taken them. Dorothy Harris reported to police early in June this year that someone had taken 200 gold African Krugerrand coins along with other coins from her home. At the time, the Krugerrands were valued at $1,308 each, with the total loss at $261,600. Harris said she has gone to the police here a couple of times lately to provide ideas on who might have taken them, but the...
An Everett man was arrested Dec. 12, after allegedly damaging a number of cars in front of Banks Lake Pub in Electric City. Nicholas Swartz, 26, found himself in Grant County Jail on a first-degree malicious mischief charge for allegedly “keying” some nine cars in Electric City and fighting with witnesses who reported the incident to police. The report stated that Swartz had circled nine cars and key scratched them on both sides. Police stated that there could be as much as $5,000 damage to the vehicles. Police confronted Swartz, who ref...
The Lake Roosevelt High School gym roof is sealed and games there should resume in January when the Raiders have home games scheduled. Superintendent Dennis Carlson said Monday that workers had sealed the roof and reported only one tiny leak during a recent rain storm. “I expect the roof will be finished, weather permitting, within a few weeks,” Carlson stated. When workers initially started to put a new roof on the gym, they discovered asbestos, which delayed progress on the roof. Rain had caused some game changes when the roof leaked and lat...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors Monday night approved a $1.1million four-year levy for maintenance and operations to go before district voters Feb. 10. In doing so, the board followed the recommendations of a special levy committee that had met twice to flesh out a levy plan for the district. The levy will ask district taxpayers to fund the $1,130,000 over four years, making it the third time the district has voted on a four-year levy plan. The levy, if approved, will help the district keep class sizes small, pay for pre...
When you make a 911 call to report a fire in Coulee Dam you expect a town fire engine and crew to respond. Don’t count on it. Last week, Coulee Dam fire chief Robert Jackson resigned after 12 years as chief. When reached he refused to comment on his resignation. The issue came up at the Coulee Dam Town Council meeting last Wednesday night, and shortly after announcing it to the council, Councilmember Ben Alling, who has been a member of the fire department for 38 years, announced his resignation from it. Since then, Mayor Greg Wilder stated, a...
The town of Coulee Dam has made an offer to Electric City to provide police services. The offer was sent last week and outlined for Coulee Dam Town Council members last Wednesday night by Mayor Greg Wilder. The five-year offer would begin in 2015 at $101,253.50, and include annual cost-of-living increases in each subsequent year. Currently, Electric City contracts with Grand Coulee for police protection, but its five-year contract runs out Dec. 31. The final year on that contract was about $80,000. In spite of the fact that Electric City and...