News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Grand Coulee discussed the scourge of drugs in town at their latest council meeting. “I think we have a bit of a problem in terms of drug dealing,” Grand Coulee resident and business owner Kimberly Christensen said last week to laughter from a city council already familiar with the problem. “I’ve never been around it, I don’t want to be around it, I don’t want to see it. I’m concerned for everyone.” Christensen, who also owns the newly opened popcorn stand “The Popcorn Shoppe” on Midway Avenue and Main Street, addressed the city council May 21...
An 81-year-old man from the Grand Coulee Dam area was the subject of a search and rescue operation on Lake Rufus Woods, and the Douglas County Sheriff is now asking for information from anyone who might have seen him launching his boat. Charles Baker's boat, a 14-foot Alumacraft, was seen floating unoccupied five miles above Chief Joseph Dam May 29, and the next day was beached, authorities said. Baker's 1990 blue Dodge Pickup and boat trailer was found at the Army Corp of Engineers boat launch...
Grand Coulee could turn over a stretch of the infamous B Street to the Bureau of Reclamation. The city council discussed the topic at their May 21 meeting. Public Works Director Dennis Francis brought the topic up, noting that the bureau didn’t want contractors doing repair work on B Street while they were working on the fire station the Bureau is building along SR-155 where it connects to Industrial Road, a small stretch that connects to B Street. Francis said that Ian Turner, the project manager for the bureau’s fire station, came up wit...
Coulee Dam’s sidewalks on Ferry Avenue are heaving, with some uplifted by tree roots by several inches. Councilmember Fred Netzel said he recently walked the street with an engineer, who said the whole 1,200-feet of sidewalks on the street should be replaced. That could be a $100,000 project, Netzel told the city council Wednesday, and an application for an 86.5-percent grant needs to be turned in to the granting agency by June 7. The city should have about $32,000 in it by the end of the year to meet the matching requirement. He slipped in a...
The town of Coulee Dam doesn’t have a functional fire department currently, relying heavily on mutual aid agreements with other local departments. Mayor Bob Poch said Wednesday that several people are interested in stepping up to fill that void, and talks are ongoing with other towns’ more experienced firefighters to offer training. “We have some people that have stepped up and started to volunteer again,” Poch told the city council, and six or eight younger people in town are willing to join the volunteer fire department. “It’s a slower proc...
Coulee Dam looking for planning members Coulee Dam is looking for three people to form the town’s planning commission. The city is putting together a state-required updated comprehensive plan, and Clerk Stefani Bowden said the city must either find volunteers to head that effort or pass a new ordinance establishing a one-person commission. Such solo commissioners are usually city employees. Mayor Bob Poch said finding volunteers is challenging. Grand Coulee last week revised its planning commission requirements to make non-resident Grand C...
The Colville Tribes have filed a lawsuit against major manufacturers of opioids, alleging devastating health effects on tribal communities resulting from the drugs. A May 10 press release from the tribes detailed the lawsuit, saying that “the Tribes has sued over 25 opioid-industry defendants in the action, which seeks both compensation for costs associated with the epidemic and injunctive relief.” “The Tribes’ complaint,” the press release says, “asserts claims against the defendants for allegedly marketing prescription opioids in a manner th...
Coulee Dam’s “Community Building,” the one that houses The Melody Restaurant, Riverview Bowl and the currently unused theater space, has a bigger problem than the city’s budget can currently fix: it needs a new roof. Not a patch job on the leaky roof that customers at the businesses below having been putting up with for years, dodging buckets when it rains, but a completely new covering for which at least one contractor doesn’t even want to offer a cost estimate until he sees an engineer’s specifications. It’s a project that City Superintenden...
A Wilbur man was sentenced May 23 to over 11 years in federal prison for cyberstalking an ex-girlfriend and illegally possessing firearms. Thomas Martin Roberts, 52, had pleaded guilty June 12, 2018, to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, possessing an unregistered firearm and cyberstalking, according to a May 23 press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. United States District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson sentenced Roberts to 137 months in prison, to be followed by three years of court supervision after he is...
What good does a sign do if it’s for a business that no longer exists? And what kind of signal does an ugly sign give to a passerby? Grand Coulee Councilmember Tom Poplawski brought the topic of signs up at the May 21 council meeting. “There are signs in this town that need some attention,” Poplawski said, “be it just the cleaning off of bugs where at night you just see nothing else but bugs, to old business signs, signs that don’t do anything for us.” “I have fine memories of the Wildlife,” Councilmember Gary Carriere said, referring to th...
Considering the fact that the lowering of the speed limit from 40 to 30 mph on a short strip of three-lane from Grand Coulee to the Grand Coulee Project offices had nothing to do with construction safety concerns, the Bureau of Reclamation’s suggestion that it should own a portion of B Street should be considered, with conditions. The real reason the bureau lowered that speed limit on the portion of State Route 155 that it owns was to make legal what it has been doing since it took delivery of a couple dozen all-electric utility vehicles t...
The stated reasons for regulating access to Geezer Beach seem contrived and sophomoric. If you accept the premise that vehicle traffic on the beach poses a threat to public safety, you could argue that boat ramps and public parks have greater potential for incidental events. The (bureau) should produce valid evidence to support their position. If there is an underlying reason for restricting access, let’s hear it. People who visit Geezer Beach for recreation are not hoodlums. They go there to enjoy nature, fish and socialize. Many choose the si...
My maternal ancestors go back to a farm near Lillehammer, Norway, where the 1994 Winter Olympics were held. Most of my mother’s family immigrated to the United States and to, you guessed it, Minnesota. My grandmother left Norway right after graduating from high school to join several older brothers and sisters who had already made their way here. That would have been 1884. So my mother rightfully claimed being a Norwegian, and I have followed that. My mother was an only child, born to a middle-class family in Minneapolis in 1898. She left to c...
As the senior class of 2019 inches closer to that day they have prepared for the last 18 or so years, they can now visualize the ceremony, walking down the aisle, family gathered and grasping the diploma in their own sweaty hands. The question they must ask themselves, as hundreds will ask them: “What’s next?” Many will already know, but many more will have uncertainties still. Some have locked in their schooling and will be looking to the University of Idaho, Eastern, WSU and community colle...
I am lucky enough these days to be in regular touch with young people who are interested in public service. I find hope in their quality, energy, and motivation, and they press me to think more deeply about what it takes to pursue a life in the public realm. I’ve come to believe that at the heart of it all — indeed, at the heart of representative democracy itself — is persuasion. If you’re trying to improve society, you have to persuade other people: the only way to get things done is to convince other people to join in. I once was fortunate to...
Grand Coulee Police 4/28 - A large fight on Dill Street involved several people with conflicting accounts of exactly what happened. A man said he was confronting a neighbor either about an RV he was selling him, or a wood chipper he heard they were planning to steal from him. The man said he brought a wrench with him in case a fight started. During the fight, the neighbors, two brothers, reportedly beat the man with their mother’s walking stick, breaking both of his forearms as was shown by hospital x-rays. More neighbors, seeing what was g...
The Lady Raiders finished their softball season ranked seventh in the state, the best a Lake Roosevelt softball team has ever finished. The Lady Raiders' successful softball season came to a close in Yakima following a couple of state tournament losses. The Lady Raiders lost their first game against Adna 12-2 May 24 in Yakima. Adna went on to be the state champions. Cassidy Reyes and Emma Marchand had the only two hits for LR. LR's two runs came in the third inning, while Adna's came throughout the game. Adna had eight hits to LR's two, and...
Chamber this Week The next chamber meeting will be held at Voltage Coffee House on Thursday, May 30, at noon. Jerry Jones, general manager at Sunbanks Resort, will be the guest speaker. Lions Club Meets First and Third Tuesdays The GCD Lions Club will be meeting at 6 p.m., on Tuesday, June 4, at the Melody Restaurant in Coulee Dam. American Legion to Meet The American Legion Post 157 next meeting will be at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 11, at the Vets Center in Electric City....
Lake Roosevelt’s Darin Whiteman tied for 12th place at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association State Golf Tournament at Tumwater Valley Golf Club, held May 21-22. “Darin performed extremely well under intense pressure conditions,” said Raider Coach Steve Files. Out of 40 1B/2B golfers, Whiteman finished tied for seventh on day one, with 80 strokes throughout 18 holes. The top 20 golfers go on to the second day. Whiteman finished tied for 12th on the second day with 85 strokes, “a great accomplishment,” Files said. “That’s the best...
Steven Flowers bested his own shot-put record by nearly two feet to earn the state championship Friday in Cheney, where Raider athletes competed in the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association State Track and Field Tournament at Eastern Washington University. Flowers put the shot a distance of 51 feet, 8.75 inches Friday. His previous record was 49 feet, 10.5 inches, which he said he had thrown at the beginning of the season. "It was on Steven's fifth throw that he got his feet...
Notice of Change of Regular Meeting Date and Meeting Cancellation Public Hospital District No. 6, Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, & Okanogan Counties, Washington Public Hospital District No. 6, Douglas, Grant, Lincoln and Okanogan Counties, Washington; which operates Coulee Medical Center and Coulee City Medical Clinic, will be changing the regular board meeting date for the month of May. The next Board meeting will be held Monday, June 17 at 6:00 p.m. in the Coulee Medical Center training room. There will be no regular June Board of Commissioners...
Josephine Ayres smiles at a woman from the Quilts of Valor Foundation, which presented her and Fred Long, right, with quilts during the Isle of Flags annual Memorial Day ceremony at Spring Canyon Cemetery to honor their service in World War II. Seated at left are her sons Frank Ayres, left, and Robert Ayres. - Scott Hunter photo...