News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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A wind-driven brush fire threatened homes on the northern end of east Coulee Dam Tuesday night. Fire fighters from every nearby agency were on scene defending homes and working to try to prevent the fire's spread on the hillside above town. Nearly two hours later they were still working. No homes were lost as of 8:47 p.m. At about 7 p.m., the wind direction pushed the fire alongside the treed neighborhood that sits against the brushy edge of town, but not directly into houses and an apartment...
Raider sports, like all aspects of our lives now, will look a lot different in the new normal of COVID-19 pandemic life. Like seriously different. Like you can’t pass the basketball different. Like a kid playing tennis with the wall different. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, along with the National Federation of State High Schools Association and Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, has released guidelines for resuming high school sports. Those organizations “believe it is essential to the physical and mental well-being of...
Grant County will award the bulk of a federal grant for coronavirus relief to small businesses and non-profit organizations, county commissioners announced Tuesday. A group of Grant County officials met last week to discuss and recommend a preliminary budget allocating $5.4 million awarded to the county in the Coronavirus Relief Funds Grant authorized by the CARES Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the county said in a press release. The plan was approved by the Board of County Commissioners Tuesday. The following allocation was the prod...
Grand Coulee Police 6/23 - An elderly man was reported walking in a confused state near Taylor Street in Electric City. Someone had returned the man to his home prior to police arrival. 6/25 - A man was reported to have been pounding on the door of a trailer on Burdin Boulevard. Police found him passed out on the porch in his underwear. He was escorted nearby to the place where he was staying. - A woman on Jackson Avenue reported her screen door had been ripped off and thrown on the yard. She also said electronics were unplugged but weren’t t...
It's the Fourth of July weekend, and there's no fireworks show at the Grand Coulee Dam this year, and very few places to light them locally. - Fireworks are not allowed at North Dam Park due to no one applying for a permit from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. -The city of Grand Coulee allows no fireworks in city limits. -Electric City follows state law which allows fireworks to be lit within the city limits from noon to 11 p.m. from June 28 until July 4, when they’re allowed from noon to midnight. -The city of Coulee Dam forbids fireworks y...
Schools are looking at how to successfully implement changes that will be put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a new Star survey seeks the opinions of local parents, students, and staff members. Last week The Star reported on changes schools are facing for the 2020-21 school year after guidelines were released by the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Those guidelines include rules such as those requiring all students and staff to wear face coverings and maintain a distance from one another. Those rules ha...
A wind-driven brush fire threatened homes on the northern end of east Coulee Dam Tuesday night. Fire fighters from every nearby agency were on scene defending homes and working to try to prevent its spread on the hillside above town, and nearly two hours later were still working. No homes were lost as of this writing at 8:47 p.m. At about 7 p.m., the wind direction pushed the fire alongside the treed neighborhood that sits against the brushy edge of town, but not directly into houses and an...
Kids got out of the house this past weekend to take part in the 2020 Koulee Kids Fest. "Koulee Kids Fest went FANTASTIC!" wrote Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rachelle Haven in an email to The Star. "The turn-out was amazing, more than we ever expected." The festival included children going to local businesses to get take-home activity kits or take part in an activity. Coulee Wall Variety Store had close to 250 kids attend their "fishing pond" activity, Haven said,...
State authorities made wearing face coverings in public mandatory across the state Tuesday, following an outbreak in Yakima County they said threatened to overwhelm the health care system there. The order came the same afternoon that the 12 Tribes Coulee Dam Casino re-opened after shuttering the business at 7 p.m. five days earlier when a worker there tested positive for COVID-19. The state mandate, issued Tuesday afternoon from Sec. of Health John Weisman and Gov. Jay Inslee, takes effect Friday. “As necessary economic activity increases a...
The Fourth of July fast approaching, but don’t plan on setting off fireworks from North Dam again this year; it’s still unavailable as a launching location. The chamber of commerce’s Festival of America event, typically held below the Grand Coulee Dam, with fireworks launched from it, also will not be held this year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lighting of personal fireworks from North Dam, a popular spot for years, will not be available, as it was not last year. “Last year on July 4, fireworks were not allowed on top of North Dam bec...
Dean is new principal at Nespelem School New Superintendent/Principal Effie Dean engaged the Nespelem School District Board of Directors in a broad discussion of coming issues Monday night, including a $4 million budget to be prepared with a 20-percent hedge against possible cuts in the 2020-21 school year; the state’s decision to definitely open schools this fall and include distance learning; upcoming bargaining sessions with labor unions; and a well that’s not pumping enough water. Dean will call people this week to set up a task force to wo...
Election results are in for the Colville Business Council general elections in which seven of the 14 positions for the governing body of the Colville Tribes were up for election. Three incumbents were reelected to their seats, while four new members were elected as well. Those elected will serve terms running from 2020-2022, and will be sworn in July 9th, when the Council will elect officers and appoint committee chairs. Absentee votes were counted on Thursday and added to the poll results for the final vote counts. In the Nespelem District Pos...
Anyone in the market for a Jeep? The Electric City council voted on June 9 to put the city’s 2018 Jeep Renegade Sports edition, which has only around 5,000 miles on it, up for bid. The city bought the Jeep just last year when the city had a completely different council, mayor, and city clerk. The minimum bid for the Jeep is $17,000. The council was in agreement that although the trade-in value for the vehicle was around $13,000, trade-in values are lower than the actual value, and that the vehicle’s low mileage made it worth more. The cou...
The Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, which includes Spring Canyon, is increasing recreational access and services, such as camping and vault restrooms, beginning July 1. The National Park Service, which manages the LRNRA, says it’s following guidance from the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state and local public health authorities in this increase of services. “Approximately 61% of our visitors come from Spokane, King, and Snohomish counties (410,000 people),” a June 22 press release states. “Whil...
Grand Coulee 6/15 - Police checked on the well being of a Mead Avenue man on behalf of neighbors who hadn’t seen him in several days. Police found the man to be in good health. - A Grand Coulee woman went to the police station and said a man had hit her. The man said that she and her boyfriend were drinking and asked if he wanted to watch them have sex. The man said he declined that offer and at one point the woman poured his beer on him. The man’s hair and shirt smelled like beer, the police report says. 6/16 - A man at the Continental Hei...
The partial shutdown of Colville Tribal government currently in effect has been extended until midnight on July 12, 2020 by Resolution of the Colville Business Council. "All other COVID-19 related restrictions are also extended to midnight on July 12, 2020," a June 25 press release says. "These include the prohibition of public gatherings or camping in groups of ten or more people, the stay at home order for residents of the Colville Reservation, the prohibition on non-essential business activity on the Colville Reservation, and the closure of...
The institution of public school will look a lot different in the 2020-21 school year due to the COVID-19 health precautions that will still be in place, and schools are now beginning to grapple with freshly issued state guidelines that bring the challenges into focus. Last week, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction released guidelines for how to resume school in the 2020-21 school year in keeping with Department of Health safety precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidelines anticipate a return to the...
The 12 Tribes Coulee Dam Casino said tonight that an employee had tested positive for COVID-19, so the casino has closed for three to 10 days for “extensive sanitizing.” The casino posted the announcement on its website and Facebook pages. The casino closed at 7 p.m. Thursday night, June 18. “We are working to do an extensive sanitizing of 12 Tribes Coulee Dam Casino and will remain closed at this time until further notice,” said Chief Executive Officer Kary Nichols in a statement on their website. “We thank our communities for their support a...
Lake Roosevelt High School's class of 2020 made it through their final year, graduating Saturday night despite a year that seemed to conspire against them. With the last quarter-plus of the year disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the class that captured at least $191,000 in scholarships, according to the school's information, was denied many of the traditional gatherings of their last year, including spring sports. They adjusted to distance learning, isolation and a graduation ceremony in the a...
If you own a business in Electric City that was hurt financially by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, you should soon be able to apply for a grant with the city to receive relief funds for which the city is eligible. City Clerk Peggy Nevsimal addressed the city council on the topic at their June 9 meeting. Nevsimal said she has spoken with the Washington State Department of Commerce about setting up a grant program to distribute some of the $30,900 the city is eligible for as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act p...
A federal judge Tuesday sentenced a Grand Coulee man to 10 years in federal prison for trafficking in drugs after a July 2019 region-wide bust involving multiple law enforcement agencies in and around Grant County. Randall Curtis Gross, 27, was sentenced after having pleaded guilty Feb 11 to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, as well as heroin. Senior District Court Judge Wm. Fremming Nielsen sentenced Gross to 10 years in prison, to be followed by a five-year term of court supervision after he is released....
Koulee Kids Fest will take place this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and one lucky child will win an iPad Mini and a pair of Beats headphones. Children of any age participating in Koulee Kids Fest will pick up a “passport,” then take it to area businesses where they will pick up kits, a treat, or take part in an activity that follows social distance guidelines. Each location will stamp their passport, and six stamps qualify a child to win the iPad Mini and Beats headphones grand prize by dropping their passport off at the Grand Coulee Dam...
Coulee Medical Center has been going through masks like hotcakes during the COVID-19 pandemic and would be grateful to receive more from local mask makers. “Our mask utilization has increased significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” CMC Chief Nursing Officer Marlene Elliott told The Star in an email Monday. “We are currently requiring universal masking for all staff, as well as any patient or visitor who enters our facility. … Average mask utilization for staff is approximately 30 to 50 per day using conservation methods...
People are evidently cleaning up, and so is the local dump. Increased business at the Delano Transfer Station has brought in enough extra money this spring to offset much of a projected loss, so rates will rise only slightly. Dump rates will be raised $2 a ton, a negligible amount for casual dumpers, while spring cleaning has led to an increase in dumping and extra cash for the transfer station. Originally, in October of 2019, the Regional Board of Mayors had voted to raise dump rates at the Delano Regional Transfer Station half a cent a pound,...
Grand Coulee Police 6/8 - A man from another state working in Grand Coulee told police that a woman he sent personal pictures to on a dating app threatened to show the photos to his family if he didn’t give her $300. Screenshots between him and the online person were shared with the officer. The officer told him to contact the authorities in Eugene. 6/9 - A man reported that his Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle had been stolen from the trunk of his Honda Civic while he was camping near the dam. He wasn’t sure of what campground he’d been...