Newsbriefs

Community Watch

to meet

The Community Watch group in Electric City will meet at 6 p.m., Nov. 12, at the Fire Hall in Electric City. The organizers of the “watch” will have additional information on moving the program along. The public is invited to attend and learn how they can take part and help make their community safer.

The “watch” group has had several meetings and plans to have a member of the Grand Coulee police department on hand to answer questions.

Officials urge locals to

recognize

metal theft

Utility customers in northern Grant County experienced a power outage this past weekend due to what appears to be metal theft from electrical equipment, Grant PUD said in a press release.

The utility and the county sheriff’s Office are urging anyone who see what could be metal theft to report it promptly.

That’s just what happened in Waterville Tuesday, when the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office was called after a witness saw someone in a pickup loading up parts like radiators from old cars in a field. Two men were arrested for theft and other charges.

The PUD says stealing wire and metal components from electric equipment is dangerous. Not only can it lead to deadly consequences for the thief, it endangers crews making repairs.

Utilities across the country have seen a rise in metal theft recently and Grant PUD is not exempt. One instance in 2011 resulted in $15,000 worth of conductor wire being stolen from a substation construction site.

Law

library

opens up

The board of trustees for the Grant County law library has opened the county’s law library to the public. The law library is located on the ground floor of the county courthouse in Ephrata.

Prosecutor D. Angus Lee made the motion to open the library to the public and stated: “It is the right thing to do. There is no reason that the people of this county should not have the same access to the law that the people of larger counties have.”

Star office

to be closed

on Monday

The Star office will be closed Monday, Nov. 12 in observance of Veterans’ Day.

It will resume regular hours on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 9 a.m.

All ads and news copy should be turned on Friday, Nov. 9, for next week’s paper.