Hopes for the new year

After just completing the compilation of “A look back at the year that was 2012” on page 2 and looking back through a year of front-page stories, I have to say it was a year of great highs and real lows, both of which could forecast our future as a community.

The high side was peaked by the unexpected news that the state would provide the funds needed to build most of a new school complex, thanks to the leadership of Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee. $31 million in a budget year when the final passage came in a second special session of the Legislature seemed like a miracle.

A season of wildfires showed us what’s like to live in a tinder box, our homes at the edge of disaster at the whim of nature. But it also proved the resilience of our fire fighting corps, both of state and national dispatches and of local volunteers. It was humbling and uplifting at once.

The news that the golf course would not open last spring was a devastating blow. We hope the port district may rally enough volunteer help to keep it going this year until a new partner or business model can be found.

A setback of another kind came as Elmer City decided to pursue its own best interests without its partner of decades, Coulee Dam, regarding the upgrading of wastewater treatment facilities. Like similar arrangements between other local towns within the Grand Coulee Dam community, such partnerships should be preserved and encouraged, not abandoned.

Let’s hope for more collaboration and less fire in 2013.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher