We shouldn't need to spend it, but we do

Spending more than a million dollars to reside and reroof old school buildings, construct stares and fix tennis courts shouldn’t have to happen, but it’s a good thing that it will.

Apparently, that’s due to good stewardship of the construction process for the new K-12 school complex and some good timing and decent luck during the bidding phase.

Despite that good management, we should not lose site of the fact that buildings and property deteriorate and will again require repairs. If that means a few more dollars from each of us per year to sock away, so be it. Or, if even that can’t gird our schools against the onslaught of time, we’d better be planning to find ways to get more money from the federal government for these uniquely federally necessary-but-unsupported schools.

• We hope sanity prevails in police contract negotiations between Electric City and Grand Coulee, which recently proposed a 279-percent increase in the amount it charges the former for police coverage.

• Citizens should make their expectations for the program known if Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee Dam School District manage to get funding for a police officer for the new school. If citizens don’t take a stake in the program, it will be run by professionals who may have a different vision, creating future tension unnecessarily.

• Shelling out $18,000 for piece of bigger water pipe now to help in hoped-for future development across the causeway is a wise move by Electric City, which can position itself to attract future grant money leading to possible, well-managed growth.

Scott Hunter

Editor and Publisher