Newsbriefs

Educators

to be honored

Carrie Derr and Susan Duclos will be honored at the Grant County Excellence in Education Banquet, May 5, at Big Bend Community College. Derr, a teacher, will be honored as an outstanding certificated educator, and Duclos for her contribution to education as a classified employee of the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Each year the North Central Washington Educational Service District honors outstanding educators from each district at its banquet.

Hearing

postponed

A court hearing has been postponed for an Electric City woman charged with theft and misappropriation of funds.

The charges against Karyn Byam, 40, concern some $129,834 she was paid while a clerk with Grant County Mosquito District 2. The Omnibus Hearing in Grant County Superior Court, originally scheduled for March 15, is now set for April 26, at 9 a.m., according to the county prosecutor’s office.

Town may open park restroom

Coulee Dam’s town council is interested in having the Douglas Park restroom open at least during the tourist season. In the past, the police department opened and closed the restroom. Councilmember David Schmidt said the town should put the restrooms on a timing system so it would be more automatic. The council was told that someone had pulled the door off its hinges and the restrooms were now boarded up. Mayor Greg Wilder said he hadn’t heard that and would look into it.

Open meeting penalties hiked

The penalties for violating the state’s Open Public Meetings Act increased sharply Tuesday when the governor signed into law legislation requested by state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Passed in 1971, the act requires meetings of multi-member, public-agency governing bodies such as city councils, county commissions, school boards, and many state boards to be open and accessible to the public.

Representatives involved in a violation could be fined $100 back then. With the new law, that went up to $500. A repeat violator can be fined $1,000.

“This bipartisan bill promotes the open and honest government Washingtonians demand and deserve,” Ferguson said. “When the law requires an open meeting, yet officials knowingly close the door on the public, they must be held accountable with meaningful penalties.”

Free trees

available

If you join the Arbor Day Foundation in April you can receive 10 free shade trees, including red oak, sugar maple, weeping willow, bald cypress, thornless honey locust, pin oak, river birch, tulip tree, silver maple and red maple. Shipping is prepaid, and if a tree doesn’t grow it will be replaced. All you need to do is send $10 to TEN FREE SHADE TREES, Arbor Day Foundation, 100 Arbor Avenue, Nebraska City, NE 68410.