Two seek appointment to council

Two residents have indicated interest in the vacant council seat in Grand Coulee.

The city had advertised for someone to fill the vacancy that occurred when Erin Nielsen resigned after taking job in Boise, Idaho.

Expressing an interest in serving were Mike Horne and Alan Cain.

Horne is owner of MPH Auto and Marine, a mechanic shop on Midway Avenue, and currently is on the city’s planning commission.

Cain earlier served on the city’s planning department and currently is on its Civil Service Commission.

The vacancy is for position four on the council.

“As a business owner I can offer my insight on how to increase tourism and to stimulate our economy,” Horne stated in his letter of interest. “As a resident, I’m active in educating myself on our community and city streets and parks.”

Horne ran against former mayor Chris Christopherson for that position in 2011. He has been in business in the city for 15 years.

Cain stated that he has a bachelor’s degree in physical geography and map-making.

In Denver, Colorado, Cain worked for a printing company as a commercial artist, he said, and also for Peabody Coal and Shell Uranium as a cartographer and designer.

In Springfield, Missouri, Cain worked in that city’s planning department.

Later, Cain got a degree in nursing. When he moved here, he had a position as a charge nurse at what is now Coulee Medical Center and later as supervisor of the surgery department.

Cain then got into computer repair and later into internet and data communications, operating an internet service provider business, which he later sold. Now Cain is working on his pyrotechnics operator’s license.

The naming of the council appointment was on the agenda last Tuesday night, but was postponed until the city’s Oct. 18 meeting because one of the council’s current members was absent.