Newsbriefs

Sewer rates up in Electric City

Sewer rates will go up $10 per month to $35.79 beginning with the November billings, the Electric City council agreed at its meeting last Tuesday night.

Council takes over district

Elmer City’s council voted last Thursday night to assume the rights, powers and functions of its Transportation Benefit District, making the council members the governing body of the TBD. The TBD receives $20 from most vehicle license fees. The money goes into a fund that is designated for city streets.

Sidewalks fixed

Two of the most badly broken sidewalks, a source of contention in Coulee Dam, are fixed. The breaks, caused by tree roots, had raised slabs of concrete six inches or more above sidewalk level. The town crew managed to lift the slabs, cut the 16-inch roots and lower the slabs to a level position. No one was sure what happened to a pair of small frog statues that someone had placed beneath one of the slabs.

Mayor Greg Wilder indicated the town had applied for a state grant that would include money for more such work, if approved.

Deputy saves overdose victim

A Grant County Sheriff’s Deputy was able to save an overdose victim Thursday, less than one week after being trained in and issued the anti-opioid Naloxone.

Responders were called around 2 p.m. to the 9000 block of Bong Loop Northeast. A deputy arrived first and found a man in his 40s who fell unconscious and whose breathing dangerously slowed.

Seeing clear evidence of an overdose, the deputy gave the man one dose of Naloxone, which within a minute caused the man’s condition to improve; he began breathing faster and awakened. A second dose administered later by paramedics improved the man’s condition even more.

Deputies had been trained just a week earlier in the use Naloxone. The drug helps reverse the life-threatening effects of opioid overdoses, including from heroin, morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl.

“There’s little doubt the outcome may have been much worse had the deputy not had Naloxone available,” said Sheriff Tom Jones. “Having Naloxone in the hands of trained deputies has already proven to be a life-saving tool.”

Secretary of State forwards potential voter fraud cases

Following a study involving Washington and four other states, 74 cases of possible voter fraud in the 2016 General Election will be turned over to local prosecutors by the Secretary of State.

Those individuals have been identified as possibly voting more than once or voting on behalf of someone who was deceased, accounting for exactly 0.002 percent of the 3.36 million votes cast in last year’s General Election in Washington.

The five other states that participated in the study were Oregon, Colorado, Maryland, and Delaware.