Federal and state legislators hear local needs

A congressman and a state legislator met with several local leaders last week to hear about local needs and ambitions, leaving with a list of to-dos.

Congressman Dan Newhouse and Washington State Rep. Mike Steele met with the group at the Grand Coulee Dam School District office in Coulee Dam May 28 to briefed on an introductory course in how the federal and state governments have fallen short in support of the unusual area, where four or five counties come together, with an Indian reservation, on largely untaxable land that doesn't support local needs.

Suggested remedies included addressing a technicality that keeps the school district from getting federal funds under a 1930s law that requires now non-existent records, and with finding federal and state funding to replace the "structurally obsolete" bridge across the Columbia River.

And mental health issues are critical right now, the two were told.

Newhouse and Steele did a lot of listening and offered suggestions where they could.

Responding to a request to get new Dept. of Interior Deb Haaland involved, Newhouse said he'd served with her in Congress and could reach out.

Steele told schools Superintendent Paul Turner that he thought the legislature may have addressed this year some of his concerns about funding too restrained to categories.

The group left the conference table after about 40 minutes to walk to a highway median a block away with a view of a possible route for a suggested new bridge.

Ken Stanger, a longtime developer and current school board member, is working to gain federal and state support for a bridge, stressing that it would be one way for the federal government to help a community that can't tax its assets.

From there, most of the group went to a gravel parking lot outside Lake Roosevelt Schools to talk about another project that needs federal and state funding: the gym that was not funded when the new school was built with state dollars, none from the federal government.

Even that, in this area, would help with mental health, said Colville Business Councilmember Jered Erickson. He said basketball is a major pursuit for so many Native youth, who have been greatly affected by pandemic restrictions of the last year. Many of them, even in better times, face trials that are "unimaginable," he said, and school and tribal counselors are understaffed.

Addressing mental health needs, Turner said in a list of five requests of the legislators, is "a major national problem" that is "being dumped on school districts" with no fiscal support.