Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Commissioners of the Port of Whitman County unanimously approved the agency’s $11.4 million 2012 budget at their regular meeting last Thursday, Nov. 17. The agency’s 2012 budget proposal shows income of $1,177,000 from its industrial parks and fiber optic network, while the 37 cent property tax levy is projected to bring in $1,081,000. The port’s $14 million federally-funded fiber optic network expansion skews the 2012 spending plan upward. The port is expected to spend $7,691,000 to complete the 170-mile broadband project next year. Grant...
For the first time in 37 years, the only title in front of Steve Appel’s name will be farmer. Appel, 59, retired last week as President of the Washington State Farm Bureau, capping a 17-year stint in the organization’s top seat and 37 years of holding an office in the organization. “When I first started this ride, I never could have imagined it would have lasted this long,” said Appel. Appel, who farms in the Dusty area, joined the Farm Bureau in October of 1974 and quickly took the position of chair of the young farmers and ranchers committ...
Using expected revenues from property taxes at the Palouse Wind project, Whitman County commissioners hope to make needed improvements to county buildings and balance the 2012 budget. Commissioners discussed options during a workshop session Monday afternoon. On the list of improvements is a $572,000 chiller on the jail, new roofs on the courthouse and public service building, a renovation to make the courthouse compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and $203,000 worth of information technology infrastructure. “We need long-term f...
The $23 million proposed unit train loader at McCoy could take 5,652 trucks off the road and provide as much as $102,637,019 in savings to the public. That’s the analysis provided by University of Idaho economist Dr. Steve Peterson in the Port of Whitman County’s application for $5.9 million of federal stimulus dollars from the Transportation Improvement Generating Economic Recovery program, or TIGER. Federal funding would be used to upgrade 29 miles of the state-owned P&L shortline railroad from the McCoy siding south of Rosalia to the Bur...
New space gives shop more than twice as much floor space as previous building. Dozens lined up on the east side of Main Street Tuesday morning as the Colfax Thrifty Grandmother’s opened their new shop. “It’s so wonderful,” said Jill Miller, one of the grandmothers. “I just can’t stop smiling.” The grandmothers moved their thrift shop into the former Deacon’s Medical Equipment building from their former digs across Main Street in Colfax. The club had done business at its spot on the west side of Main for the past decade. Christmas decor...
A mandatory recount looks likely in the Rosalia Town Council race between incumbent Bob Hill and challenger Rick Lau. At the latest count Tuesday, Lau led Hill by one vote, 112 to 111. State law, as cited by Whitman County Elections Supervisor Debbie Hooper, orders a recount if the gap is less than one-half of one percent of the total number of votes cast for both candidates. Elections workers have counted 223 ballots for both candidates. One-half of one percent is 1.115, which means the one vote gap in Tuesday’s count would trigger a r...
Steve Gossett’s family has run the Tekoa liquor store since prohibition. With the state’s approval of Initiative 1183, Gossett may have to give up his contract on the state liquor dispensary. Washington voters’ passage of Initiative 1183 could dry up some towns in Whitman County. The initiative privatized the liquor industry, putting state-owned stores out of business and forcing those running contract stores to ponder their future. Voters across the state approved Initiative 1183 in the Nov. 8 general election with more than 53 percent of th...
“What are your most untouchable priorities?” State Senator Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, asked that question of officials from Whitman County and the city of Pullman last week as he prepared for a special session of the legislature next month. “More money,” said County Commissioner Michael Largent. Fat chance, Schoesler said in last week’s meeting at the county courthouse. State Reps. Joe Schmick and Susan Fagan were scheduled to join Schoesler, but were called to other duties. With the state $2 billion short of its spending plan, Schoesler...
First Wind Tuesday purchased the turbines for its Palouse Wind wind farm currently under construction in northern Whitman County. The company issued a news release Tuesday saying it had ordered 58 turbines from manufacturing firm Vestas for the Palouse Wind project. First Wind also purchased 19 turbines for its Bull Hill Wind project in Maine. Palouse Wind has the county’s permission to install 65 turbines, but Ben Fairbanks, First Wind’s western regional business development manager, said the firm identified 58 locations as the best con...
Cheaper homes and departure of senior faculty at WSU pushed up Whitman County’s real estate activity during the third quarter of 2011. Washington’s Center for Real Estate Research issued its quarterly report last week, showing a 65 percent increase July through September in home sales over the same period in 2010. In Whitman County, 430 homes sold, compared to the 260 sales in third quarter 2010. Glenn Crellin, director of the center at WSU, said the increased number of sales is more reflective of last year’s depressed activity. Crellin said th...
Operations are expected to generate more revenue for the Port of Whitman than the agency’s property tax levy next year. The agency’s 2012 budget proposal shows income of $1,177,000 from its industrial parks and fiber optic network, while the 37 cent levy is projected to bring in $1,081,000. That brings up the question Commissioner John Love said he hears the most from constituents. “When is the port not going to have any tax dollars?” Love told his fellow commissioners during a discussion of the 2012 budget last Thursday. Not likely ever, he sa...
Next year’s budget hole may have been filled by Whitman County commissioners during a lunch meeting Monday. Spending was originally pegged at $1.5 million more than revenue in the initial draft of the county’s $13,193,216 budget, but sales tax revenues from construction at the Palouse Wind project and spending reductions dropped that gap to $541,115. Commissioners Monday discussed ways to eliminate that gap for the 2012 budget. “What are the capital expenses from current expense that we could take out of that?” asked Commissioner Michael Largen...
Whitman County has closed off its seasonal roads for the winter, meaning construction on the Port of Whitman County’s $14 million fiber optic network will have to wait until spring. Debbie Snell, port properties and development manager, reported to port commissioners at their regular meeting last Thursday, Nov. 3, that remaining work to install conduit in about eight miles of county roadsides will have to be finished next year. The cable itself, said Snell, is scheduled to arrive Feb. 29. It will be blown by high pressure air systems through c...
Wind industry group asks commissioners to lobby legislature A major wind power developer has scrapped its plans for a wind farm south of Colton, citing low wind speeds and diminishing state mandates to develop wind energy. Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish wind farm firm, has held lease options on some 10,000 acres of land in the Rimrock area on the Snake River breaks south of Colton for the past five or six years. Brian Walsh, business developer for Iberdrola’s Portland branch, said measurements from meteorological towers on that land did not w...
Todd Vanek, 44, appears to be the first new Mayor of Colfax since the first George Bush presidency. Vanek scored 55 percent of the vote in the three-way race with former mayor Carol Stueckle and write-in candidate Jeff Didier as the three vied to replace 22-year mayor Norma Becker. Vanek, a manager at Decagon Devices in Pullman, was hesitant to claim victory after Tuesday night’s initial count. “I’m not Mr. Mayor, yet,” he said. “We have a long way to go and a lot of ballots left to count. Pacing is important.” “I’m excited for the politics to...
Still stung after having their pumpkin patch destroyed by vicious vandals, young Mason and Brenna Gilchrist returned from their grandfather’s house Sunday to find a cash-filled plastic gourd on their front porch. “I was still at the truck when they came running up with the pumpkin,” said their father, Craig Gilchrist. “They were so excited.” Without any explanation of who or where it came from, the pumpkin, which had a slit cut in the top and the words ‘Gilchrist Kids Pumpkin Fund’ written around the Jack-o-Lantern’s face, sat on the family’s...
Despite five broken vertebrae and a fractured rib from his last trip at sea, Phillip Johnson is preparing to head back across the Pacific. Johnson, 62, has been recovering with friends in Endicott from injuries sustained when a rogue wave jolted the 48-foot yacht he, his nephew and a friend were ferrying to Hawaii from San Diego. “We had a great first stretch,” said Johnson, who retired from the Navy after serving 20 years. “For the first 2,000 miles, everything went tickety-boom.” But then it all went sideways... literally. Near midnigh...
Whitman County commissioners were asked Monday morning to change zoning laws that now prohibit churches from being built in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor. Realtor Shelley Bennett said Real Life Christian Ministries wants to build a new church at the current site of Crossroads Nursery, which sits at the intersection of the Pullman-Moscow Highway and east end of the Pullman Airport Road. However, because churches are not included in the list of developments that can be built in the corridor zone, the church can not be built. “I’m befuddled by it,...
Officials with the Port of Whitman County are almost ready to send off a more localized federal grant application to repair local railroad tracks. The port is applying for more than $1 million in federal funding to rehabilitate state-owned railroads in Whitman County. The port’s grant request goes to the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, an offshoot of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Joe Poire, executive director for the port, said the repairs would be aimed at stabilizing bridges and u...
Lake Stevens, 11-year-old Justin Rhistine will take a rifle out to hunt for a buck at a stand in fields along the S curves south of Colfax Saturday for the first time. What sets Rhustine apart from other first-time hunters his age is that he was born without a right arm. “What we want is to make sure every child has the ability to go out and hunt and have a good time,” said Cindy Carpenter, founder and president of Youth Outdoors Unlimited. Youth Outdoors formed to give youth with life threatening illnesses or physical disabilities the opp...
Hunters should have pretty good pickings when they hit the fields for opening day Saturday. Information from a survey by the State Department of Fish and Wildlife shows the mild winter left enough forage to keep deer populations high. Warm weather into September, however, has officials concerned about the potential for outbreaks of disease. Bird hunters appear to be hauling in a pretty good count this year, reported Howard Ferguson, WDFW biologist for the region. While the wet, cool spring took a hard toll on pheasants, quail and partridge popu...
Negotiations over Whitman County’s 2012 budget have begun, with county leaders looking to close a $1.5 million chasm between expected spending and revenue in the coming year. “It’s gonna be interesting,” predicted Commissioner Pat O’Neill. Heads of departments in the county’s current expense operating fund face bottom line revenue projection of $12,109,117, which is $1,549,495 short of the $13,658,612 they expect to spend next year. Sheriff Brett Myers, who runs the largest department in the county’s operating budget, went over his list of n...
Superior Court Judge David Frazier Friday denied a motion from Michael A. Assenberg for a court order to return his medication, which in his case is marijuana seized by Quad Cities Drug Task Force agents in a raid on Assenberg’s Colfax home May 4. Assenberg has been scheduled for a Dec. 19 trial after pleading not guilty to four felony charges. He has told the court he plans to present a defense based on state medical marijuana laws. “Everything I was doing was in accordance to the letter of the law,” he told Judge Frazier from the witne...
Nearly 50 residents of Steptoe gathered in the community’s former grange hall Sunday night to dine on spaghetti and discuss the building’s future. The donation dinner raised $878, reported co-organizer Lavonne Hall, with donations continuing to come in through Tuesday. The money will be used to make repairs on the “Grand Old Girl.” Donations were made to the Steptoe Community Fund, which is planning to donate it to the Steptoe Grange for the repairs, taxes and utility bills. The grange hall has been the center of Steptoe’s social scene for...
County officials want to hear from landowners and environmental groups on whether Whitman County should sign on to a new state environmental regulation program. Under a new state law, the county must protect its environmentally sensitive areas from farming activities. Whether it does that through a panel of interested parties or through zoning laws is the decision commissioners must make by Jan. 22, 2012. “The county commissioners have to make a decision. So we have to get all the affected parties together in order to inform their d...
