Prince’s Food Sells
Tonasket Tigers beat Cascade
Prince’s Foods sells to independent grocer John Akins See Page 2
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SERVING WASHINGTON’S
OKANOGAN VALLEY
SINCE 1905
GAZETTE-TRIBUNE WWW.GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012 | 75 CENTS NEWSSTAND PRICE
TSD capital levy likely to be delayed
Tailgater in Tonasket
BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM
Brent Baker/staff photo
Tom Sherry’s “Tom’s Tailgate” of KREM (Spokane) 2 TV visited Tonasket for Friday’s game against Okanogan. Sherry had a live chat with Marcelino Ruiz Martell in front of a crowd of Tonasket and Okanogan cheerleaders and their fans. For more on the visit see page 4.
Airport abuzz with activity BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
OROVILLE – Steven Johnston, Oroville’s Airport Services Manager, told the city council that the amount of activity at the airport has been “amazing.” “Throughout late August and September it just seems to be getting busier every day with the number of operations and types of operators,” said Johnston, at the council’s Tuesday, Sept. 18 meeting. Johnston said someone has purchased a $4000 hanger to be be placed at Oroville’s Dorothy Scott Airport and that the person normally operated at the Arctic Circle, but wanted to winter in Oroville. Wintering at Oroville is something Johnston said several people with airplane operations have discussed recently. “Homeland Security has had an operation going on continuously lately. They say they want to use as many local aircraft as they can. Something to do with testing their sensors. And we have a helicopter that called in a request to have 300 gallons of fuel on hand,” said Johnston. He added that Big World of Flight, which educates young people on aviation, will again stop at the airport, part of their moving the program from the spring to the fall. Johnson also asked for some guidance
on whether he should attend an upcoming fall conference on airports to be held in Leavenworth. “The agenda is on airport improvement... this is where you get the straight skinny. Do you want me to attend, I can go and sock it (the information) away, but I’m not the decision maker,” said Johnston, encouraging the mayor or one of the council members to attend. Kathy Jones, Oroville’s city clerk, said she thought Chris Branch, the director of Community Development, was attending. “That’s why we rely on Chris,” said Mayor Chuck Spieth. Jones told the council that the city had received a letter from the state Transportation Improvement Board regarding federal funding for the Central and Cherry Street project. “We wrote a letter for additional funding from TIB because we were $832 short. We applied for the funds and have been funded,” she said. On a different matter, Jones said, “As you know we authorized the mayor to sign the agreement to provide water to the new U.S. Border Patrol Station. They signed it and sent it back, now they want an invoice.” The agreement says Oroville will provide the water and build a reservoir and transmission line to serve the multi-mil-
lion dollar facility located just south of the U.S./Canadian border. The federal government will pay the cost of the construction and the cost of the water used by the facility. “It’s been a long process,” said Spieth. “Almost two years,” added Jones. Arnie Marchand, a member of the Okanogan Borderlands Historical Society, gave a short report to the council on the group’s recent activities. “The OBHS has shut down the museum and the Visitor Information Center for the winter. Tentative counts are that we had about 3500 visitors, a little less than last year,” Marchand said, guessing that the economy and lack of signage (at the time) had led to the reduced numbers. “Next year it will be all about Oroville with a theme of ‘Bridges to the Past,’” he said. “The following year it will be about the Okanogan Indians.” Marchand also encouraged the council to attend the upcoming VIA 97 meeting to be held in Osoyoos the following Friday. “It’s really going to be a heavyweight meeting,” he said. The meeting concluded with Mayor Spieth saying the city had gotten “a very nice” letter from Steve Quick, superintendent of the Oroville School District. “The letter commented on the cooperation of the city in working with the school district,” said Spieth.
TONASKET - Plans to run a capital levy for Tonasket School District’s facility needs will likely be delayed after a facility tour with an architect revealed issues that needed to be considered, said TSD superintendent Paul Turner at the Monday, Sept. 24, school board meeting. Turner said he took an architect from Architects West on a tour of the facility and said a number of things were brought to light. “One thing he’s pushing, and that we’ve already filed for, is a survey process with OSPI,” Turner said. “It goes through the architect on issues with usability, feasibility, space allocation and so forth. It will also bring in some funds to help pay the architect.” Turner said there were discrepancies with the square footage that OSPI had listed for the TSD facility, and that the survey would clean that up. Also, he said, the architect had some different ideas on how to address the need for additional classrooms. “I’ve been talking about needing new rooms,” Turner said. “He’s looking through an ‘outside lens’ and is looking at us not needing (to build) new rooms, as much as reallocating space and changing walls in our existing buildings.” These processes, Turner said, will make it hard to have everything ready for a capital levy to be run in the spring. “It’s obvious that this spring is probably not going to happen,” he said. “We’ll need to go into the summer or later. There’s a number of things we need to look at .... (including revisiting) whether or not to look into a bond to do it all at once.”
Also on the docket A request was made by a parent to allow her child to enter kindergarten early, as her child missed the age cut-off by about one month. The request had been previously denied by Turner and TES principal Jeremy Clark. The parent asked if, based on academic, social and economic factors, her child could be reassessed for readiness, and said that she had received conflicting information from the district at different stages of her process of attempting to get her child admitted. After some discussion, the board decided that the details needed to be handled in executive session after the primary meeting. A request submitted to the board at its Sept. 10 meeting to provide bus transportation for two private school students was approved, with Turner granted authority to work out the final details. By law, the district may provide transportation to private school students if it
doesn’t require any change in bus routes, if there are enough seats on the bus, and if the district is recompensed for its expenses by the party being transported. Turner said he contacted OSPI to determine the proper method of calculating what the district should charge. “We need to charge by an average per student basis,” Turner said. “That works out to $1,050 per student per year, and since they have two students that would be about $2,100.” That amount would be pro-rated to exclude the portion of the year that has already occurred. Students would be brought to the Tonasket School District, with Peaceful Valley Christian School to be responsible for meeting the students and further transporting them. Board member Ernesto Cerrillo said that he’d been asked by a community member why the school would charge for transportation when it is already paid for by residents’ taxes. “We get allocated money for transportation on a per student basis,” Turner said. “Our funds are generated by the actual number of students that attend school.” “Also, the law says that they have to pay for it,” said board member Catherine Stangland. “It’s as simple as that.” New ASB representative Megan Beyers delivered a report on student activities during the first weeks of the year, highlighted by the FFA’s second place finish in horse judging and its submission of a restored Case tractor in a national contest. FBLA, FCCLA, T-Club and other organizations have been busy selecting their officers for the year, Beyers said. Likewise, high school principal Jeff Hardesty, middle school principal Jay Tyus and elementary school principal Jeremy Clark reported on staff activities, training, and data evaluation that has taken place over the first month. The board, after a brief executive session, approved the hiring of Stephanie Bradley as a bus driver; Chad Portwood as assistant cross country coach; Robby Monroe as high school C squad volleyball coach; Pam Leslie as middle school C squad volleyball coach; Glenn Braman as seventh grade boys basketball coach; Jay Aitcheson as seventh grade track coach; and Jamie Barker as eighth grade track coach. Other actions included the approval of a supplemental contract for music instructor Mary Liz Romano and an overnight field trip request by ESL instructor Tyler Graves. The board also moved its regularly scheduled Oct. 22 meeting to Oct. 29 and officially canceled what would have been a regular meeting on Monday, Dec. 24, while scheduling a bill-paying session for Dec. 21. The Tonasket School Board next meets on Monday, Oct. 8.
Roundabout plan draws crowd to DOT Open House BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
OKANOGAN – A proposal to install a roundabout at the intersection of Highway 97 and Cameron Lake Road drew more than 200 people to an open house at the state Department of Transportation’s nearby maintenance facility Wednesday, Sept. 19. The roundabout has drawn a lot of controversy since it was first proposed with several people commenting that they didn’t like it on a Facebook page created to discuss the issue. While not all of the 230 people attending the three-hour Open House were there at the same time, it was still standing room only most of the time in the conference room designed for a maximum occupancy of 60 people. Representatives from the DOT explained how a roundabout works and why they had come to the conclusion that it would
be the best bang for the buck to serve the intersection which has the Cameron Lake Road to the east of the highway and the Armory Junction Road to the west. The state claims that there were 11 collisions at the intersection last year alone and wants to make the intersection more safe. Other alternatives presented included lowering the speed limit, placing advanced warning signs, adding left turn lanes on the highway, installing a traffic signal, adding left and offset right turn and an acceleration lane for Armory Junction Rd. and left turn lane for Cameron Lake Road and creating a split “T” with left and acceleration lanes. Costs for these options ranged from very little, like lowering the speed limit, to $2.3 million for the split T, which seemed to be among the most popular, except for its cost. At times emotions ran high with Bruce Hahn of Omak calling the roundabout
OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 108 No. 39
“idiotic” and saying the problem could be addressed for about $500 with the addition of new signs. “That’s idiotic... the roundabout costs too damn much, you guys just want to spend money,” said Hahn. “Signs aren’t the panacea you think they are,” replied Dan Sarles, DOT Regional Administrator for the North Central Region. While many DOT representatives were stationed at arial view maps of potential alternatives, a video of how a roundabout works was continuously showing on a screen. The biggest concern about the roundabout proposal, other than cost, seemed to be the fact that it would slow highway traffic to 25 mph or less at the junction. People said they felt this would impede truck traffic and cause even more problems. “That’s the bottom line, people have to
SEE ROUNDABOUT | PG. A3
Photo by Gary DeVon
More than 200 people attended an Open House at the state Department of Transportations’s maintenance facility near Okanogan. The Open House was arranged to take public comment and explain the various alternatives for trying to make the SR97/Cameron Lake Rd. and Armory Junction Rd. intersection more safe. Also attending the meeting were state Seventh District Rep. Joel Kretz (left) and Mike Armstrong from the 12th District.
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