High school spring sports get
PANCAKE FEED
underway.
At Molson Grange Sunday, March 24, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.
See Pages A10-11
SERVING WASHINGTON’S
OKANOGAN VALLEY
SINCE 1905
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Specifics of ATV ordinance debated
Oroville Assisted Living Forum
A MAGICAL SMILE
City planner asserts no conflict between spray park project, swimming pool
park. It’ll be a much longer-term effort.” Both Danison (for the pool) TONASKET - Spray park or and Black (for the spray park) have applied for grants from the swimming pool? According to city planner Kurt Community Foundation of North Danison, that shouldn’t even be Central Washington. “The purpose of our grant is the question. The answer, he said, to get a small amount of money, is both, not either/or. “There seems to be some con- potentially matching with fusion about that, and I’m not some money from the Gordon sure what that confusion is,” Stangland bequeath to the city for the pool,” Danison said Danison said. at the Tuesday, “A swimming pool is a “We’d use it to March 12, up with Tonasket City whole lot more daunt- come a process that Council meeting and many, many would idening. and give “Linda Black times more expensive tify us a picture of has put togeththan a splash park. It’ll what we want er a great group build. How that is working be a much longer- to much it’s going to get a splash to cost, so we term effort.” park built this have a target for summer. .And City Planner Kurt Danison, fundraising and regardless of Highland Associates (larger) grant that, we’re still applications.” pursuing a pool He said the next cycle of grant if that is what the community applications begins in 2014. wants.” ‘A year from now, we have Danison stressed that there is a big difference in both the scale to be in a position of knowing and timetable of the two proj- what we’re going to build, where we’re going to build it and what ects. “One (the spray park) is a com- the estimated costs are going to munity effort to get something in be. Also, we’ll need to know by ASAP,” he said, adding that the then where the remainder of the cost of maintenance of the spray money is going to come from.” Danison said that a typipark will be nearly zero. “The other (the pool) is much longer cal grant would be a 50 percent term. In some ways to me it is matching grant. “There could also be federal still amorphous as to who is actually pushing for the swimming dollars we could get (for the pool), pool. It would be lovely if a com- but some of that depends on their munity organization stepped up budget issues,” Danison said. “It that has the same kind of energy seems unlikely, but the pool could that Linda does to put something qualify for both state and federal together like that. But a swim- grants that could cover potenming pool is a whole lot more tially 90 percent of it. “A couple years ago I said that daunting and many, many times more expensive than a splash SEE COUNCIL | PG A2 BY BRENT BAKER
BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM
Breaking News
NVH recall withdrawn, injuction denied OKANOGAN - A petition brought by Rosa Snider and Danny Gratrix asking North Valley Hospital Commissioners be subject to a recall election was withdrawn at a hearing in Okanogan Superior Court Tuesday, March 19. “The deputy prosecutor was laughing and kidding with the hospital’s attorney saying it didn’t meet the statute,” said Snider. “We decided to withdraw it otherwise if the ruling went against us we wouldn’t be able to bring it again.” Furthermore a separate action asking the court for a temporary injunction seeking to prevent the North Valley Hospital District from closing the assisted living facility was denied. That injunction was sought by the Concerned Citizens for Tonasket Assisted Living. NVH attorney Mick Howe then asked the court for attorney’s fees and expenses for administrators’ and commissioners’ time for attending the hearing, according to Snider. More in next week’s G-T.
Group questions NVH Board’s decisions on A/L BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
Brent Baker/staff photo
Equal parts magician and showman, Michael Oaks (center) captivated the crowd with his magic act at Friday’s Oroville Scholarship Foundation Variety Show. For more pictures, see page A4.
County receives $500,000 energy grant from state Money will help replace Courthouse’s 100-year-old boiler BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
OKANOGAN - The state Department of Commerce awarded a $300,000 grant to Okanogan County to assist in various energy and operational cost improvement projects for the courthouse, jail and administration building. A total of $18 million in grants were awarded to 12 higher education institutes and 37 local governments. The immediate goal of Department of Commerce grant program is to stimulate local economy by creating jobs; the long term goal is to reduce energy costs for public agencies. An estimated 543 jobs will be created by this construction spending. The total cost for all the projects is more than $66 million, including more than $48 million in non-state funding. “This is precisely the sort of program we need as we work to rebuild our economy,” said Gov. Jay Inslee when announcing the grants last week. “These grants will reduce energy costs, provide training opportunities to students and create jobs in the clean energy sector.”
OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 109 No. 12
The project Okanogan County submitted for grant funding includes several significant energy efficiency components, according to the Department of Commerce. The most critical is the replacement of the original diesel-fueled boiler that has been heating the courthouse for the last 100 years. There are real concerns the antiquated system will soon fail. This would be catastrophic to the operation of the courthouse and the safety of the employees. With the help of grant funds, the expensive and inefficient boiler system will be replaced with modern geothermal heat pump technology that will not only provide heating and cooling for the courthouse, but will be integrated into a system providing efficient heating and cooling in the jail as well. Other conservation measures include replacing the singlepaned wood windows in the courthouse with energy efficient architectural windows, installing energy management control systems, adding water conservation devices, and upgrading interior and exterior lighting including light and motion sensors. Last summer, the county contracted with Ameresco, an Engergy Services Company, to perform the initial energy audit, document baseline energy consumption and identify cost effective energy conservation measures eligible for grant funding. A grant application was then submitted to the Department of Commerce in early January and awarded last week. Ameresco will work on behalf of the county as the general contractor and construction manager for
the project design and construction meetings will begin immediately and when the project design is complete and approved by the county, bids will be solicited and subcontractors selected. The project is expected to be complete within two years. The grant was awarded through a highly competitive process based on the county’s ability to contribute funding for the project, the deep energy efficiency savings, and the ability to start the project immediately. The county will receive an approximate $128,500 energy incentive from Okanogan County PUD to help offset the project cost. The project is expected to pay for itself through energy and operational cost savings over a period of 15 years, adding value to public facilities and to the community. “The upgrades provided by these grants, such as new lighting, boilers and watersaving plumbing, put people to work right away, and the energy efficiencies will save money for Washington taxpayers well into the future,” said Commerce Director Brian Bonlender. “The program stretches grant dollars by leveraging funding from nonstate sources.” The 2012 Legislature appropriated $20 million to higher education and $18 million to local governments, including a specific set aside of at least 10 percent for small cities or towns (populations of 5,000 or less). There have been two rounds of awards. The first recipients were announced in August 2012.
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OROVILLE – Up until now most of the meetings on the fate of North Valley Hospital’s Assisted Living facility have taken place in Tonasket, but last week many of those opposing its closure met in Oroville to say why they’re fighting the hospital district’s closure plan. About two dozen were in attendance at the Oroville High School Commons on Tuesday, March 17 to hear what Rosa Snider, Lisa Andrews, Danny Gratrix and Connie Maden had to say. The four presented a Power Point presentation which followed the timeline of the hospital board’s decision to close the facility at the end of Match. The presentation had several charts, including one outlining the raises for the top nine paid positions over the past two years. “We’ve gotten factual info through public records requests. It took several months to accumulate,” said Andrews, who has worked 13 years in the healthcare field, 11 of them for the North Valley Hospital District, mostly in administration and marketing. Snider said she had spent 17 years in the medical field in billing, management and program development. “Having grown up in this community it is important to get the facts in front of you,” Snider said. “We’ve been challenged since November trying to get information and find a solution to keeping senior healthcare local,” said Andrews. “If it wasn’t for us stepping up as taxpayers in the past, the hospital district wouldn’t have survived.” They want to know why it doesn’t appear any of the money from the levy shows up as revenue for the Assisted Living, saying it has all been allocated toward the hospital’s other divisions. The hospital board passed a resolution in 2002 refinancing the 1991, 1995 and 1997 Assisted Living Bonds into one Limited General Tax Obligation Bond. Payments for the Bond refinance come out of the Hospital’s General Fund at $18,000 a month, they say. The bond is paid twice a year at $108,000 per payment and will not be paid off until 2022, according to the group. “In the State Auditor’s Report for 2010 and 2011.... it states the Limited Tax Obligation Bond’s principal and interest ‘shall be paid by levying each year a maintenance and operation tax upon taxable property in the district,” said a chart about the Assisted Living Bonds. “The district shows a 7-year loss of $821,308. If the M & O taxes were collected, the interest and principal should have been paid with these funds. This would result in a 7-year $18,270 loss for the assisted living,” the chart claims. The group asked why since
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