Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune, February 06, 2014

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SEATTLE SEAHAWKS WIN

BONAPARTE LK. SNOW DRAG

SUPER BOWL XLVIII

Saturday, Feb. 8 Registration 7:30 a.m. Races begin 10:00 a.m.

See Page A3

SERVING WASHINGTON’S

OKANOGAN VALLEY

SINCE 1905

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Swimming pool yes, Heavy Haul no Tonasket City Council looks to move forward with swimming pool, questions transportation designation BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

TONASKET - The possibility of a rebuilt Tonasket swimming pool again took center stage at the Tuesday, Jan. 29, Tonasket City Council meeting. And while a meeting the previous week brought the desire of the community further into focus regarding what such a pool might look like, getting from Point

A to Point B in terms of funding is still going to take some doing. City planner Kurt Danison of Highlands Associates, who “MC’d” the swimming pool town hall meeting on Jan. 21, said that after the discussion and various votes taken by the 50 or so attendees, his proposed solution would cost in the neighborhood of $1.5 million. “I’d propose adopting a plan for a 25x75 lap pool, with a 12-foot 6-inch diving well, 1-meter diving board and a water slide,” Danison said. “Joining that would be 20x30, somewhere in that realm, zero depth entry recreation pool with connection to the lap pool, and new building. “The reason I suggest the zero-entry instead of a ramp, the ramp isn’t that wide. If you are in a wheelchair or with a

NVH repairs ongoing

toddler, the lap pool will be a minimum “We need to determine if you are three feet deep and that’s too deep to be ready and willing to proceed with a grant in. With zero entry, you can go in as deep request to the Recreation Conservation as you are comfortOffice,” Danison able with, and still said. “If we’re going have a connection to to do that we need to the main pool if you “(The Heavy Haul dispute) very soon (to meet are comfortable with is about our infrastructure, deadlines for the that.” current grant cycle). and communication. This The next step, “The committee Danison said, would should meet and is a vital piece to us. We be to have either the prepare and implelive and die on US-97.” city or the commument a fundraising nity pool committee strategy, and find Patrick Plumb, Tonasket Mayor (which is still sorting out if the commitout its leadership) to tee is going to stay pay Pool World to together and move provide a final revised site plan and cost forward. Also we can explore doing the estimate based upon those recommenda- job without grant funds and the limitations. tions involved with the public works pro-

BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR

Festival kicks off with Pat McManus play Friday, Feb. 14

BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

SEE REPAIRS | PG A2

SEE HAUL | PG A2

NW Ice Fish Fest more than fishing

HAPPY GROUND HOG DAY

Generator, server, nurse call system at various stages of refurbishment TONASKET - Repairs for one of North Valley Hospital’s generators, as well as well as the server the contains patient records, were ongoing after both experienced various levels of failure during the past month, reported facilities and IT director Kelly Cariker at the Thursday, Jan. 31 Board of Commissioners meeting. The generator, an 800 kilowatt diesel that was installed as part of the new building construction project in 2010, expereinced a catastrophic during its monthly load test in early January. The Western Avenue sidewalk has been blocked off for several weeks as repairs are being dealt with. “We have the (repair) quotes now,” Cariker said. “They are steep ... but after the deductible, the insurance will cover the rest.” The generator was past its two-year warranty but only had 94 hours of use on it, but he said it threw a rod through the block during its load test and not while actually being used by the facility. He said the two bids being evaluated range between $80-100,000, but involve different approaches to the repair work. Either way, he said, the generator will have to be removed by crane and shipped to Spokane for repair. He added that insurance will cover all but the $10,000 deductible for the repair. Additionally, Cariker said that two drives that hold the operating system for the server that holds electronic medical records failed last week. “That’s always alarming,” he said. “These were not the drives that held the patient data; we were in jeopardy of losing the server itself. “As it was, our EMR vendor flew a person out here with a new controller and new drives. They stayed until everything was back up; we were able to get them back up 100 percent.” The commissioners approved the purchase of a $27,000 nurse call system in the Extended Care facility to replace the one that failed last year in the west wing of the building. “We’ve been renting a system for several months to keep us in compliance until we could afford a new one,” Cariker said. Long Term Care director Linda Holden said the temporary system was only adequate as a stop-gap. “I feel that we could get into hot

cess... (but) if we’re not asking for grant funds then the amount of money that needs to be raised doubles. We’re talking in the vicinity of $1.5 million.” Regardless of the method used for raising funds (public or private), Danison said architectural and design costs will be about 30 percent of the project’s cost. Council member Jill Vugteveen noted that if the city were to apply for a grant that required matching funds, it currently doesn’t have money on hand to match a large grant. Finding a source of funding to maintain the pool is still a priority as well. Mayor Patrick Plumb said that past maintenance costs, including staffing, ran at about $36-40,000 per year, with money generated from entry fees cutting

MOLSON – The last couple of years the fisherman got skunked at the NW Ice Fishing Festival, however reports have been coming in all winter of “fish on” so chances are there will be prize winning trout caught on Saturday, Feb. 15. There have been 5000 “fishable” fish planted in anticipation of the tournamen which is sponsored by the Oroville Chamber of Commerce. The ice fishing starts with registration at the Molson Grange Hall or at the lake office, set up on Sidley Lake. Sidley, along with Molson Lake is where the fishing takes place. Registration starts at 7 a.m. at the Grange and 8 a.m. at the lake. Angling continues until 4 p.m., with the Award Ceremony at the Grange Hall at 4:30 p.m. Prizes for biggest fish and a number of other categories are awarded. Before and while the tournament is going on there are a number of other events, like the pancake breakfast from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and the Dog Sled Demos from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. New for this year is a Pinewood Derby at 3 p.m. The derby is for young and old alike, use one of your old cars or go to www.oro-

Above, Aaron Kester (left) and David Campbell serve up ground sausage patties and potatoes at the Tonasket Kiwanis annual Groundhog dinner on Saturday, Feb. 1. The dinner is usually the Kiwanis’ top fundraiser of the year. Right, Julie Colbert dishes up desserts for visitors while in the background, rolls of ground sausage were being packaged up for customers. Brent Baker/staff photo

SEE FISH FEST | PG A2

Getting DNA from strawberries; loving iPads BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR

OROVILLE – In addition to hearing about what was going on at the legislature, Oroville’s school directors heard reports from teachers, principals and students at their Monday, Jan. 27 board meeting. Teacher presentations were given by Cynthia Poynter, a sixth grade teacher at the elementary and Stassia Feltes, coordinator for Gear Up. Poynter gave a Power Point presentation that was created by her sixth-graders. She said her kids loved their iPads and listed several projects in which the students used them. It is part of the school board and the district’s goal to get iPads into the hands of all students. “The students have also extracted DNA from strawberries and we worked with Julie Schilgen’s class for the second part of the project. They’ve been recording data,” said Poynter.

OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 110 No. 06

She also talked about student growth in math, reading and science. Growth in math has been 100 percent, she said. Feltes talked about WSU Upward Bound, a program described as a Bridge Internship that provides opportunities for graduated seniors to participate in a paid internship with the USDA/Agriculture Research Services of Washington State University. The purpose of the program is to “help students build skills, confidence and relationships that will help them succeed as entering freshman at a college of their choice.” Oroville is the fifth program at WSU, while Okanogan and Omak have been working in the program for 10 years, according to Feltes. Oroville has partnered with Tonasket in working in the program. “The requirements are the high school student has at least a 2.0 GPA, is low income and a first generation student,” said Feltes, who adds that her students

have participated in several no-cost field trips – including trips to Wenatchee, Spokane and Seattle. The field trip to Wenatchee concentrated on the medical field and job shadowing. They went to the hospital because several students have expressed an interest in pursuing that as a career, she said. In Spokane the students went to District Court for a for a mock trial. In Seattle the kids were immersed in urban life, according to Feltes. “Between Oroville and Tonasket we can have up to 60 students, we have 53 now. This month we are focusing on resumes and doing mock interviews. “We want to motivate kids to stay in school and get them graduated. The two student representatives to the school board, Lily Hilderbrand and Jacob Scott, discussed student happenings at the school. They said there had been a Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly. “Visitors said it was short and sweet,

SEE SCHOOL | PG A2

INSIDE THIS EDITION

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just like the Veterans Day one,” said Hilderbrand, who added that the sophomores had put on a Tolo dance. Scott said that Dawn Miller’s science class had been working with telescopes and that they had also gone to Seattle to see the Boeing Assembly Plant. Elementary Principal Joan Hoehn said her students were starting the Principal’s Challenge again and that this year’s goal was to read 6000 books. The principal will offer students various incentives along the way, including changing her hair color and wearing a color-matching outfit for that day from head to toe, including red, green, blue and purple. “Maybe orange,” said Hoehn. “In the past we have always given one point for every book read, but some kids are reading more advanced level and longer books. So this year we will be saying for every 6000 words that is equal to one

Super Bowl A3 Letters/Opinion A5 Community A6-7

Schools A8 Cops & Courts A9 Classifieds/Legals A10

Real Estate Sports Obituaries

A11 A12-13 A14


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