Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune, April 03, 2014 by Sound Publishing

ATV CLUB MEETING

OROVILLE SOFTBALL OFF TO A 5-0 START

Hometown Pizza in Oroville Friday, April 4, 7-9 p.m.

See Page A13

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OKANOGAN VALLEY

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Mayor, county spar over highway

GO FLY A KITE

Oroville held their annual Kite Day under perfectly blustery conditions at Bud Clark Field last Saturday, March 26. The breeze helped kids of all ages launch their colorful kites skyward. It was one of the best turn outs since the tradition began as part of Oroville’s Centenial Celebration in 2008. As in past years the event was sponsored by the Oroville Chapter of the Royal Neighbors. The group gave out more than 100 free kites to launch this year’s event and helped add the long tails that made a big difference in how well the kites behaved. Below, Mike and Jennifer Ward from Wauconda introduce their nine-month old daughter, Wren, to the joys of flying a kite.

Heavy Haul talk highlights 10-point discussion between Plumb and County Commissioners

Gary DeVon/staff photo

BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

OKANOGAN - Tonasket Mayor Patrick Plumb wanted a chance to meet with the Okanogan County Commissioners. He got that opportunity Monday, March 24, entering the commissioners’ chambers along with Tonasket City Council Member Scott Olson and Kurt Danison of Highands Associates, who serves as Tonasket’s (and other cities) city planner. Plumb had submitted a 10-point agenda of discussion points to commissioners Jim DeTro, Ray Campbell and Sheilah Kennedy that included: • the contentious (but heretofore indirect) issue of running a Heavy Haul corridor from Oroville Patrick Plumb to Pateros on US-97 through downtown Tonasket; • discussion about “.09 funds” and communicating with other cities in the county that may have common interests on that issue; • transitional issues regarding areas newly-annexed into the City of Tonasket; • requesting a finalized airport plan for the Tonasket area; • issues with the Oakes Trailer Park/Johns Landing sewer system, which is operated by the city but is outside the city limits; • the possibility of discussing connecting the U.S. and Canadian rail lines near Oroville; • attempting to gain an easement so that a southerly access to Chief Tonasket Park could be opened; • strengthening the economic conditions of North Okanogan County; • getting the commissioners’ take on the potential creation of a parks and recreation district to fund the operation of the proposed Tonasket swimming pool; • and Plumb’s offer to support the county on any projects it might need support on. The lengthiest discussion was, to no one’s surprise, regarding the Heavy Haul corridor designation. Though there wasn’t a consensus reached by the commissioners and the Tonasket representatives, there wasn’t much doubt where any of the parties stood after hashing over a number of aspects of the issue. While the possibility of the designation occurring is uncertain, Plumb has been displeased that the county had sought the it without consulting the city of Tonasket since the highway runs through its downtown core. The condition of the underlying infrastructure, Plumb said, is inadequate for what a Heavy Haul Corridor would require. “I caught wind through the media that this was going on and I was a bit taken aback by it,” Plumb said. “As some of you are aware there had been some talk it wouldn’t cost any money. I’d already had a city analysis done by our city engineer, Varela and Associates, and they said that it would cost about $5 million to fix the mile of roadway to bring it up to standard.” He noted that the recent Third/Fifth/ Sixth Street project to assess drainage issues in town had to stop more than 15 feet away from the highway, leaving drainage along the highway still a problem as well as costing the city an ADA wheelchair ramp. “We were told ... that if we touched that

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NVH chooses new CT scanner Full TSD

Board slate

Community health education series slated to begin in April

BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM

TONASKET - Even in the midst of taking care of basic infrastructure needs - the oft-discussed boiler system and malfunctioning backup generator often on the forefront - North Valley Hospital District has kept its focus on another needed replacement: the hospital’s computed tomography (CT) scanner that it has been looking at upgrading for the past year. The old General Electric CT has reached the end of its useful life as its lease has expired (and since been extended to the end of 2014) and has increasingly lost operational time for a variety of repairs. Shane Pyper and Noreen Olma explained the process they went through to choose the new GE C660 scanner, an upgrade that actually will cost $735 per month less on lease than the outgoing unit. “After doing the site visits I felt the GE unit was best for a number of reasons,” Pyper said. “It’s a low-dose CT; it would be the lowest in the valley. Hopefully it will bring in business if we advertise that it is low-dose.” Pyper said that he didn’t automatically go back to GE, also considering Toshiba and Siemens units. The new CT is a 32-slice unit that, with its software package, functions as

OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 110 No. 14

NVH/submitted photo

Shane Pyper shows off North Valley Hospital’s current CT scanner. That scanner has reached the end of its life cycle; Pyper’s recommendation for a replacement was approved by the NVH Board of Commissioners last Thursday. a 64-slice. “We weren’t convinced GE was the best just because we’ve always been GE,” Olma said. “It was, do we want to stay with the status quo or make everyone sharpen their pencils? We were pleasantly surprised. We know what we’re getting with GE. We know their service...it will be the same engineers and technicians in the same place.” The new unit was included in the 2014 budget, as was the construction of the new CT shell that will be needed to house it. Originally the shell, which will

be much closer to the emergency room than the current unit, was to have been built as part of the larger construction project, but was postponed due to the district’s financial issues until it was necessary. The new unit also would not fit into the old unit’s current home. “We originally wanted to put the old CT in the new room but we had to cut that part of out of the project,” Olma said. “We left the old one in its current spot. It’s reached its end of life, so we’re

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INSIDE THIS EDITION

TONASKET - The Tonasket School Board had a full and varied slate to discuss at the Monday, March 24, board meeting, covering everything from finances to curricula, grading methods and a spectrum of administrative reports. Legislative follies Superintendent Paul Turner reported a good news/bad news situation regarding actions from the state legislature that will have consequences on future school budget. On the good side, school districts will now be able to hang on to about half of the money provided by the federal government in lieu of taxes paid on federal forest land. “We’ll get (to keep about half) of our federal forest dollars, about $70,000,” Turner said. “We get one lump sum a year and the state takes out on a monthly basis to counter that.” That said, this year’s federal dollars haven’t been forthcoming yet though the state has still been taking its share from school districts. “It was due two months ago,” Turner said. “There’s $140,000 out there that we should have gotten and no one knows where it’s at. In the meantime, the state is taking out 1/12 of what that is (each month). So we’re going in the negative until we get that.” That actually wasn’t the bad news.

Valley Life A2-3 Letters/Opinion A5 Community A6-7

Outdoors Obituaries Cops & Courts

A8 A9 A9

Classifieds/Legals A10 Real Estate A11 Sports A12-13