Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Sorted by date Results 176 - 193 of 193
RITZVILLE – With a 10-year county contract coming to an end in December, staff from Adams County Pet Rescue (ACPR) met with county commissioners on September 20 to consider options for the future. Hiring an Animal Control Officer and strengthening existing ordinances were among the issues discussed. Revised ordinances, for example, might provide ACPR staff greater authority to issue tickets or levy fines. Agency representatives noted that repeated admonitions to some dog o...
RITZVILLE – The pandemic may be waning, but its effects are still being felt. At the Adams County commissioner’s meeting on September 20, Public Works Director Todd O’Brien discussed his department’s struggles. He noted that fuel tax revenues have been roughly $1 million less than anticipated. This, in turn, has adversely impacted the county’s public works projects. That’s because vehicle fuel taxes provide the lion’s share of funds for road maintenance and preservation,...
RITZVILLE - At its meeting on September 20, the city council held a "show cause" hearing regarding six properties deemed "nuisances" as defined by Ritzville's city code. Clerk-Treasurer Julie Flyckt showed photos of each property, and Public Works Director Dave Breazeale and Police Chief Dave McCormick added comments and observations. According to the city code (section 3.36.010), nuisances include, among other problems, "unsightly and/or unsanitary conditions which reduce the...
RITZVILLE - As early as spring of next year, Ritzville will have a new Maverick gas station. "Maverick has told us they will build in the spring of 2023," according to Julie Flyckt, Clerk/Treasurer for the City of Ritzville. "They're working to complete the initial planning requirements right now. It takes about a year to get the planning and permits done before construction begins. "Maverick has submitted an access permit to the Washington State Department of...
RITZVILLE – Eight years ago pharmacist Corrina Gray resisted her father's entreaties. He goaded her to leave Spokane and take the reins of Ritzville Drug. But she considered herself a "city girl." Years prior, she and her father, Sam Duncan, discussed going into business together. "We talked about buying a little 'mom and pop' somewhere," she said. "But he went off on his own and picked Ritzville. I didn't have any say." Born in Santa Clara, California, Gray grew up in San J...
RITZVILLE – When the city council accepted the H & L Reimer family’s initial annexation proposal at its September 6 meeting, Rane Shaub, President of the Shaub-Ellison Company, was on hand to discuss plans for the new site. Shaub, who attended the meeting remotely, represented the Les Schwab Tire Center in Ritzville. He shared his concept of relocating the tire company to the Reimer tract, noting that the move follows a trend among Les Schwab facilities elsewhere. Spe...
RITZVILLE – On September 8, Blackline, Inc., a contractor based in Vancouver, Wash., began a "slurry seal" project along Ritzville's downtown thoroughfare. Aggregate (small crushed rock) was spread from Palouse to Jackson Streets. The contract award of $77,060 was approved at the city's September 6 council meeting. It required the contractor to "do all the work and furnish all tools, materials and equipment" for completing a "Type 2 (II) emulsified asphalt slurry" project. A...
RITZVILLE - Last October Rich Tucker, 62, relocated from Spokane to this small rural community, and he's glad he did. Tucker was born in Newport, Washington, but "we lived all over the country while my dad was in the Navy," he said. Tucker's father worked on nuclear submarines as the "COB" (Chief of the Boat), the senior enlisted advisor to the Commanding Officer officer (CO) and Executive Officer (XO). "My dad started buying land outside Newport in 1969," he said. By the...
RITZVILLE – Several years ago, Bernie Williams and his daughter were returning to Missoula, Montana, from a gymnastics tournament in Seattle. They happened to stop in Ritzville. After spending a night at a local hotel and enjoying breakfast at Jake's Restaurant, Williams began scanning classified ads in The Journal. "I was just blown away by property prices here," he said. Eventually Williams and his wife, Dawn, purchased property on Hickory Avenue and later bought the d...
LIND – During the town’s August 23 city council meeting, Mayor Paula Bell listened to additional resident concerns about the town’s water supply and watering mandates. In sometimes contentious interactions, the mayor laid out her position on the issues. She later addressed specific inquiries by Journal staff. When asked whether Lind’s risk of fire damage was greater this year than prior years, the mayor noted that Lind and other communities are always alert for fire and dam...
LIND – With the August 4 fire under control, some Lind residents are wondering why the city continues to enforce a ban on lawn watering. These concerns led 22 Lind residents to attend a city council meeting on August 9. During the public comment portion of the meeting, resident Darla Shaver asked how many gallons of water were sold last year. The council provided no answer. Steve Nelson, an engineer who attended the meeting by phone, noted that declining aquifers are not r...
RITZVILLE – Marilyn Sielaff, a lifelong Ritzville resident at age 70, has been observing this rural community for decades. "I grew up on a wheat-and-cattle ranch about 12 miles southeast of Ritzville. I went all through my school years here," she said. Sielaff graduated with the Ritzville High School class of 1970, one of the school's largest classes with about 60 graduates. After high school she married and had four children: Michelle, who lives with her husband Bob in Otis O...
RITZVILLE – The city may be growing in the near future to include more property near the Interstate 90-State Highway 261 interchange. H & L Reimer Family L.L.C. has submitted a letter of intent allowing annexation of a property adjacent to the corporate limits. The land, described by the Adam’s County Assessor’s Office as a tract 150 feet by 330 feet (49,500 square feet), is located next to Love’s Travel Stop and across the road from Big Bend Electric. If accepted, the proposed annexation would be zoned as “tourist commercia...
RITZVILLE – The airport on Friday, Aug. 19, received an unusual visitor – a Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. Currently deployed to Deer Park, the aircraft's two ex-Army pilots work for Northwest Helicopters, an Olympia-based company that provides aerial firefighting support from Washington to California. On Friday, the helicopter dropped hundreds of gallons of water on the nearby Wagner Road Fire in Whitman County, and the Ritzville airport was their closest refueling sto...
RITZVILLE – Police Chief Dave McCormick raised the problem of catalytic converter thefts over the past several months during the City Council's Aug. 16 meeting. Thieves seem to work in teams, he said. They're brazen, sometimes jacking up vehicles and chopping off converters with reciprocal saws in the dead of night. Since the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency has required all newer cars to be outfitted with a catalytic converter-a small metal box clamped to the e...
When Brendan Bermea applied to teach social studies at Lind-Ritzville middle school, he didn’t expect to become the high school’s head football coach. Last spring, Bermea talked to Greg Whitmore (long-time football coach and athletic director at Ritzville) about filling an assistant coaching slot. That was the expectation. But after Whitmore accepted a job in Entiat, Bermea was offered the head-coaching assignment. “When someone calls and asks … sometimes you just have to...
RITZVILLE – The City Council and Adams County Engineer and Scott Yaeger discussed plans for city streets and sidewalks during an Aug. 2 meeting. Yaeger is also a city councilman. Anticipated projects include grinding and inlaying hot mix asphalt from Division to Palouse streets along First Avenue, applying crack seal and slurry seal to various streets throughout the city, and replacing sidewalks on East Sixth Avenue from Division to Chelan streets, Yaeger said. If grant a...
RITZVILLE – In 2016 when Earl Wash contemplated leaving his home in the Tri-Cities to be closer to Spokane siblings, he investigated several towns including Davenport, Sprague, Harrington and Lind. Ritzville wasn't in the running. "I was trying to avoid Ritzville," the 91-year-old man said. "The pictures I saw of the homes in Ritzville... You had to climb 100 steps to get up to the front porch. I didn't want any part of that." But when his real estate agent showed him a r...