Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 26 - 36 of 36
COLFAX — The annual Snake River Canyon Half-Marathon again has the approval of county commissioners to temporarily close part of Wawawai Road to thru-traffic for its event March 6. Commissioners voted on the plan Tuesday....
OLYMPIA — Reeling from a December data breach that allowed hackers to access the personal information of roughly 1.6 million state residents, lawmakers are working with Gov. Jay Inslee to establish a new office to protect computers. Sponsored by Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, Senate Bill 5432 would establish a new Office of Cyber Security. Officials from the Office of the Governor said Inslee requested the bill in response to the December data breach. The data was in the possession of the State Auditor’s Office, which was investigating une...
OLYMPIA — Senate Bill 5107 would require counties with populations exceeding 50,000 to establish emergency housing and homeless shelters. The bill sponsored by Sen. Phil Fortunato, R-Auburn, would also require mental health, employment and police resources. The law would force shelters to ban possession or use of alcohol and unprescribed drugs on the premises and to have a police presence during operating hours. At a Feb. 3 hearing, more than 400 people signed in as opposed to the bill, telling the Senate Housing and Local Government Committee...
WHITMAN COUNTY - Defensive coordinator Jason Cooper stood on the track three weeks ago, putting Colfax High School football players through paces around the oval. The workouts were allowed, with a possible football season on the horizon. "If we get sports again, I'm gonna do a backflip," Cooper said. Last Thursday, he may not have been the only one turning 360 in the air as high school sports got clearance to return to full action for the first time in almost a year. Now the Colfax football team...
COLFAX — A coming six-year transportation plan for Colfax will focus on a list of streets for future work, including Fairview, Morton, First, Valley View, the Moller-Cromwell intersection, Lake Street greenway, by the old railroad, and Palouse River Road. City councilman Jim Kackman suggested adding Hillcrest Street at the council’s regular meeting Tuesday night. City Public Works Director Matt Hammer concurred and said he would add it to the list. The council then set a public hearing for March 1 for the six-year plan, which is used in the...
COLFAX — The price of wheat is more than $7 for the first time in more than five years. The change is attributed to a few reasons. One is American corn production was short of the USDA’s forecast in 2020 causing a price increase, thus foreign feed buyers have opted for wheat over corn. The wheat price in Portland first went above $7 on Jan. 8. Another factor cited is the weakened value of the dollar, which makes for foreign wheat buyers like Japan and China able to use their currency to obtain more wheat. “When the dollar value gets low, it ma...
COLFAX — Whitman County Public Works is beginning the process to renew its 10-year contract for the hauling of solid waste to a landfill outside Roosevelt, Wash. The current contract with Republic Services expires in June 2022. A renewal would come with a not-yet-determined price increase. The county will have the option to also go through a process of competitive bids open to other providers. For the past eight years, nearly all of the household garbage of Whitman County has been put into containers at the local waste transfer station and t...
ROSALIA - Emmy Widman found the first buttercup of the year Feb. 1. It was on a hill north of Rosalia, across Babb Road from where the Malden and Pine City fire began last September. The base of the plant had been there since the first week of January. The mother and her three children were looking. They are perennial winners of the longtime Gazette contest for who can find the first sprouted buttercup flower in the county. "When you get three days above 40 degrees, you really start looking,"...
COLFAX — Two of three county school votes are passing after an updated vote count Feb. 10. In Lamont, the vote was 28-24 to deny the school’s two-year levy. For Colton, a vote of 284-105 will pass the one-year levy. In Rosalia, the vote count stood at 166-83 to approve splitting their five school board districts into three. Mailed ballots are still coming in and three ballots are being challenged, according to the Whitman County elections office. The Lamont School District sought a two-year replacement educational programs and operations levy,...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS — Citing the inability to come to an agreement to negotiate a different lease term, Spokane County Raceway operator Craig Smith will step away from the facility leaving both the 2021 season, and the track’s future up in the air. Neither Spokane County Commissioners, nor officials with Spokane County Parks who oversee the facility returned requests for comments by deadline time Tuesday evening, Feb. 23. They were asked on Monday to address the rampant social media chatter that the track would close — or if it was for sale. The c...
