Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 4651 - 4675 of 5694
The "Peleton" rolled through downtown Waitsburg Sunday, as riders prepared to start the Kellogg Hollow Road Race . . ....
First Appearance/Arraignment: Michael A. West, 37, Dayton; entered not-guilty plea on charges of residential burglary – domestic violence with sexual motivation, a Class B felony, and violation of a no-contact order – domestic violence with sexual motivation, a gross misdemeanor. These crimes allegedly occurred on Sept. 30, 2014, while West was on a court-granted 24-hour furlough from Columbia County Jail. West is currently incarcerated in Columbia County Jail without bail. Zachary T. Koehler, 27, College Place; first appearance on charge of...
DAYTON – Columbia County has its eye on Seneca property neighboring the county public works office on North Guernsey Avenue, including the much-used activity center and well-known "Labor Camp" on Green Giant Camp Road. This information was revealed during last week's county commissioner meeting when Ginny Butler, with the Dayton Historical Depot Society, requested that her organization have access to the site to document and record the long history present there before the county made any c...
DAYTON – Columbia County jumped from 24th in state health rankings to 12th between last year’s assessment and now, Public Health Director Martha Lanman reported to county commissioners last week. The county’s biggest improvements were in access to exercise opportunities, mental health providers and diabetic monitoring, according to the report provided by County Health Rankings – many of these were community health areas targeted by local wellness programs in the last year. “It shows that all...
DAYTON – Columbia County Fair Board members have appealed to Columbia County Commissioners several times this year, including at last week’s board meeting, to approve a plan intended to make enough improvements to the East Grandstands at the county fairgrounds that the space can be used at events where the newly repaired West Grandstands are standing room only. Commissioners and County Engineer Andrew Woods are concerned that the current plan, while proposing some critical repairs to the unu...
Dayton youth enjoy a Monday evening this week at the juvenile fishing pond at the Dayton City Park. Fish & Wildlife, with the local Salmon Recovery Board, replaced a filter at the pond this month so it could be filled and stocked....
WAITSBURG – If there's ever a fitting time for double the celebration it is this May's Waitsburg Celebration Days weekend, which also commemorates the city's 150th anniversary. The first-ever Waitsburg Celebration Days co-queens were crowned in a coronation ceremony at the Waitsburg Elementary School multipurpose room on Saturday. In a flashback to 10 years ago, Brittany Artz and Kimberly Smith were crowned co-queens for the 92nd Days of Real Sport in 2005. This year, Devon Harshman and A...
WAITSBURG - A female Tour of Walla Walla cyclist was injured and reportedly rendered unconscious in a bicycle crash that took place on McKay-Alto Road north of Waitsburg during the race Sunday afternoon. Waitsburg Ambulance Service responded to the call and transported the cyclist to Waitsburg Elementary School playground where a Life Flight helicopter landed at approximately 4:25 p.m. to pick up the victim. She was reportedly being transported to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland. The...
WAITSBURG – Waitsburg’s current mayor and city council members ran unopposed in the 2015 elections this month and were sworn in by City Admininstrator Randy Hinchliffe at the April 15 City Council meeting. Mayor Walt Gobel said he was disappointed to see that Izzy the Camel failed to receive his traditional write-in vote this year. Hinchliffe said 157 voters cast ballots which is 30 shy of the year prior. Gobel was re-elected mayor, for his third one-year term, with 117 votes. The following ind...
WAITSBURG – The Waitsburg Historical Society is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the burglar(s) who made three separate break-ins to Waitsburg museum properties last week. The first break-in, to the Bruce House Memorial Museum, was discovered on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning, it was discovered that the adjoining Wilson-Phillips House had also been burglarized. On Friday, board members discovered the thief had made a second entry into the B...
DAYTON – Columbia County Commissioners are considering the formation of two new special taxing districts, including a Flood Control Zone District and a Parks and Recreation Service Area. Both districts, if formed, could generate thousands of dollars annually for special – in many cases critical – projects that would otherwise be challenging to fund. County Public Works Director Andrew Woods presented a draft report to the board during its Monday workshop this week; no action was taken at the m...
WAITSBURG – Waitsburg Touchet Valley Acoustic Music Program (TVAMP) Director Kate Hockersmith joined the ranks of more than 50 deserving individuals – the first being Ernest Kison in 1962 – to receive Waitsburg's Community Service Award. The award was previously known as the Citizen of the Year Award. Hockersmith, who thought she was simply directing her bluegrass band, Switchgrass, in providing the evening's entertainment, was taken by complete surprise when her name was called as the 2014...
WAITSBURG – Shoppers at Waitsburg Grocery are practically guaranteed a first-name welcome if owner Dan Cole, who has operated the community hub for nearly 30 years, is anywhere nearby. It's that kind of personal attention and genuine interest that helped earn Waitsburg Grocery the first-ever, Waitsburg Commercial Club's Business of the Year Award. Cole and his wife Trina were presented with the award at the April 7 Commercial Club award ceremony, where Master of Ceremonies Tom Baker read r...
WAITSBURG – The Waitsburg Lions Club is taking a step of faith in offering a $1,000 Waitsburg Lions Club Scholarship, to be awarded to a WHS graduate, for the first time in 2015. The club hopes to be able to offer similar awards in future years. Scholarship fund chairman Todd Wood said the Lions has considered funding scholarships many times over the life of the club and has strongly considered it for the last several years. “The club has not always had the financial wherewithal to fund sch...
Pacific Power Regional Community Manager Bill Clemens (l) presented a $1,500 check to Waitsburg Mayor Walt Gobel . . ....
DAYTON – For several years, Greg Bingaman, a La Grande, Ore. farmer and owner of Pioneer West Agricultural Solutions, has hunted for a place to set up shop in Dayton. His company already sells a large number of self-propelled sprayers to farmers in the Touchet Valley, and a local shop would serve not only those customers but new ones as well. "So I thought it was time," he said in an interview with The Times on Tuesday. "And we found the old fire department building for sale, so we bought it a...
DAYTON – Columbia County Commissioners along with County Risk Manager Andrew Woods and Prosecutor Rea Culwell have been working for months on a policy for screening volunteers who assist with county functions and events, such as the annual county fair. Currently such volunteers – who might help out in any department from public works (fairgrounds or golf course, for example) to public health and emergency management – are not screened through a background investigation. All county emplo...
STARBUCK – Lyons Ferry State Park, on the Franklin County side of the Snake River off Highway 261, will open this season with a grand re-opening celebration on June 5, according to a Washington State Parks representative. The state announced earlier this year that management of the park has been returned to the state park system after budget cuts demanded the state pull out of Lyons Ferry in 2002. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the park; the Corps operated the day-use area seasonally, w...
Children of all ages are invited to celebrate Earth Day next Wednesday, April 22, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Best Western Plus of Dayton. . ....
DAYTON – Columbia County Commissioners have agreed to join a group of local and Walla Walla County stakeholders in opposing a decision made last month by the Walla Walla Watershed Management Partnership that could adversely impact junior water rights holders across the Touchet Valley. The commissioners decided at their regular workshop on Monday to pledge up to $5,000 of county funds at this time in support of this opposition group, with the understanding that money donated to the cause from a...
DAYTON – The Columbia County Auditor’s Office will mail out ballots by week’s end asking voters to decide on the Dayton School District’s 2015 capital levy. The election officially takes place on Tuesday, April 28, and the measure requires a 50 percent yes vote to pass. This is the only measure on the ballot. The district is requesting $800,000 in property tax payer’s money – spread out over 2016 and 2017 – to make improvements to the district’s facilities. This amounts to approximately 6...
WAITSBURG – Local historians are probably aware that the village of Delta (later founded as Waitsburg) grew up around a flour mill, built by Sylvester Wait, which began operations in 1865. But did you know that Wait's Mill set a truly impressive world record in 1908? Or that, on the way here, Sylvester Wait lost the saddlebags containing his life savings – the money he was going to use to start operations at Wait's Mill? To learn more about that world record and to find out what happened to tho...
Children of all ages congregated at the Port of Columbia's Blue Mountain Station . . ....
Requesting: $800,000 in a two-year levy for tax year 2016 & 2017 Cost to taxpayers: 2016: 66 cents/$1,000 assessed property value = $400,000 2017: 65 cents/$1,000 assessed property value = $400,000 Example: A $200,000 home would cost the owner $132 each of the two years. Note: These are estimates. The new wind turbines will come on the tax roll during this time period and drive the cost per thousand lower – the county assessor has no estimate of how much. Timeline: Projects could begin summer o...
Waitsburg Easter Bunny (aka Rick Ferguson). . ....
