Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 751 - 775 of 5646
DAYTON-Chef Daniel Rossi thought that moving to a small, rural town like Waitsburg meant he could live out retirement peacefully, picking away at his banjo and sharing his musical knowledge. In 2020, he hit the road just moments before the global shutdown was announced, escaping the bustling cityscape of Los Angeles and driving north. He spent the pandemic with his partner, Vicki Sternfield Rossi, doing exactly what he set out to do in the first place, for roughly a year. The kitchen kept...
WAITSBURG—The Waitsburg City Council met Wednesday, April 21, at the Lions Club Building. During the meeting, the council answered questions from concerned community members and set a date for a public hearing to discuss potential options for the library building, 212 Main Street. Mayor Marty Dunn and Councilmember Paxton were unable to attend the meeting. Councilmember Paxton submitted a letter of resignation stating he and his family will be moving out of the area. Councilmember Karl Newell j...
DAYTON—June 5, at 1 p.m., has been tentatively selected for this year’s senior class graduation ceremony, according to DSD Supt. Guy Strot, at last week’s school board meeting. Strot was short on details but said more information would follow after Governor Jay Inslee’s May 7 COVID-19 update. Sam Korslund, the Gear Up Academic Specialist, has been chosen for the position of Athletic Director for the remainder of the school year. Strot told the board there is one internal candidate and one extern...
DAYTON-On Monday, as many as 101 people attended the Port of Columbia Touchet Valley Trail (TVT) information meeting and to ask questions of the presenters. Brian Hansen, Principal Engineer for Anderson/Perry & Associates, Inc., shared the 30-percent design documents for the trail. He talked about the results of the surveying and ownership research through titles and deeds. Ken Voorhis, a Principal Architect with SPVV Landscape Architects, presented the 30-percent landscape design drawings and...
DAYTON-The Port of Columbia hosted a more than two-hour-long presentation on April 26, hearing from trail designers, various trail advocates, and agriculture representatives. Before the meeting, a group of nearly 20 community members gathered in front of the Port's driveway, holding signs that signaled they were against the trail. The group assembled in part due to the feeling that the meeting would not let them speak or be heard. Though outside, the group did connect to the meeting through...
WAITSBURG—Volunteers stepped up to begin the process for selecting a new fire chief at the Columbia-Walla Walla County Fire District 2 meeting on Wednesday, April 14. Commissioner Deb Fortner gave a brief update on the ongoing repairs at the fire station. Projects to complete include updating exterior doors and installing handrails along the stairs. Commissioner Jake Long said that he stopped by the station prior to the meeting and thought the kitchen looked close to completion, however, a f...
DAYTON—The Port of Columbia Executive Director Jennie Dickinson reminded those in attendance at the Port Commissioners meeting last week about the Touchet Valley Bike Trail informational meeting, which will take place on Monday, April 26, at 5:30 p.m. on Zoom. Dickinson said most of the marketing for the meeting is in place. Ads have been placed in all the local newspapers and a digital ad campaign in the Union-Bulletin. Information about the meeting is posted on the Port’s Facebook page, as...
DAYTON—Vicki Zoller from the Friends of the Dayton Community Center was a special guest at the Dayton City Council meeting last week. Zoller said fundraising efforts for the feasibility study for the pool/community center have slowed due to the COVID-19 situation. She has written two grants which were both rejected. “There is a lot of need out there right now, and there are not a lot of dollars,” she said. The group is still willing to be the fundraising arm for the $50-60,000.00 feasibility stu...
DAYTON—Only one COVID-19 vaccine clinic was scheduled this week. That clinic took place at the county fairgrounds on Tuesday, when 91-second doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered. Sixty-five, second doses of the Moderna vaccine have been scheduled for May 4, and 57-second doses are planned for May 11, according to Stephanie Carpenter, Columbia County Health System CCHS CFO, who is in charge of organizing the vaccination clinics. She said the fairgrounds Pavilion would no longer be l...
WAITSBURG—The Waitsburg School Board had a full agenda for the April 15 meeting, including approval of a comprehensive sexual health curriculum and discussing athletic combine matters. During the secondary principal’s report, Principal Stephanie Wooderchak shared that the senior class has been planning for graduation. Currently, the 2021 graduation is on the school’s calendar for June 4. Superintendent Mark Pickel reported that there would be a meeting with the DW Administration team on April...
WAITSBURG—A committee consisting of parents and teachers has spent the past few months exploring comprehensive health education after Washington voters passed Senate Bill 5395 in 2020. The bill, which went into effect on December 3, 2020, requires that Washington public schools provide comprehensive sexual health education (CSHE) by the 2022-2023 school year. Early requirements, including consultations with parents and guardians, local communities, and the Washington State School Directors A...
OLYMPIA—Governor Jay Inslee Monday announced that three Washington State counties would roll back to Phase 2 of the Healthy Washington reopening plan after failing to meet the necessary metrics. The three counties returning to Phase 2 are Cowlitz County, Pierce County, and Whitman County. “These metric trends are driven by the virus, and we must continue to do everything we can to sharpen our focus and keep COVID-19 activity down. We are so close to the end of the tunnel here — we have made...
DAYTON-There will be a licensed daycare vacuum in Dayton, when the only current licensed provider drops out of the business at the end of June, said Paul Ihle, a Community Health Worker for the Columbia County Health System. "To the best of my knowledge, we are down to one licensed daycare provider, Susan Schlenz, and she has announced her retirement this June. . . I believe that Sylvia Demaris is currently not open for home daycare, and Haley Puckett dropped out of the business at the s...
DAYTON-If you find you love the food prepared by Sid Highsmith and Nathanial Steen at Blazin Burgers, you should let them know so they will be encouraged to stay. Steen said when the golf course restaurant closes this winter, they will take a three-month hiatus to explore the possibility of opening a restaurant in Indonesia. But, if they do well here, they will stay. Blazin Burgers has been open since Saturday and, so far, there have been "huge" compliments and lots of buzz on Facebook,...
WAITSBURG-Late in the night on Friday, April 9, multiple properties were vandalized in Waitsburg, including the baseball fields, the football field, and the horse track. With the first home baseball game scheduled in less than a week, athletes, parents, and friends rallied on Sunday to repair the field to a playable state. The damage included deep ruts caused by a vehicle spinning 'brodies' on the grass and infield, with deep tire marks which appeared to be caused by spinning tires. Witnesses...
WAITSBURG-Give a kid a paintbrush, or in this case, a cup full of acrylic paint, and they can change the world! In cooperation with the Waitsburg Resource Center, the Cardinal's Nest put on a Spring Break art program for Waitsburg students, April 5-7. The program included both art and STEM activities, led by Kathy Schirm, a paraeducator at Waitsburg School District, and the Cardinal's Nest after-school program's art instructor. The program has been unavailable this year due to pandemic-related r...
DAYTON-On Thursday, April 8, the Dayton Kiwanis Club heard from Dick Muri, City Captain for National Drive Electric Week Steilacoom. Muri has been a member of the Kiwanis Club in Steilacoom since 1993 when he helped start the local club. Steilacoom is a town in Pierce County Washington, on the south end of Puget Sound. "The joke around Steilacoom is 'don't talk to Dick Muri, or you'll become a Kiwanian," he joked before his presentation. Muri is the program and membership chair for his club and...
WAITSBURG—The warm spring sunshine is out, but it isn’t safe to put the face masks away just yet. Vaccination eligibility is expanding, however, bringing us closer to a mask-free future. In Walla Walla County, Group 1B, Tier 1, which includes all people 65 years or older, all people 50 years or older who live in multigenerational households, educators and staff for pre-k through 12th grades, and all childcare providers, is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccinations. Also eligible at this time in...
DAYTON—Columbia County Treasurer Carla Rowe believes the duty of the treasurer’s office is to collect taxes, not to make judgments on who is, or who is not, qualified for delinquent tax deferrals. That is what she says she will be required to do if one of two pieces of Washington state legislation, dealing with the state of emergency due to the novel coronavirus, pass into law. Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1332 suspends interest and penalties during a state of emergency declared under RCW...
When I first landed in Dayton in 2012, I didn’t know anybody and wasn’t sure how I was going to find out anything about my new community. I got my first insight into the community through reading a copy of Ken Graham’s news magazine, Blue Mountain News. I want to thank Ken for that and for hiring me at The Times in 2015 to be the Dayton reporter. That put me on a fast track to knowing Dayton and being embedded in the community. I have had the good fortune to cover some pretty big stories for C...
The lion of early spring has roared, and shops are embracing the relaxed pandemic-related restrictions as they shake off the winter blues. As shoppers, we have gotten used to wearing face masks and the smell of hand sanitizer, and before we know it, we will be used to packing reusable shopping bags with us. According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington shoppers use two billion single-use plastic bags each year. Most bags go in the trash once people get home and put their...
DAYTON-Work to remove sediment from the Touchet River, in the area of the Hwy. 12 and railroad bridges and the confluence of the Patit Creek, is on hold until the Columbia County Flood Control Zone District receives a cultural resource review permit from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Flood Control Zone District (FCZD) Administrator Charles Eaton told the FCZD board of supervisors that he hopes to have the permit in hand this week so work can begin in the next few...
DAYTON--Kelley Wolther, of Wolther Family Farm, has leased the garden at the Blue Mountain Station from the Port of Columbia. The Wolther family has been selling produce from the farm garden, on the South Touchet River, for the past few years, and they were looking to expand. "This was a good opportunity," she said. Wolther plans to sell fruit and vegetables, and she will have eggs for sale at the Co-op in about a month. She is also planning to offer $20 farm to fridge produce baskets with...
WAITSBURG-Seventy-five thousand pounds of food from participating sponsors was dropped off at the Waitsburg Elementary School parking lot over the weekend. The semi-trucks that hauled it disappeared as soon as the trailers were empty. Countless smiling volunteers helped distribute every single bit of food to anyone and everyone who drove up. The food was prepackaged in 30-pound boxes. Dairy staples, including yogurt and butter, and other essential pantry items like fresh potatoes, onions, and...
WAITSBURG—On March 15, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee released an emergency proclamation concerning updates to school reopening plans. The directive stated that all schools in Washington State must offer in-person instruction for elementary students by April 5, and in-person instruction for high school students by April 19. On March 25, the Washington State Department of Health adopted guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that lessened the six foot physical distancing requir...
