Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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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 – 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...
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...
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...
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...
DAYTON – Fruitland, Idaho, teacher Paul Shaber will join the Dayton School District team as middle school/high school principal in July. "This is a great opportunity for me and for my family," Shaber said in an interview with The Times last week. "I'm looking at it as a chance to go make something of myself." Shaber's wife, Angelina, currently teaches special education in Fruitland but plans to return to school and care for the couple's four children, ages 7, 5, 3 and 1. Shaber has taught m...
DAYTON – An attempted traffic stop at the intersection of West Main Street and Wagon Road in Dayton at 2 a.m. last Wednesday, April 1, led to a high-speed car chase westbound on Highway 12 through Waitsburg and Dixie, in Walla Walla County, before the driver and two passengers were apprehended. Columbia County Deputy Jason DeVoir planned to pull the driver over on the western outskirts of Dayton to speak to him about his yellow headlights, which are illegal per state law. Instead the driver, 1...
DAYTON – The search for two overdue hikers from Portland ended happily last week after search groups spent two days in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness, near Panjab Trailhead south of Dayton, attempting to locate the men. Chris Warden, 20, and Harrison Salton, 23, both students of Portland's Reed College, found their own way out of the woods late Wednesday morning, March 25; they left Portland on Saturday and had been expected home on Monday, March 23. Warden and Salton, though experienced h...
DAYTON – More than 26 residents sat – or stood when they ran out of chairs – in the small space for audience members at Dayton City Council Chambers March 25, at a Dayton Historic Preservation Commission meeting that lasted late into the evening. For more than three hours, members of the commission, along with city planning director Karen Scharer, listened and responded to a stream of negative public comments regarding Dayton’s two locally registered residential historic districts – Washingto...
DAYTON – Installation has already begun on eight solar panel systems that will adorn the roof of the Port of Columbia's Blue Mountain Station just west of Dayton city limits. The panels should be in place and operational by the end of this month. The Port of Columbia, which owns the 6,912-square-foot building, has partnered with Walla Walla Flat Roof Educational Energy (WW-FREE) to install the panels. The solar array should generate 35.4 kilowatts of energy and provide Blue Mountain Station w...
Dave Finney, Columbia County Courthouse maintenance supervisor, planted all new roses on the courthouse grounds on March 16. Seven-year-old Dayton resident Moriah Hagg and her family helped Finney install the 20 plants where roses have been tended on the grounds for many years......
DAYTON – Columbia County has not yet moved forward in its plan to switch power providers for the courthouse and county public works office from Pacific Power & Light to Columbia Rural Electric Association. The county commissioners, on former Commissioner Chuck Reeves’s last day on the board, voted unanimously Dec. 31 to “begin the process” of changing power providers for these two county buildings for reasons of reliability, better quality of power, and the potential for lower utility rates....
DAYTON – The Dayton School Board last week approved the hiring of Paul Shaber as middle school/high school principal beginning in the 2015-2016 school year. The vote was unanimous, with board member Joe Heuther not in attendance. The vote was taken during the board's regular meeting, last Wednesday evening, after an executive session lasting approximately 90 minutes. Shaber, an Idaho math and science teacher, was one of four finalists for the position, all of whom met with the community, t...
DAYTON – Rachel Cortez may be new to Columbia County and her profession in public defense, but she's determined, she loves her new home, and she's known for nearly 20 years that she wants to dedicate her life to just such a job. Effective April 1, former public defender Dale Slack will join the Columbia County Prosecutor's office as deputy prosecutor. And although Cortez, who is 29, just arrived in Dayton as Slack's associate in January of last year – she will take Slack's place as the cou...
DAYTON – The March-December museum season is underway for Dayton's Smith Hollow School and the Palus Museum, but both are suffering the loss of local advocate Elizabeth Thorn, who passed away in February. Thorn helped make both local museums possible. "Elizabeth is missed, but we carry on," said friend and fellow history lover Diane Longanecker. However, with Thorn gone the museums now lack a cadre of docents to fill all the shifts. Longanecker said the Blue Mountain Heritage Society is h...
DAYTON – Dayton School District and the Columbia County Health District each received $77,000 this month from the William W. and Jessie B. Day Charitable Trust. Representatives from the U.S. Trust Bank of America presented the checks, along with an update on the status of the Day Estate farming operation and the trust’s investment portfolio, to school and hospital directors at an annual luncheon on March 10. “It’s a little higher than we budgeted for,” Dayton Superintendent Doug Johnson s...
Columbia County Commissioner Dwight Robanske (l) presents longtime Dayton resident Ron Groom with a plaque on March 18 commemorating 25 years . . ....
DAYTON – Columbia County Commissioners met on Monday with the Washington State Liquor Control Board and two dozen citizens to discuss the issue of allowing recreational marijuana businesses in the county. After many hours of discussion, the three county leaders voted unanimously to extend the moratorium for another six months. “The easy thing would be to ban it,” Commissioner Mike Talbott stated before the vote on Monday. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to say ‘ban it,’ because I think the peopl...
The event center at the Running T Ranch just outside of Dayton was filled with philanthropists Friday night during the Dayton Chamber's annual Blue Mountain Brix & Brew Benefit Auction. . ....
DAYTON – Dayton FFA students in the robotics program are gearing up for their second competition later this week. They ranked 19th out of 29 teams earlier this month in Spokane. "They had a great time, and they've really been committed to giving as much time to the project as they need to," said teacher Kristina Knebel (formerly Peterschick), who teaches ag classes at Dayton High School. The students, 18 total in the class, came up with the design and helped work on the robot. But nine s...
