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As a former council member with Shirley Maike, I am pleased to endorse her for mayor of Medical Lake. Shirley Maike has the proven knowledge, skills and abilities to be mayor through her previous position as chief operating officer at Eastern State Hospital. Shirley is also a respected and strong member of the current City Council, serving on all of the sub-committee’s where city services are provided. The decision-making she exhibits has always been in the best interest of Medical Lake citizens, utilizing the personnel a...
Caregiving can be an emotionally, physically and financially draining role. Across Washington state there are more than 335,000 people providing unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s or other dementias. In 2016 alone, those caregivers provided an estimated 382 million hours of care, valued at $4.8 billion. Our family served as caregivers for my dad, who suffered from Alzheimer’s for at least five years. I am proud to advocate for the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act, now mov...
For Airway Heights City Council and employees, there was a lot to learn from the recent water situation. During a June 28 study session, council and city department heads held the first of what is scheduled to be several debriefings of the perfluoro chemical contamination issue the city experienced in May. “This is an opportunity to see how we did, what we could improve upon and how we can work with stakeholders in the future,” City Manager Albert Tripp said. “This is an opportunity to apply what we’ve learned to future...
Well West Plains, it’s been a fun three and a half years. Some folks already know this, but I am going to be leaving the Cheney Free Press and going to work as a staff reporter for The Ritzville-Adams County Journal. To put this into context, Free Press Publishing prints five newspapers, including The Journal and I’m essentially moving to another newspaper but I’m still under the company umbrella. If you’re a wrestling fan like me, it’s kind of like when a WWE superstar moves from the company’s Monday Night Raw brand to it...
Cowboys and cowgirls, grab your hats and boots because it’s once again rodeo weekend. Held on the second weekend in July every year, the Cheney Rodeo is an opportunity for residents and visitors to watch some pretty darn good rodeo at the Bi-Mart Arena, as well as take in other activities in the city, like the Saturday parade, Rodeo Round Up and Happy Hoofers Fun Run. It’s a whole weekend where the city and businesses can come together and showcase Cheney’s beauty. While the Cheney Rodeo is probably not as big compared to lar...
Thank you to the Cheney Free Press staff for their kind donation to the C.A.R.E.S. (Citizens Associated for Recreation, Education, & Sports) Youth Scholarship Program. That donation will go towards helping kids in the Airway Heights community participate in activities that they might not otherwise be involved in, by reducing recreation fees for qualifying families. It is contributions such as these that help C.A.R.E.S. carry out its mission to promote and support programs, activities and opportunities that: expose residents...
Is it window dressing, bait and switch, or kabuki theatre? Our representative for the 5th District in Congress, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is sponsoring legislation to provide three more years of funding teaching health centers to draw medical students to complete residencies in isolated or underserved rural and urban hospitals. She has voted against Obamacare (ACA) more than 50 times and then voted for Trumpcare (AHCA) which will basically cut Medicaid to many rural residents so people will not be able to afford their medical...
We can all use a dose of good news these days and there is some flowing from our state’s boatyards. When we think of maritime industries, we often focus on the mammoth ocean-going ships loaded with containers docking in Seattle, Tacoma and Portland; or, the U.S. Navy shipyard in Bremerton. While Vigor’s Seattle and Portland dockyards repair Navy and Coast Guard vessels, our warships primarily are built on the East Coast. Giant oceangoing freighters are constructed, and mos...
The times, they are a changin.’ Yeah, I know. Pretty original lead John — not. If you had a $1 for every story that used that as an intro to a discussion of changes, you’d be able to retire in comfort on an island in the Pacific — preferably not Gilligan’s Island. But things are changing here at the Cheney Free Press. Those changes will be expounded upon in upcoming columns, but suffice it to say, without some financial concessions from employees, Cheney, Medical Lake, Airway Heights and the rest of the West Plains would be...
Here we are — again — with the threat of a state government shut down hanging over our heads. Almost seems like it’s as regular as the change from spring to summer when the members of the Washington state Legislature find it impossible to get their work finished on time. For the third time in as many 105-day biennial budget sessions in Olympia, members of the Republican-controlled Senate, and the Democrat-led House have not been able to come to agreement on how much fiscal fuel the state needs to keep the engine runni...
James Comey originally identified as a Republican. He first gained public acclaim for his integrity while serving temporarily as Acting Attorney General under John Ashcroft in 2004 where he rushed to Ashcroft’s intensive-care hospital bedside to thwart President George W. Bush operatives from obtaining Ashcroft’s approval of a secret surveillance scheme that Comey deemed illegal. The Justice Department later agreed and Bush retreated. Subsequently, Comey’s reputed integrity won him a near-unanimous 93-to-1 Senate confi...
If Eastern Washington University alumni want better facilities for the college’s athletics programs, they are going to have to open their wallets and checkbooks. That’s the conclusion the Spokesman Review’s Jim Allen came up with in a June 13 story where he analyzed Eastern hiring Phoenix Philanthropy Group to assess the school’s fundraising capacity and create a plan to help raise money for its athletic facilities. Alumni and fans do a good job of supporting the university’s football team by coming back to Cheney every yea...
We shall soon be celebrating Independence Day (the Fourth of July) when we are supposed to remember how valuable our freedoms are. Part of this celebration for many involves discharging private fireworks. Such a practice is not only a terrible fire hazard when things are usually very dry, but also very painful to many citizens who have served in the military, who are seniors or who suffer from disabilities, especially mental issues. I totally support honoring those who have served in the military but it doesn’t make any s...
One question that has been raised among residents during Airway Heights’ water situation centered on the city’s water billing process. City Manager Albert Tripp said staff were contacted by residents who were concerned about the increase in their water bill from this last billing cycle — April 19 to May 18 — and wondered if the perfluoro chemicals in the city’s water contributed to the increase. On May 16, the city notified residents that two of its wells tested for perfluoro contamination above the city’s Environment...
The all-clear siren was sounded last week for the people in Airway Heights to come out of their bottled water shelters. The water crisis, or whatever it will be referred to in the days and years to come, has apparently flowed on by. But through all the reporting, that admirably began in our paper back on April 20 with a story that private groundwater wells would undergo testing, I found one thing largely missing among dozens and dozens of other media accounts, both print and...
Sometimes, headlines say a lot more than expected. Take this one from the June 1 issue of the Cheney Free Press: “Second STEP opponent files.” The story is about the Spokane County Board of Commissioners’ decision to sue the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs over the approval of the Spokane Tribe of Indians economic development project (STEP) near Fairchild Air Force Base. In explaining their unanimous May 30 decision, county spokeswoman Martha Lou Wheatley-Billeter, said the lawsuit is to appea...
The West Plains Time of Remembrance Veterans and Families benefit raffle was a great success. Rhonda Edinger was the lucky winner of the raffle, which included dinner for two at Anthony’s Restaurant, free movie passes to the Village Cinema Theater and a one-night stay at the Hampton Inn’s Emerald Suite. A heartfelt “thank you” to the Marketplace Bakery & Eatery; Cheney and Airway Heights businesses: Copy Junction, Rosa’s Pizza, Pizza Hut and Yoke’s; Medical Lake Denny’s Harvest Foods, The Lefevre Street Bakery in Medical La...
President Trump and Republican Congressional leaders justifiably want to curb the alarming growth in government healthcare spending. Their proposed solution? Cut $880 billion in federal funds from Medicaid over the next 10 years. Their plan wouldn’t necessarily reduce government spending. At best, it would just shift the burden from federal taxpayers to state taxpayers. In fact, such cuts could increase overall government spending. That’s because Medicaid is the most important financing source of mental health services. Exp...
Have you ever heard someone in this state say, “I wish Washington were more like New Jersey?” You’re more likely to see Bigfoot. But the Washington State Supreme Court has left state government at a crossroads. Unless caution is observed, Washington will become more like New Jersey — when it comes to taxes. At issue is basic education, the paramount duty of our state government. Public support for education is strong. Our aerospace and high-tech jobs depend on an educated workforce. Yet for decades, elected officials allowed...
By MEL GURTOV Contributor Donald Trump’s visit to NATO headquarters last week was consistent with two of his foreign-policy views: the need to pursue close relations with Russia, and skepticism about NATO’s utility. Despite affirmative comments about NATO from his secretary of state and Vice President Mike Pence, Trump persists in accusing NATO members of failing to pay the “massive amounts of money” he says they owe. Rather than reaffirm the US commitment to NATO’s collective-security principle, as its ministers had expected...
In the last decade, there has been a highway construction boom in Texas. On the other hand, lawmakers in Olympia still scramble to fund road maintenance. Texas, a state with a population of 27 million, is flush with cash thanks partly to a 10-year voter approved initiative which will pump $2 billion a year into highways. Then recently, that state’s legislature added $9 billion to further help relieve traffic congestion. What’s Texas doing that we aren’t? The answer is priva...
The weather is heating up and so are the plans to move the Cheney Train Depot to a new home on First Street. It has been a long winter, but just as with Mother Nature, preparations for spring and summer have been going on during the gray days and snowy weather. For over two years now, the Cheney Depot Society has been steadily working toward relocating the historic Cheney Depot from its current location between two sets of railroad tracks where it currently sits, to a prominent location on First Street. Researching relocation...
It’s June and for many of us it’s graduation season. I don’t need to talk about what a big accomplishment it is for a high school senior to walk across the stage to acquire their diploma and begin the next stage of their lives. Many high school students will go off to college — many are staying close to attend Eastern Washington and Washington State universities while others will travel across the country to chase their degrees. Some will attend a trade school, join the military or enter the workforce. There’s no real wron...
By now the West Plains — and probably all of Spokane County — knows the situation with Airway Heights’ water system. On May 16, city officials announced that two of its wells tested above Environmental Protection Agency lifetime health advisory levels for two perfluoro chemicals. This is a result from testing of wells on and around Fairchild Air Force Base that had contamination above advisory levels. Both the city and Fairchild are doing everything possible to provide residents and businesses with alternative water sourc...
