Sunday, September 3, 2017


July 27, 2017 – Fifteen members attended the meeting.  Chris Grover, running unopposed for Cheney mayor, spoke about his vision for Cheney.  He is focusing on keeping the small town feel of Cheney along with having a vibrant downtown and keeping city government fiscally responsible.  Water availability is currently priority one for him.  The city is issuing a request for proposal to get and outside engineering evaluation of the water system and wells.  The water supply problem is triggered by summer irrigation and possible solutions include expanding reservoir capacity, reclaiming waste water for irrigation and developing a better routine maintenance program.  He was asked about the 50 acre park, which was funded by a grant but has become an eyesore.  The problem is that the parks and recreation maintenance staff have been cut back so the park has not been well maintained. 
Margie reported that 4 club members spent about 45 minutes last week packaging dry dog and cat food for distribution with Meals on Wheels.  She hopes to make this an annual service event.


 July 20, 2017 – Fifteen members and Lt. Governor Marty Phanco heard Mayor Tom Trulove talk about his years of service.  He said he is both the youngest and the oldest person elected to the office.  He reviewed the water situation:  there are 8 wells, one of which is dedicated to irrigation only.  About 80% of housing in the city is multi-family but he doesn’t feel those residences are the reason for the draw down on the water supply.  He also discussed the recent rezoning for the Parkside development near the city pool.  The area had been zoned R3 (multi-family) and the developer was requesting R3H (high density multi-family).  The city felt that they would lose if the issue went to court and agreed to the R3H designation in return for the developer agreeing to install more on-site parking than currently required.

We had a preliminary report on the golf scramble – since the Cheney High athletic director resigned in June there wasn’t any support from school district staff and the level of participation was about one-third of what it was last year.


July 13, 2017 - Dave Reagan spoke about his experiences as an engineer for the local short line railroad.  It is operated by the Eastern Washington Gateway and the state owns the railroad.  He explained that many of its loads are grain that is brought to the Highline grain facility for blending and then shipped to customers in the Pacific Rim.  Each grain car carries the equivalent volume of three semi-trucks, so rail transportation is more efficient.  It takes 6- 8 hours to typically load a full train of wheat; sometimes cars have to be unloaded if the wheat is tested and doesn’t meet the buyer’s specifications.  He said that federal law allows a train to block a road for not more than 15 minutes but that time period starts when the train has stopped moving; if it is moving very slowly the 15 minute time limit has not begun.
Eighteen members attended and discussed plans for a club picnic and for volunteering to package dry pet food for distribution through Meals on Wheels. 


July 6, 2017 -   Fourteen members heard John McCallum, editor of the Cheney Free Press, talk about the challenges the paper is facing.  Most of their revenue comes from display ads, classified ads and legal notices.  Many of these have dropped off because there are no-cost alternatives on the internet.  There are also about 2400-2500 subscribers to the Free Press.  They have to be careful to separate editorial and news content from advertising to avoid appearance that advertisers are influencing the newspaper reporting.  John explained that the parent company also publishes the Spokane Valley Herald, Davenport Times and Ritzville Adams County Journal.  Al Stover, who has been at the Free Press for several years will relocate to Ritzville to fill a vacant reporter position there.  That means there will be only 2 full time editorial staff and one intern at the Free Press.  They may have to rely on free lancers to help cover community news and may ask community organizations to submit information on their events.  He was asked why the Free Press does not have any marijuana ads – it cannot publish them because the paper is distributed by US mail and marijuana is still an illegal drug under federal law.

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