Pay to play
Permits, passes, licenses, fees — enjoying the great outdoors now has its costs
EAST WENATCHEE — Brothers Larry and Steve Frazier were pumped last week about launching Larry’s new fishing boat from the ramp here at Kirby Billingsley Hydro Park. Nice boat, calm weather, good company and, best of all, they said, no user fees or annual passes required. Recreation at the Columbia River park, owned by the Chelan County PUD, comes mostly free.
If you’re ready to go ...
Headed out this summer? Currently there’s no single pass that allows entry to all state and federal lands. So here’s a list of the basic permits you might need:Discover Pass What: Good for access to 7 million acres managed by State Parks and the state departments of Natural Resources and Fish & Wildlife, including campgrounds, parks, wildlife areas and trails.
The many passes are complex for the enforcers, too
EAST WENATCHEE — Here’s one common summer scenario:A family arrives at Lincoln Rock State Park in a huge RV. It’s pulling a small pickup truck with a 10-foot boat on top and fishing gear inside. They’ll camp at Lincoln Rock, fish all morning, and then drive to Leavenworth for lunch and, further on, swim for the afternoon at Lake Wenatchee State Park and hike on nearby Forest Service trails. Here’s the problem: That family will be carrying a bunch of permits and passes for camping, fishing, boating, hiking and parking. So how can they all be enforced?
Gulp: Can’t buy liquor here next week
EAST WENATCHEE — A week without whiskey? Better stock up now before liquor sales dry up next week on both sides of the Columbia River. Following closure of Wenatchee’s state liquor store last Tuesday, the East Wenatchee store is set for shutdown on Saturday. That leaves both cities with a five-day dry period before over-the-counter liquor sales resume June 1, the first day of sales by privately-owned liquor stores.
NCW job growth slow in April
WENATCHEE — Last month’s improving job numbers in Chelan and Douglas counties showed hiring kept pace with a growing labor force, but just barely, state officials said Tuesday. April’s unemployment rate of 8.7 percent marked a 0.2 percent drop from the same month one year ago, the smallest year-to-year gain in eight months, as the two-county labor force swelled by nearly 1,400 job seekers.
LeSesne to serve as Visitor Bureau's interim director
WENATCHEE — A longtime staff member of the Wenatchee Valley Visitors Bureau will lead the group until a new executive director is named in coming weeks, WVVB officials announced Monday.
Blog | Sales hot for doughnuts and homes
Our Everyday Business blog talks about a new doughnut shop and the area's improving home sales.
Business advisors to hold June workshops
WENATCHEE — SCORE, a group of local professionals advising local businesses, will host two workshops in June.
Wenatchee without liquor? Store will close for nine days
WENATCHEE — The new owner of the liquor store here hoped the change from state to private ownership would go down as smoothly as a one-gulp shot of premium whiskey. But the state’s announcement Thursday for an early but temporary closure of the store — nine days before privatization takes place on June 1 — has left a bitter taste for new owner Dave Mehelich, who feels the surprise shutdown could anger and confuse his new customers.
Done deal: Postal Service to shutter NCW mail center
WENATCHEE — Say bye-bye to one-day mail delivery. The processing of North Central Washington’s first-class mail will now include a trip to Spokane. The Postal Service announced Thursday it’s moving ahead with a multibillion-dollar cost-cutting plan that will close nearly 250 mail processing centers, including Wenatchee, beginning in August.
Everyday Business | Improving home sales continue in April
A third straight month of improving home sales in April for the Wenatchee area must have local real estate folks thinking this is it — the market turn-around they’ve been hoping for.
Farmers Market set to open Saturday
WENATCHEE — The Wenatchee Valley’s largest farmers market will open for the season Saturday with an expanded line of veggies, foods and crafts.
Big retailer Big Lots headed for Olds Station
WENATCHEE — One of the nation’s largest resellers of closeout and overstock merchandise could be open here by autumn. Big Lots Inc., a Fortune 500 company with more than $5 billion in annual sales, should be open by September in a 40,000-square-foot space adjacent to Gateway Cinema in Olds Station, manager of the company that owns the building announced today.
Port kick-starts business park expansion
EAST WENATCHEE — Heavy machinery will begin rolling in next month to shape, dig and pave an expansion of the Pangborn Airport Business Park, officials with the Port of Douglas County announced Friday. The second phase of the business park calls for $1.4 million in improvements that include extension of the public road and installation of water, electricity and high-speed fiber. The contractor will also do some earth-moving and grading to make the sites more “shovel ready” for new tenants, officials said in a press release.
Morning mirror
EAST WENATCHEE — Still air on Mother’s Day morning (Sunday) barely rippled the Columbia River to offer the perfect mirror for Turtle Rock, north of East Wenatchee.
Sunday briefing
Need some bucks? Business owners can learn the basics of borrowing from a panel of local experts during “Commercial Lending 101,” a discussion on how to prepare for and secure the right business loan.
Spring sprouts new shops in valley
Spring is sprouting a new batch of businesses across the Wenatchee Valley. It’s fun to see all this enterprise taking root. Here are profiles of three that just opened. We’ll bring you more in coming weeks. Upper Eastside Coffee Co.
All safe as couple's home burns
WENATCHEE — Ellen Cunningham stood across the street from her home Thursday afternoon and watched it burn. She still held the handset to her cordless phone. She’d used it 20 minutes earlier to call 911 to report smoke inside her house, and now flames shot from the roof.
Apple Blossom juices hotel occupancy
WENATCHEE — Last weekend’s Apple Blossom bash put lots of heads in beds at area hotels and motels to snap a four-year slide in lodging for the celebration’s final weekend. Local tourism officials reported Tuesday that occupancy rates at area inns for the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival rose 5 percent over last year to hit 82 percent, a fill rate that added an estimated $277,000 to the local economy.
New plan could save NCW’s rural post offices
NCW — Get mail in Chelan Falls? Maybe you can breathe a bit easier. A new Postal Service strategy announced today could keep open the nation’s smallest post offices — including those in Chelan Falls, Ardenvoir, Loomis, Wauconda and Marlin — while dramatically reducing window hours, possibly trimming staffs and saving the debt-ridden agency nearly half a billion dollars a year.
Downtown devotion
Three storefront churches serving downtown Wenatchee are:Shalom Church of Wenatchee and Powerhouse Ministries
Today marks last call for liquor in Waterville
Town’s local spirits store closes at 6 p.m. today
WATERVILLE — It’s last call in Waterville. The only liquor store in this wheat-farming town closes at 6 p.m. today, a victim of dwindling business and privatization of state liquor sales.
Storefront faith
Hundreds worship where residents once shopped
WENATCHEE — On a recent Sunday, at the center of the city’s commercial core, scores of cars lined Wenatchee Avenue and spilled into nearby bank lots. More were on the way. Hundreds of worshippers were arriving at Comunidad Cristiana Latina Rio de Vida, the downtown church in the former Sears & Roebuck building, to park and praise where residents once bought parkas and pants.
April a ‘smorgasbord’ of extreme weather, say meteorologists
WENATCHEE — April weather was hot, cold, windy, record-breaking and generally unpredictable, weather watchers at Washington State University say. But it was a heck of a lot better than last year’s spate of wet, chilly days that delayed fruit harvests by up to three weeks in many areas across Central Washington.
Around the Square
CASHMERE — Jay Byers doesn’t play favorites. Last week, when the owner of Mission Square wandered through the fruit warehouse he’s converted to retail shops and offices, he was careful to point out that each business adds diversity and energy to the complex’s broad mix.
Love a parade? Last-minute entries give Grand Parade a boost
WENATCHEE — Parade entries may not have strictly followed this year’s theme of “Walking on Sunshine.” But they did just about everything else under the sun. Floats glided, bands marched, motorcycles weaved, gymnasts tumbled and horses clip-clopped as the Stemilt Growers Grand Parade rolled through downtown Saturday to highlight the 93rd annual Washington State Apple Blossom Festival.
Serving up 23 years of warm welcomes
WENATCHEE — It was 6 a.m. on parade day, a chilly 43 degrees with clear blue skies and a 100 percent chance of doughnuts. In fact, one of the first tasks Saturday for Greg Oakes, who wrapped up 23 years as hospitality coordinator for the Stemilt Growers Grand Parade at the 93rd annual Washington State Apple Blossom Festival, was to welcome the volunteer crew from Albertson’s — the people with the yummies.
Custom cars rev Classy Chassis
EAST WENATCHEE — When the muscle cars growl down Grant Road, it’s tempting re-label the Classy Chassis Parade as “The Rumble across the River.” But throaty engines powering custom street cars are just part of the motorized line-up in the city’s annual Les Schwab Classy Chassis Parade & Car Show, a two-day celebration and highlight of the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival.
Blog: SnapIt wins big at Walmart
The snazzy SnapIt eyeglass repair screw, the brainchild of East Wenatchee inventor Nancy Teseschi, will be shelved — and that’s a good thing. How so? The SnapIt repair kits will be shelved (get this) at Walmart — in thousands of the retailer’s stores across the U.S. — after being named a winner in the company’s recent Get on the Shelf contest.
Sunday Briefing
Workshops, grants, field staff expands
Old packing shed packs ’em in
Warehouse anchors Cashmere’s growing Mission District
CASHMERE — Maybe the best description of Mission Square, the huge fruit warehouse now renovated into shops and offices, comes from an employee for one of the complex’s oldest tenants. “It’s a city within a city,” said Denise Wilson, office manager for the Northwest United Methodist Foundation, which has called the Square home for the last 12 years. “Take a walk through the building and you’ll see there’s a little bit of everything.”
Worm: Musical’s ‘ugly’ line finds its way to Seattle
Also: Golfing for a cause, giving students bikes
When the national touring company of “Damn Yankees” took the stage here in February, the director of the venerable musical tweaked one actor’s trademark lines simply, we think, for the pleasure of local theater-goers. It’s where sexy Lola is explaining to baseball star Shoeless Joe Hardy how she got her start as the devil’s bimbo. “I was the ugliest girl,” she sighed, “in Wenatchee, Washington.” The audience roared with laughter.
Sunday briefing
Executive Flight part of new air ambulance service The area’s largest flight charter service has joined with a Seattle-based medical transport company to operate a new air ambulance for Central Washington.
Everyday Business: Cut-out art, Cinco de Mayo, pouty publisher
Cut-outs will sharpen your thinking My guess is that most folks take a look at artist Ann Chadwick Reid’s remarkable paper cut-outs and wonder: “How the heck does she do it?”
Once a Queen: Lisa (Spargo) Orlando
Wife, mom and businesswoman, Lisa (Spargo) Orlando, 1982 Apple Blossom queen, now lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., and works as a private yoga instructor.
Local nonprofits can benefit from online event
NCW — Now you can stretch your donations to a number of nonprofits in North Central Washington by participating Wednesday in what organizers are calling an “online giving event.”
Barkley leaves Mission Ridge
WENATCHEE — Jerri Barkley, marketing director at Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort, has resigned from her post after 10 years on the job. Her last day will be Monday. “I just felt it was my time to make a move,” said Barkley. “Changes are coming to Mission Ridge and I had to figure out how I fit in — or didn’t fit in — with the changes that are on the way.”
Out-of-area businessmen snag NCW’s liquor license rights
WENATCHEE — Clink your glasses, friends, in honor of four distant businessmen who could become major players in North Central Washington liquor sales in the next five weeks. In an online auction Friday, the four men separately snagged the rights to sell booze from NCW’s four state-owned liquor stores when Washington shuts the door on state-run liquor sales June 1.
Local jobless rate drops for ninth straight month
WENATCHEE — Job seekers returned to the North Central Washington labor force in March as hiring increased and unemployment rates fell for the ninth straight month. In Chelan and Douglas counties, the labor force — the total of all people on the job and available for work — grew by 1.8 percent over March 2011, said Regional Labor Economist Mark Berreth.
Blog: Closings, openings ... sippings
After decades of service to the local ag industry, United Pipe & Supply at 1100 Walla Walla Ave. is going out of business. In fact, the whole 10-store, Portland-based company (nearly 60 years old) will be closing in the next few months. Details are sketchy at the moment, but the local store is slated to shut down by May 21, maybe sooner. For more info, call 662-7128 or visit unitedpipe.com.
Tiny Trailer: The pull of a dream
Jack Gerber believes happiness on the open road comes in the shape of a teardrop.
Sunday briefing
Chelan Downtown historic group elects new officers
Tiny Trailers ... from the inside
Fans of teardrop trailers readily agree that the rolling abodes are not scaled-down RVs or travel trailers. Teardrops such as the Tiny Trailer are more like stylish, upgraded tents. “Camp in a teardrop, and you do most of your living outdoors,” said Jack Gerber, the Ardenvoir designer and builder of the Tiny Trailer. “Oh sure, you’ll climb in if it’s pouring rain, but all the cooking, dining, bathing, changing clothes — it all takes place outside.”
Meetings on property values under way
WENATCHEE — A series of eight public meetings to explain assessed property values in Chelan County continue tonight with the first of two meetings for the Wenatchee area.
Experts say 2012 a healing year for local housing industry
WENATCHEE — Declining home prices, low interest rates, eager sellers, cheap building materials and hungry contractors all add up to one thing:This may be the best time ever to buy or build a house in the Wenatchee Valley if, of course, you qualify financially. That’s the word from local housing market experts — a broker, a mortgage officer and a contractor — who offered cautious optimism Tuesday during the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 2012 Real Estate Outlook, the latest presentation in the group’s Economic Indicator Series.
Founding book club member, 90, turns a page
WENATCHEE — On the day before her 90th birthday, Ruth Gardner sat with her book club and described the day she learned about, ahem, the facts of life. The book lovers were all ears. “I was sitting on a bench reading a sex education book for kids, about how the male part went into the female part, and I was absolutely shocked,” she said, twinkle in her eye, in answer to a series of cheeky birthday questions posed by book club members.
Planning workshop set for nonprofits
NCW — A workshop to help nonprofits set goals and improve focus will be held next week in two area communities.
Party crashers: Giant horses galumphing in
Have you heard ... ? The Wenatchee branch of Express Employment Professionals, 411-B N. Chelan Ave., will host a set of the parent company’s humongous horsies — the Express Clydesdales — in the Apple Blossom Festival’s Stemilt Growers Grand Parade on May 5. These suckers (the horses, not the Growers) stand about 18 hands high and weigh a ton each. Better yet, there’ll be a meet-and-greet with the horses from 3 to 6 p.m. May 4 in the parking lot of Coastal Farm & Ranch in East Wenatchee. For more info, call Express at 662-5187.
The Worm: Ardenvoir yachts and best fake Bavarian town
All wet? The first meeting of the Ardenvoir Yacht Club came to order last Monday near the tailgate of a pickup truck in the parking lot of Coopers General Store. It was attended by two guys holding beers and a dog sitting in the truck’s driver’s seat. “The only requirement to join this new club is that you need a boat,” Vice-President Ralph Lyons said with a certain amount of authority. “Yeah, that’s right, a boat.”
Sunday briefing
Nominations open for top honchos in clean technology
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