November 2017 Newsletter
Calendar of Events...
November 1 - Tekoa Bike Club, 8:30 a.m. - Eclair's
November 1 - Celebrate Recovery, 6:00 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 3 - Chamber Meeting,7:30 a.m. - Eclair's
November 6 - City Council Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - City Hall
November 7 - Hospital District Meeting, 7:30 a.m. - City Hall
November 7 - Ambulance Meeting, 6:00 p.m. - Ambulance Building
November 7 - Senior Pinochle, 1:30 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 8 - Celebrate Recovery, 6:00 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 8 - Tekoa Fair Association, 7:00 p.m. - City Hall
November 14 - FD #1 Commissioners Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - 101 N Crosby
November 14 - HTC, 9:00 a.m. - Kathy Kramer's Home
November 15 - Celebrate Recovery, 6:00 p.m.- Tekoa Community Church
November 20 - City Council Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - City Hall
November 21 - Empire Theatre Meeting, 6:00 p.m. - Feeding Station
November 21 - Park and Rec. Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - City Hall
November 21 - Senior Pinochle, 1:30 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 22 - Slippery Gulch Meeting, 6:30 p.m. - Eclair's
November 22 - Celebrate Recovery, 6:00 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 27 - Ambulance Board Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - Amulance Building
November 28 - School Board Meeting, 7:00 p.m. - District Board Room
November 29 - Celebrate Recovery, 6:00 p.m. - Tekoa Community Church
November 30 - Distribute Commodities, 8:30 a.m. - City Hall
City Hall will be closed on Friday, November 10 for Veterans Day.
We will also be closed on Thursday, November 23 and 24, for Thanksgiving.
Garbage pick-up will not be affected by the holidays.
BE SURE TO INSULATE YOUR METER BOX TO KEEP YOUR METER
FROM FREEZING THIS WINTER!
Healthy Tekoa News! Have you noticed posters that say, “Most Tekoa parents have talked to their teen about the risks of marijuana,” around our community? Those posters reflect the answers to annual and bi-annual survey questions that you or the students in high school have given. It is powerful to know that parents in Tekoa talk regularly with their teen. Remember, you can prevent your child from using alcohol or marijuana. Talk early and often with your children and teens about the risks. You have the greatest influence on your children's decisions about alcohol and other drugs. For talking tips visit www.starttalkingnow.org. A free family night out movie “Goonies” is showing at the Empire Theatre on November 25th at 2:30 p.m. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Concessions will be offered. Five coalition and 5 youth coalition members are attending the annual Prevention Summit in Yakima this month to learn more about what you can do about prescription drug abuse, youth advocacy skills, opioids abuse, evidence-based practices in prevention, creating partnerships, mentoring, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), addiction in the digital age, and marijuana prevention. Attendees will present their materials at the regular meeting on November 8 at 9 a.m. at Kathy Kramer’s home.
Empire Theatre News:
Missoula Children’s Theatre: Friday, November 10, at 7:00 p.m. and
Saturday, November 11, at 2:00 p.m.
Cowboy Poets: Sunday, November 12, at 2:00 p.m.
On November 13, 2017, at 9:00 a.m. come to the Tekoa High School for a
Veterans Day assembly. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Tekoa Library News: Hank Cramer is the featured speaker at the Tekoa Library Monday, Nov. 13, at 4 p.m. Hank will speak on the Green Berets in Vietnam. In 1957, Captain Harry Cramer led the first team of Special Forces (“Green Beret”) advisers to South Vietnam to assist the development of the Vietnamese Army. This mission was highly classified at the time. The situation in Vietnam in the 1950’s was much different from that of the 1960’s, and Dwight Eisenhower’s strategy for dealing with it differed sharply from that of John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. Captain Cramer was killed in Vietnam in October 1957, becoming the first US Army soldier to die in that war. His son, folksinger and historian Hank Cramer, will share the story of this mission, and its once secret details. Hank has a unique perspective on this story, as he is not only Captain Cramer’s son, but he himself later served with his father’s Special Forces unit in Asia, three decades later. Hank Cramer is a traveling folksinger and historian based in Winthrop, WA. He is also a retired US Army officer. Hank has presented programs of history and music for Humanities Washington for over eight years. He was the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Humanities Washington Award. He is currently writing a book on the subject of this 1957 Special Forces mission.For more information please contact Diane at 284-3121.
Messages from the Mayor ~
This month’s newsletter will have primarily one theme: The street levy! As your mayor, I cannot promote passage of the levy; I can only encourage citizens to vote. I do realize that Tekoa residents grew tired of our community being in turmoil while we tore up streets to replace sewer/water lines and chip-sealing our gravel roads.
If our street levy were to pass with 60% approval, here is what you can expect to happen in 2018!
We have received a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to replace sewer lines in three different locations within our town. This will happen! We are now exploring the possibility of including replacing water lines from Huffman to Main Street within this project. We are looking to Rural Development to assist in this cost estimated to be $138,000!
We applied for a Transportation Improvement Board Grant (TIB) to finish the Park Street Project. This would include paving Park Street to Crosby and then on to Main Street. Now you can see why replacing water lines on Crosby Street is vital prior to the paving project. If this is confusing, please call me or Kynda at city hall. The TIB project requires match monies of 3% of the total cost. This amounts to $27,825 from the city; $899,675 from TIB which, folks, is our gas tax coming home! Our $27,825 will come from our street levy.
Our street levy will also allow us to continue chip-sealing gravel streets. We will chip-seal as many streets as the county has time to complete. We estimate that the cost of preparation, oil, and gravel required for the streets to be $14,558.00.
Once our streets are chip-sealed, there is TIB monies available to maintain these streets. It’s called preservation grants, and as mentioned before, these monies come back to us from the gas tax we all pay.
As you can see the match with the TIB grant for the Park Street project plus the chip-sealing will, no doubt, make efficient use of our $50,000 levy!!
If our levy fails, not only will there be no chip-sealing, I doubt if we can find $27,825 in our general fund to complete the Park Street project.
We have enclosed a map of Tekoa that shows where the different projects will be located within our community.
As your mayor, I have attempted to encourage our community to address upgrading our water and sewer systems and to eliminate our dusty gravel roads. If our levy fails again, and two of the four projects are deemed not possible, I’m really not interested in continuing my role as your mayor! My vision of Tekoa is to continue improving its infrastructure and its appearance so we all can be proud to be citizens of this great community.
I know this is a lengthy newsletter, but please hang on a little longer!!
Kynda and I attended a workshop in Wenatchee to explore funding possibilities that addresses our waste water treatment plant. We were both encouraged with what we heard. Two agencies, one being Department of Ecology (DOE), will put together a funding plan that includes possible grants, forgivable loans, loans, and what you can expect to pay for sewer rates. We plan to bring this information to a community meeting this winter along, with representatives from DOE and the Spokane River Keepers.
You are commended for staying with me during this lengthy letter, but felt it all newsworthy and contained information you would want as citizens of Tekoa.
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