May

City denied grant for sewer plant

The city is putting on a brave face over the loss of state grant money which would have aided the city's coffers in financing the needed wastewater treatment plant.

Instead, the city is left hoping a federal grant comes through.

Mark Botello, city planner, declined to call the no-money news a setback.

"It's disappointing but we're not set back," he said. "There's a federal grant out there we're working on, for the full amount [of the plant]."

The wastewater treatment plant is expected to cost at least $18 million, though $21 million has also been mentioned as a price tag. The federal grant would come from the Rural Development side of the nation's department of agriculture. 

The missed grant was a Department of Ecology grant good for $1.4 million in engineering work for the wastewater plant. The city scored high, missing the cut by five points.

The DOE was favoring shovel-ready projects as opposed to projects still on the planning stages like the wastewater treatment plant, which the city has to replace. 

"If you look at the list, 98 percent of the projects that were awarded were shovel-ready," Botello said. "But we did score pretty high."

Founders' Days on life support

Founders' Days needs money, organizers said during a meeting at the Cashmere Chamber of Commerce.

The group budgeted $9,000 for the event, and six weeks from the start of the festival, it has one-sixth of that.

"There's some major expenses that if we don't have the funds for we won't be able to do," Chamber Manager Sara Urdahl said. "We have no funding for advertising right now."

The festival lost $4,000 from last year's corporate sponsors, said John Bryant, head of the chamber's festival organizing committee.

Advertising is not the only thing festival organizers can't afford right now. Portable toilets and extra security also are on the list.

"The Grand Parade takes more deputies than they have assigned for this area," Urdahl said. In the past two years, the sheriff's office has written off the expense of covering the parade. The chamber can't count on that happening for the third year in a row.

The committee eliminated Thursday events and reduced the festival to Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and evening, eliminating planned events like a talent showcase, "Cashmere's Got Talent," and a food fair, "Bite of Cashmere."

Cashmere wins District title in heart stopper

In a sudden-death shootout thriller, Cashmere defeated Brewster in the District Six finals last weekend.

The Bears proved more than able rivals for the Bulldogs, scoring 90 seconds into the match. After a tentative first half, Cashmere grabbed the momentum in the second half, tying the game with 15 minutes to go, capping an incessant barrage of chances.

After two goal-less 10-minute overtime periods, the game went to a shootout and a good game turned into a great one.

Cashmere and Brewster nailed their first two kicks. Then Cashmere missed the next and Brewster scored.

Then Cashmere missed the fourth kick. One more Brewster goal and the district title would belong to the Bears.

The fourth Brewster kick hit the post. Now it was Bulldog goalie Hernan Hernandez' turn. Not only did he have to score, but he had to stop the Bears' fifth kick.

Darned if he didn't do just that.

Lions Club fixes monument at Indian Cemetery

It took almost a year, but the Indian Cemetery's monument outside its entrance has finally been fixed.

With the authorization of the Colville Reservation and with the help of no one but club members, the Lions Club finished an eight-month project of remodeling the monolith which dates back to the late 1920s.

Michael Finley, business council chair for the tribes, OK'd the repair of the monument.

The Dick family and other members of the Confederated tribes of the Colville Reservation come from Nespelem the weekend before Memorial Day to clean their cemetery, located alongside U.S. Highway 2.

Larry Ward, head of the Lions Club's project committee, said he hoped Matthew Dick and other members of the tribes liked what they saw Saturday.

"I think they'll be very happy with it," Ward said.

The project took 41 work hours spread over five days. Prior to the start of work, Ward and Dick met in Wenatchee to oversee what the Lions had in mind. Then the Lions got to work.

"We needed a project and I just happened to go by there one day," Ward said. The monolith had been broken by a snow crew, and nobody had wanted to take responsibility for damaging it, he added.

The club had been running out of projects, Ward said.

"We don't put up bleachers anymore like we used to years ago," he said.

Vicious attack on elderly man

Art Brown is afraid.

Not for his life, not for his belongings, not for any of the things that were in danger two weeks ago when two armed men broke into his house looking for pills, leaving him bleeding on the floor of his Mission Creek Road home.

No, Brown is afraid the same scum that attacked him might attack somebody else, and this time he or she may not be as lucky as Brown.

"It's kind of a racket, they target older people," Brown says. "Beat 'em up and take their money."

That wasn't always the case for Brown and he knows it. If this attack had happened 20 years ago, he would have put up a fight. But he's 81 now and the two men who knocked him to the ground, beat him with a blunt instrument, had the upper hand from the moment they knocked on his door. 

Brown grabbed his gun that evening, asked who it was and could not understand. So he opened the door. 

The two men pushed the door open, knocked Brown to the ground, losing grip on his gun, and began beating him. Then, they began looking for pills. 

"They asked me for a certain brand of pills I never heard of," Brown said. "I told them 'I don't have any pills.'"

On the floor, Brown could not tell much about the men, who had covered their faces. All told, the men left with Brown's wallet, his phone, a few rings his car keys, his phone, his gun and a few bucks, no more than $60.

Baseball teams wins first ever State title

The state championship game against Chimacum was tied 4-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning, when Cashmere had one last chance at bat. With one out, Luke Dilly was up. After belting a double, Dilly waited patiently on second for the chance to advance. Cooper Elliott was up to the plate and walked to first with Dilly still in place.

Up comes Nick Tarver and with a good solid hit to the outfield, Dilly ran to third and then slid home in a gutsy move that won the game, and brought home to Cashmere its first state baseball championship.

"It's amazing to be the best team Cashmere's ever had so I'm glad and it's my senior year and I'm fortunate to walk out on a good note," Bulldogs pitcher/first-baseman Nate Grams said.

Tarver, who called the win indescribable, said he was looking forward to celebrating the win. Coach Jeff Carlson was on the verge of getting choked up when talking about him team.

"For the seniors, this is such a great way for them to end their season and their last game in the Bulldogs uniform and it breaks my heart to know that it's over with them. But that's the best way for it to end, I'll tell you that much," he said. "But this feels outstanding. I'm so proud of these guys. Trenton Johnson was outstanding today, just the poise he showed. He just was tough as nails for four innings and did exactly what we asked him to do. Luke Dilly stepped up, and to hold a team like that to that few of runs, that's a credit to our guys and to our defense, and then stepping up for clutch hit after clutch hit, I just am proud to be associated with these guys and they're winners in every sense of the word."

Soccer team third in State

First came the rain, then the tears, then the frowns and then at long last, the smiles.

Cashmere endured everything from its own bad luck to the unfriendly skies of Sumner to come back home with third place at the 1A State Soccer tournament.

Friday, Cashmere suffered a tough-luck semifinal loss when, in a penalty shootout, the rain-soaked Bulldog booters went cold and Mattawa's Wahluke High earned a spot in the finals.

Then the next day, Cashmere endured high kicks, a classless opponent and a permissive referee to beat King's School of Shoreline, 2-1 and win the bronze medal.

Cashmere showed great determination less than 24 hours after walking off Sunset Chev Stadium in tears, to come back to the same field and beat King's, a school which had lost to Overlake in the other semifinal.

The third-place game was marred by accusations of racial slurs being used by King's players and by a constant beating on Cashmere's playmakers the referee ignored. Cashmere, despite some hot tempers on the sideline and on the pitch, retained control of its emotions and did not fall into King's trap.