Othello police seek more control of traffic lights
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 4 months AGO
An Opticom sensor atop a traffic light at the intersection of Third Avenue and Dogwood Street in Moses Lake.
Emry Dinman
OTHELLO — The city of Othello is looking to spend $15,000 to equip its police cars with a way to control some of the city’s traffic lights.
Speaking at an online meeting of the city council Monday evening, Othello Police Chief Phil Schenck said the department was making this late request after recently discovering that a number of the city’s traffic lights are equipped with Opticom sensors, which allow emergency vehicles to emit a radio signal or infrared strobe flash to control a traffic signal as they approach.
“We’ve done our research and the type of protocol device we need in our cars,” Schenck told council members. “There are 14 of them, at $1,100 per car, that’s about $15,000.”
The money would come from the city’s general fund, leaving an ending balance of around $90,000 unspent for 2021. The council decided to spend the $15,000 to equip its police cars rather than add to the $120,000 set aside for a new firetruck.
With that additional $120,000, Othello has saved around $600,000 to buy a new firetruck. The city is also expected to approve its overall $16.1 million 2021 budget — $5.6 million for the general fund — in December.
The Opticom system is designed by St. Paul, Minn.-based Global Traffic Technologies and gives properly equipped emergency vehicles the limited ability to control traffic lights as they approach an intersection, reducing the risk of traffic accidents, according to the company’s web page.
Schenck said the ability to have some control over traffic lights is a matter of safety, and advised that city fire vehicles and ambulances should install the control devices as well.
“One of the older ambulances already has a system on it,” he said.
Council member Corey Everett said he hopes one of the intersections equipped with the system is the intersection of 14th Avenue and Main, which is heavily used by emergency vehicles.
“I’m surprised there’s no accidents there,” he said. “Because no one can see.”
The city of Moses Lake has equipped its firetrucks but not its police cars with the system. But Fire Chief Brett Bastian said the fire department doesn’t use it since many lights in Moses Lake don’t have the sensors.
“We do have the capability, but our lights aren’t 100%,” he said.
Whether traffic lights, as they are replaced, would be upgraded to Opticom control systems, was a matter the city still needed to address, Bastian added.
ARTICLES BY CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE
Potato prices up, sales down for first quarter 2023
DENVER — The value of grocery store potato sales rose 16% during the first three months of 2023 as the total volume of sales fell by 4.4%, according to a press release from PotatoesUSA, the national marketing board representing U.S. potato growers. The dollar value of all categories of U.S. potato products for the first quarter of 2023 was $4.2 billion, up from $3.6 billion for the first three months of 2022. However, the total volume of potato sales fell to 1.77 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2023 compared with 1.85 billion pounds during the same period of 2022, the press release noted. However, total grocery store potato sales for the first quarter of 2023 are still above the 1.74 billion pounds sold during the first three months of 2019 – a year before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release said.
WSU Lind Dryland Research Station welcomes new director
LIND — Washington State University soil scientist and wheat breeder Mike Pumphrey was a bit dejected as he stood in front of some thin test squares of stunted, somewhat scraggly spring wheat at the university’s Lind Dryland Research Station. “As you can see, the spring wheat is having a pretty tough go of it this year,” he said. “It’s a little discouraging to stand in front of plots that are going to yield maybe about seven bushels per acre. Or something like that.” Barely two inches of rain have fallen at the station since the beginning of March, according to station records. Pumphrey, speaking to a crowd of wheat farmers, researchers, seed company representatives and students during the Lind Dryland Research Station’s annual field day on Thursday, June 15, said years like 2023 are a reminder that dryland farming is a gamble.
Wilson Creek hosts bluegrass gathering
WILSON CREEK — Bluegrass in the Park is set to start today at Wilson Creek City Park. The inaugural event is set to bring music and visitors to one of Grant County’s smallest towns. “I've been listening to bluegrass my whole life,” said the event’s organizer Shirley Billings, whose family band plays on their porch every year for the crowd at the Little Big Show. “My whole family plays bluegrass. And I just wanted to kind of get something for the community going. So I just invited all the people that I know and they’ll come and camp and jam.” ...