Moses Lake collects debris, serves up lunch at Citywide Cleanup
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 hours, 18 minutes AGO
City workers haul away one container as a resident begins fill the next at the Moses Lake Citywide Cleanup Saturday at Knolls Vista Park. The new container was the third to be filled in an hour at one of four locations around town.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
From left: Moses Lake City Council Members Jeremy Davis, Victor Lombardi ad Don Myers grill and serve up burgers and hot dogs at Knolls Vista Park for the Citywide Cleanup Saturday.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | April 25, 2026 3:46 PM
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake’s Citywide Cleanup took in a lot of trash Saturday.
“We have filled up two full yard dumpsters (and) we have a third one on its way (at Knolls Vista Park)”, said city Code Enforcement Officer Tina Jewell about an hour into the two-hour event. “There are two dumpsters out at Longview Street that have been filled, so they also have a third one on its way.”
The cleanup was free for city residents, and each household could dump four cubic yards of debris, according to the city’s announcement of the event. There were dump locations at Knolls Vista, the site of the city’s planned Longview Park on the north side of town near Longview Elementary School and at Columbia Middle School. Lakeside Disposal was also accepting debris at its location on Broadway Avenue.
At Knolls Vista Park, city council members were also grilling hamburgers and hot dogs in a free cookout.
“We've had approximately 70 or so people coming through for the barbecue,” Jewell said. “We have some great helpers. The City Council has been amazing.”
“It was slow at the beginning, and then all of a sudden it was like wave after wave after wave,” said Council Member Don Myers, who was serving up burgers and dogs with former Council Member Judy Madewell. “We had prepped for 200 hot dogs and 200 hamburgers, and we're about halfway through.”
Council members Jeremy Davis and Victor Lombardi performed grillmaster duties.
“We’re natural chefs,” Davis said. “We barbecue all the time. Well, I’m a summertime barbecuer. Vic doesn’t care.”
"Yeah, I do, 12 months out of the year,” Lombardi said. “I just put the down jacket on in 20 degrees. It’s not a problem.”
The citywide cleanup came right on the heels of the downtown Moses Lake Association’s annual Spring Cleanup, where volunteers with grabbers and trash bags picked up litter in the alleys and streets of downtown Moses Lake.
“It's a great success, considering everything that's been going on today,” Jewell said.
From left: Moses Lake City Council Members Jeremy Davis, Victor Lombardi ad Don Myers grill and serve up burgers and hot dogs at Knolls Vista Park for the Citywide Cleanup Saturday.ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Moses Lake collects debris, serves up lunch at Citywide Cleanup
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake’s Citywide Cleanup took in a lot of trash Saturday.
Home prices vary across Basin
MOSES LAKE — Home prices were up in Moses Lake and Warden last month, but other Columbia Basin communities didn’t see the same increases. The median price of a home in Moses Lake was $374,495 in March 2026, a 13.1% increase compared to March 2025, according to data released by the real estate website Redfin. Soap Lake’s median home price stayed fairly steady at $328,000, only 1% above a year earlier. Ephrata and Othello both saw decreases: Othello by 8.4% to $320,000 and Ephrata by 20.4 to $338,000. Warden’s median home price leapt up 57.9% between March 2025 and 2026, to $500,000.
A glimpse of history
Quincy Valley Historical Society celebrates America’s semiquincentennial
QUINCY — The Quincy Valley Historical Society is going all-out for America’s 250th year. “I’ve been talking with people in the last six months about this, (and) some people will say, ‘Why do you want to celebrate America at 250?’” said Harriet Weber, director of operations for the Quincy Valley Historical Society and Museum. “And I said, ‘You know, no matter what your political stance is, (we’ve had) 250 years of freedom, which I believe we take for granted.” One way the museum is celebrating is with its first-ever traveling exhibit, “Journey to Philadelphia 1776.” Volunteers are making the rounds of Quincy’s five elementary schools, one a week, with a sixth session at the museum for New Life Christian School in Ephrata and homeschool students, Weber said. “Journey to Philadelphia 1776” features 12 volunteer interpreters in costume, who lead the students through some of the high points of America’s founding.