Ellensburg Community Morning Show, Tuesday, August 18th

The public library in Kittitas is opening its doors again. The Gilmour Memorial Library has moved into the Catalyst building at 117 North Main Street — the old hardware store the Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce renovated into offices. T

LISTEN TO THE NEWS HERE

NEWS

The Three Queens Fire west of Cle Elum has grown to about thirty-six hundred acres and is two percent contained. More than six hundred firefighters are assigned to the fire, which was started by lightning on July 15th and is burning in high country above Lake Kachess, about six miles east of Snoqualmie Pass. Rain late last week slowed the fire down, and crews have used the break to strengthen control lines and connect Forest Service roads across Keechelus Ridge. Fire managers say gusty west winds are expected to peak today, and they expect the fire to become more active again tomorrow as temperatures climb and humidity drops. Crews are also building structure protection plans for Easton, Roslyn, Ronald and Lakedale. The Kittitas County Sheriff's Office has Level 1, 2 and 3 evacuations in place, and you can see the current levels on the county's live evacuation map. Full containment isn't expected until the middle of September.

The fire has also closed a big piece of the backcountry. The Forest Service has shut down roughly fifty miles of the Pacific Crest Trail between Snoqualmie Pass and Deception Pass, along with more than thirty other trails and ten campgrounds and recreation sites in the Cle Elum Ranger District. Those closures are in place through October 31st.

Kittitas County has three names to choose from as it fills the empty District 1 seat on the Board of County Commissioners. The Kittitas County Republican Party has put forward Jeff Leichleiter, Josh Cox and Jerry Lael. Leichleiter is a co-founder of Tim's Cascade Potato Chips who retired in 2016, and ran for the state House this year before dropping out ahead of the primary. Cox is a home loan officer for Columbia Bank. Lael serves on the Kittitas School District school board and is a former Kittitas city councilmember. State law requires the party of a commissioner who resigns to send the board three candidates. The seat opened when Cory Wright stepped down on July 31st after more than eight years to lead the new Kittitas County Economic Development Partnership. Commissioners will meet at 10 a.m. on Monday, August 31st to make the appointment.

If you've ever thought about serving on a local board, this is a good week to look into it. The City of Ellensburg is taking applications for two open seats on the Parks and Recreation Commission, which advises the City Council on parks and recreation programs. Kittitas County is also looking for residents to serve on its boards, committees and commissions, with openings in public health, land use, veterans' affairs, environmental work and community planning, and more seats opening as terms expire at the end of the year. City applications are at ellensburgwa.gov, and the county's openings are posted on the county website.

The end of the month is a deadline for a lot of city programs. Applications for five city grant programs for 2027 close at 5 p.m. on Monday, August 31st. That includes about twenty-six thousand dollars each for community grants, park partnership grants and historic preservation grants, ten thousand dollars for water quality projects, and arts grants of up to twenty-five hundred dollars for groups. The city's Access, Advocacy, Equity and Engagement Commission is also taking applications for up to four thousand dollars in grants for projects finished this year, on the same deadline. Nominations for the Arts Treasure and Arts Advocate awards close August 31st too, and the Ellensburg Public Library's customer survey is open through the end of the month.

Two Upper County honors to pass along. Tom Willette has been named the 2026 Coal King by the Roslyn Ronald Cle Elum Heritage Club. And the Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame will induct the family of the late Leland "Tuffy" Orcutt and Burniece Orcutt as a historic rodeo family, recognizing three generations of Kittitas Valley farming, ranching and rodeo.

The public library in Kittitas is opening its doors again. The Gilmour Memorial Library has moved into the Catalyst building at 117 North Main Street — the old hardware store the Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce renovated into offices. The library has two rooms there: a large classroom for the main collection and an office room for the children's library. The library had been in the Pierce Street community building, a former schoolhouse, since the City of Kittitas founded it in 1982. It was renamed in 2013 for Mary Lou Gilmour, who spent years championing it, and her husband Jerry still volunteers there. In June of 2024, parts of that building's ceiling started coming down. Inspectors found serious structural damage, and the building was torn down this past June. The City of Kittitas and Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue made room for the library in their own buildings in the meantime. The Library Manager, the Board of Trustees and the Friends of the Gilmour Memorial Library are hosting a grand re-opening open house on Saturday the 29th, from 1 to 4 p.m. Everyone's welcome.

The Adult Activity Center is looking for volunteers to staff the Senior Lounge at next month's Kittitas County Fair. The lounge is an air-conditioned room with soft chairs where seniors can sit down and get out of the heat. Shifts run in two-hour blocks from late morning to early evening, and volunteers get a free pass into the fair. To sign up, call the Adult Activity Center at 5-0-9, 9-6-2, 7-2-4-2.

IN LOCAL EVENTS

The Master Gardener Plant Diagnostic Clinic is at The Armory today at 11:30 a.m. Bring in whatever is going wrong in your yard and a Master Gardener will take a look at it.

Tonight, the City of Ellensburg, Kittitas County, Manastash Architecture Planning and Development, and TM Construction are hosting an Accessory Dwelling Unit homeowner panel from 6 to 7:30 at the Hal Holmes Community Center, 209 North Ruby Street. Homeowners and builders will walk through recent ADU projects, including what they cost, and city and county staff will be on hand to answer questions.

And looking ahead to Thursday, the last Summer Concert in the Park of the season runs from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Bring a blanket and a lawn chair to North Alder Street Park. Keep an eye on the city's page before you go, though — recent concerts have moved indoors to Hal Holmes because of smoke.

ON THE ROADS

The downtown sidewalk and streetscape work on Pearl Street between Third and Fourth avenues was scheduled to wrap up yesterday. The city says a twenty-six-hour closure is still coming to replace the Pearl Street crosswalk just north of Third Avenue, but that date hasn't been set. Signs will go up ahead of time. Out on Canyon Road, the last piece of the overlay project between Umptanum Road and Mountain View is pavement striping, and that's night work scheduled for August 31st.

And a reminder that the burn ban for unincorporated Kittitas County is still in effect. No pile burning or debris burning. Propane and gas stoves and charcoal grills are still fine, and campfires are allowed only in approved fire rings in designated campgrounds.

WEATHER                                                                                          

The forecasted high today in Ellensburg is 88 degrees with a low tonight of 57 degrees. Mostly sunny and clear overnight. The sunset is at 8:07 p.m. with northwest winds of 10 to 17 miles an hour, gusting as high as 26. No rain in the forecast. There are no active National Weather Service alerts for the Kittitas Valley, but fire managers are warning of near-critical fire weather east of the Three Queens Fire today, so be careful with anything that throws a spark.

WHAT'S FOR LUNCH AT THE FISH OPEN TABLE?

The FISH Open Table lunch today is Pesto Chickpea Pasta Salad, with feta cheese, cucumber, peppers, greens and onions, served with oranges. The senior lunch is free and open to all seniors age 60-plus from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ellensburg Open Table Kitchen at 204 North Main Street, and from 11:30 to 1 at the Upper County Senior Center in Cle Elum, where the menu is different. Registration is required for the senior lunch. The community lunch for anyone needing a hot meal is from 1 to 2 p.m. at the Ellensburg Open Table.