KYG blog

Grant County -
Further information on budget cuts:
Further reading on the Grant County board meeting minutes has showed
us that the community continues to be unsatisfied with the shutdown of
local centers. Many of the community members have pointed out that its
not only the local kids that are affected by th shut down but also the
neighboring small cities residents that feel the affects too. There
have been serveral attempts to solve the closing and even an attempt
by Ty Howard (Moses Lake Youth Hockey Association) to keep the ice
rink open with the teams own money and support for the 2014-2015
season. WHen presented to the board it was considered and agreed that
another meeting would take place between the associations to agree on
the terms of renting the rink. When this was approved other concerns
such as not just keeping the rink but also the BMX track, Batting Cages and surrounding Playing fields open and in decent condition. Support for local volunteers to run and operate the Larson Rec Center was applauded by the surrounding attending community but was frowned upon by the County board. Spencer Grigg (Parks and Rec Director) explained the cost of keeping the facilities running and stressed the need for paid experienced workers at the Center. the
board eventually decided that only the initial initiative will be
reviewed and possibly approved.
Having the honor and responsibility to keep up the Grant blog
has brought me to realize how important staying in tuned to local
issues is. At our meetings we bring a range from newspapers, website
information and meeting minute readings to support and review to
gather information about our chosen cut back here in Grant. we've also
found that when we look into one subject it is usually closely related
to another topic. to further prove this point we were researching cut
backs and found that Grant and surrounding counties are experiencing
cutbacks on their fair funding. This will affect the distribution of
ribbon money. I've also realized that facebook, instagram, ifunny,
vine, and snapchat are very popular and widespread. I initially signed
up for a facebook a week ago and since then I now have more than 50
followers and gaining more requests every-time I check my email. I find
that this century, instead of going out and doing something, or
talking to others, resorts to streaming media nonsense outlive boredom.
It's not always a bad thing, many news channels support awareness
facebook pages about lost dogs, fundraising projects and local events.
Other social networks such as twitter and instagram can cause major
drama and fights. Rumors after a local basketball game quarrel spread
throughout twitter and had bled into the entire school after just 12
hours. Its amazing what the 21st century has brought us throughout the
various types of media.
Well, as perplexing as social media is to me, I find that it
is very usefull to find information on our topics. Keep Blogging guys
and see you all in 4 weeks! Signing out--- Maddie

Grant Meeting #4

Grant County meeting #4

Today we continued talking about how the county spends the money through out taxes. Recently an article just came out about how at a recent county council meeting a proposal suggesting some budget cuts and some ways to keep some of our beloved community services, but sadly it was rejected. We also had a member interview the hockey team who had their rink shut down. They went into a council meeting also and suggested that they would pay for the rink and equipment for the season, the council also rejected their offer.

Our question is why even though the Grant county citizens have proposed different ways of solving the problems, are they being rejected? Recently, our fair has experienced a shortage in funding and is forced to cut our ribbon money. Most kids make about $75 from the ribbons they earn. Cutting these funds would devastate many exhibitors. Many local FFA and 4H groups have written the board pleading to not cut the funds. We will continue to write and publish in objection to cutting many of these funds. The only way we see to end the cuts is to protest with our voices, pencils and papers. Please support us in the same way and we encourage you to do the same in your own counties!

Sincerely Maddie and Cody

Grant County - Meeting #3

Grant County

-Views on shutting down our Larson Rec Center and other community facilities.

Hey!! Maddie here at our 3rd county meeting. This week we've started to dig deeper into why our community facilities have been shut down such as our beloved ice skating rink and batting cages. We've discovered that due to a deal between Grant County and REC Silicon (a nearby company) the county has to pay REC $500,000 (+) for reason unknown at the moment. Therefore the county board has decided to cut the Larson Recreation Center (this includes the skating rink, batting cages,tech center and general hangout center for teens), the Art and Science Museum and budget cuts on community cleanup of parks, bathrooms and other facilities. But, what we have discovered is that the cuts have exceeded the payment to REC. Why? We don't know. Will hopefully catch up next time and be interviewing head of parks and rec here in Grant, Tom Los. Until then keep it up my fellow readers and KYGers!

Sincerely,
Cody and Maddie

Grant County

Delegates from the Grant County KYG will be facilitating the Grant-Adams 4-H Super Saturday on February 11. We plan on holding a silent auction to raise money for the conference, and all of the delegates are are getting excited the closer the conference gets here.

Grant/Adams Area

Grant County meeting update

Grant County KYG only has 6 participants this year. They are all looking foward to this great experience. During our first meeting we became acquainted with each other and discussed the conference. Our definition of citizenship is: a good citizen is someone who does his or her best to better their community.

During this meeting we discussed what a plank was and compared the different party's education planks. We also began to write our own planks for education, environment,immigrations, electorial reform, health care, energy, security and safety, and economy. We went over some parliamentary procedures and practiced a few scenarios using the terminology. At the next meeting, we have invited a chairperson of the republican party, Dani Bolyard, to talk to us about politics in Washington state.

Grant County