Othello grants easement to Big Bend Electric

OTHELLO - The Othello School District granted a 10-foot right-of-way easement to Big Bend Electric Cooperative.

School board members approved the easement unanimously Monday.

The property is located off 10th Avenue, adjacent to an alleyway near McFarland Junior High School, said district Superintendent George Juarez.

"I don't think we'll ever build anything that close to a sidewalk, to be honest with you, so I don't see us in the future having to build on that," Juarez told the board.

He said the cooperative needs the easement to get power from a pole to a new development.

"What is driving this is really the new development," Juarez said.

He noted the strong partnership between Othello School District and Big Bend Electric Cooperative.

"We went through an energy audit … and we actually put a lot of investment into our buildings, to make sure we were very energy efficient," Juarez said. "Big Bend helped us with that."

He mentioned there was an incident where Lutacaga Elementary School could not receive additional power because the department of Labor and Industries would not approve it.

"So what Big Bend did for us, is they went in and they updated all of the electrical system," Juarez said. "That was quite an investment for them."

In addition, Big Bend took ownership of Othello High School's transformers, Juarez said.

The change in ownership made any needed transformer replacement Big Bend's responsibility rather than the responsibility of the school district, Juarez added.

"I guess I'm trying to point out that Big Bend has really worked well with us when we needed certain things," he said.

He noted the organization agreed to hire a landscaper to restore the property to its original condition.