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Bert Caldwell

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News >  Business

Credit union dissolution going quietly

The Union Credit Union had been on a slow descent into insolvency for more than a year when Washington regulators closed the doors at 2004 N. Hamilton St. Friday night. In April 2009, Union officials had signed a consent order with the Department of Financial Institutions that required submission of a plan to rebuild the credit union’s capital ratio. The Union’s capital ratio had fallen to 3.28 percent; 7 percent is considered well-capitalized.
News >  Business

Caldwell: Bigger in Texas? Maybe just its budget deficit

Select Washington businesses got a letter this month from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who like Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, aims to poach anyone disaffected by a possible state individual income tax. Like the worst of hunters, Perry doesn’t know his target.
News >  Business

Here’s the Dirt: Green design earns LEED silver

NAC Architecture’s self-designed expansion in downtown Spokane has received a LEED silver certification for environment-friendly features like natural lighting and minimization of water use. The $2.5 million, 10,000-square-foot addition at 1203 W. Riverside Ave. contains studios and offices.
News >  Business

AmericanWest Bank finds a buyer

AmericanWest Bancorporation will sell operating subsidiary AmericanWest Bank to private investors in a deal that Patrick Rusnak, company president and CEO, said Wednesday was the best possible outcome for the Spokane-based bank, its employees and customers. The holding company will file bankruptcy, he said, but AmericanWest’s 58 branches in Eastern Washington, Idaho, and Utah will remain open, with additional capital to support more lending, he said.
News >  Business

Exports, credit, taxes among initiatives to boost businesses

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire Tuesday ordered state agencies to develop programs and institute reforms that will boost small businesses faltering in the economic slowdown. The initiatives range from help with exports, to improving access to credit, to alleviating the burdens imposed by the state’s complex tax structure and regulatory requirements.
News >  Business

Caldwell: State treasurer goes to bat for pension protection

Washington state Treasurer James McIntire will ask the 2011 Legislature to approve a state constitutional amendment that would require at least 80 percent funding of annual state pension contributions. With revenues stagnant or falling, pensions are too easy a target for lawmakers pressed to meet the state’s immediate needs, let alone those 20 or 30 years in the future, he says.
News >  Business

Alcoa site could open for silicon plant

A potential restart of the shuttered Alcoa plant at Addy may founder because of high electricity costs, executives working on the project say. Northwest Silicon LLC President Dave Tuten said the company would produce metallurgical silicon using two furnaces consuming 55 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply more than 38,000 homes.
News >  Business

Airport directors OK budget on same fees

Spokane International Airport directors unanimously voted Wednesday to pass along a proposed $60.3 million budget to Spokane County and the city of Spokane for approval. The 2011 budget, split into $28 million for operations and $32.3 million for capital expenditures, is 5 percent higher than the 2010 budget but does not call for fee increases to the airlines or the public, airport Finance Manager Dave Armstrong said.
News >  Business

Hire Ability Day touts workplace accommodations

Smart businesses are hiring workers with disabilities now because they know entry-level job openings will go begging in 15 years when there will be fewer workers to fill them, said former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Labor Neil Romano. Employers are finding workers that, thanks to federal education mandates, are better prepared for the workplace than those hired in the past only as favors or charity cases, he said at the annual Hire Ability Day luncheon.
News >  Business

Shrinking rate of joblessness tied to schools

The unemployment rate in Spokane County fell to 8.2 percent in September as educators headed back to classrooms. Doug Tweedy, regional labor economist for the Washington Employment Security Department, said seasonal hiring by schools accounted for all of the 1,220 jobs added to local payrolls since August, when the jobless rate was 8.8 percent.
News >  Business

Nonreported jobs up sharply in 2010

Employers have failed to report more than 11,000 workers in Washington so far in 2010, almost triple the number for the first nine months of 2009, the state Employment Security Department said Monday. Auditors determined that nonreported jobs generated $196 million in wages, but the state did not get the $2.12 million in unemployment taxes due on that amount.
News >  Spokane

Roberts talks about bulls, bears, hogs and market rhymes

As founder and president of Ken Roberts Investment Management Inc., Ken Roberts manages $250 million for more than 1,000 clients, mostly individuals and small institutional investors. The firm’s staff of nine includes wife Sharon, a retired teacher. A graduate of Whitworth University with a master’s from Harvard University, Roberts bought his first stock in 1961, when he was a teenager living on the family farm in Genesee, Idaho.
News >  Business

State AG takes aim at mortgage wolves

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna sent a letter last week to the 52 trustees who shepherd mortgage paperwork toward foreclosure. At least a few, it seems, have been very bad shepherds. It’s about what you would expect from people working for the wolves, whom McKenna addresses as “Dear Foreclosure Trustee.”
News >  Business

Associate Painters opens Spokane Airport hangar

The first airplane to be stripped and repainted by Associated Painters Inc. in Spokane will be rolled into its new 41,000-square-foot hangar this morning. The building was dedicated Thursday by co-owners Rod and Dawn Friese, and airport and government officials said the $5 million facility and nearby Jet Tech Aerospace hangar are assets attracting the attention of other aerospace service companies.
News >  Business

Dealer sign frustrates Spokane Valley police

A lingering protest by Drive Auto and Truck Sales in Spokane Valley is frustrating Spokane Valley police Chief Rick VanLeuven, whose department found misstatements in a dealership stolen-property complaint. In September, Drive Auto reported the theft of tires, wheels and a stereo from a truck on the lot. But, according to a Police Department news release, a witness who saw a television news report said the value of the stolen items had been overstated, and that the stereo was already gone when she and her husband examined the truck before the theft.