The dirt is flying at Spokane International Airport. Graders are preparing the ground for the 300,000 cubic yards of pavement and sub-surface that will raise the northeast end of the main runway by six feet.
Private employers in Spokane County hired 2,100 workers in April, a gain only slightly offset by a cutback in government jobs. The new hires, the Washington Employment Security Department said Tuesday, rolled the county unemployment rate back to 9.1 percent from 10.3 percent in March, and 9.7 percent in April 2010.
April was a good month for Washington’s unemployed: 5,800 of them went back to work. The gain raised the 12-month improvement to 41,500, a good-news story even if those still not drawing a paycheck number more than 300,000. Almost 100,000 of that group are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits.
Washington employers added jobs for the eighth consecutive month in April, bringing the total gain over the last year to 41,500, a Department of Employment Security report said Wednesday. The gain for April was 5,800, enough to drop the state’s unemployment rate to 9.1 percent from 9.2 percent in March.
The Washington Supreme Court stripped away more of the camouflage the debt management and debt adjustment industry uses to conceal its predatory activity. With no dissenting vote, and one blistering assent, the justices ruled that a pair of Oklahoma companies is not a mere facilitator and banker for the distribution of money from borrower to debt resolution company to lender, a service provided by many profit and nonprofit entities like Consumer Credit Counseling of the Inland Northwest.
Columbia Tractor will uproot its Spokane operations this summer and move to the former Bonanza Ford dealership site on state Route 904, just south of the Four Lakes/Cheney exit (exit 270) on Interstate 90. General Manager Darrell Moseley said the new location will put the John Deere dealership closer to its farm customers and improve its visibility.
An Oklahoma-based company that held consumer money for subsequent distribution to creditors is engaged in “debt adjustment” as defined by Washington law, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The ruling could expose the company and its owners to criminal charges, said attorney Tim Durkop, who is representing two Spokane couples in a civil class action lawsuit filed in 2009 against Global Client Solutions, Global Holding LLC and their owners.
Spokane County homeowners took a loss on almost one-third of home sales in March, according to online real estate database Zillow. In figures released Monday, Zillow also said the median sales price was $162,800.
Two rivers run through the Rathdrum Prairie and Spokane Valley: one spilling from Lake Coeur d’Alene, one seeping from Pend Oreille, Hayden, Newman and other lakes. Each refreshes the other until all the waters combine downstream from Spokane. All that is left, that is.
A scammer, apparently based in Africa, is posting bogus Spokane house rentals on Craigslist. Realtor Jessica Howerton said she was inundated with calls from potential renters of a home at 217 W. 21st Ave.
Spokane Falls Community College on Wednesday dedicated a $14.9 million Music Building that wraps new state-of-the-art studios and laboratories around a 40-year-old auditorium, and band and choir rooms. The now 47,571-square-foot building qualified for silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification in part because of the novel construction process, as well as the recycling of 75 percent of the construction materials.
HANFORD – The Columbia Generating Station is undergoing its most expensive refueling and maintenance shutdown ever as the owner of the nuclear plant tries to improve its reliability and costs. More than 1,700 electricians, steamfitters and other skilled-trade workers have swarmed this site 10 miles north of Richland. Besides the refueling done every two years to refresh and reposition rods containing uranium, they are replacing the generator rotor and a huge steam condenser that has caused repeated shutdowns.
