Bert Caldwell

With global financial institutions failing and trillions in investor dollars evaporating, Inland Northwest banks and credit unions are reassuring depositors their money is safe, and many are offering high-interest certificates of deposit to capture money from people fleeing unsound banks and tanking stock markets. Several area institutions are reporting double-digit percentage growth in deposits compared with a year ago. Many people were trying – often unnecessarily – to divide deposits among several banks in a bid to assure no one held more than the $100,000 insured by the FDIC.

An $8.4 billion settlement announced Monday between Bank of America and the attorneys general of 11 states could provide a template for Treasury Department efforts to rework the mortgages it will soon acquire, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said Tuesday. The relief package could help an estimated 400,000 borrowers nationwide who obtained mortgages from Countrywide Financial Corp. between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2007.

Attractions like the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and Walking with Dinosaurs lifted tourism spending at hotels, restaurants and retailers in Spokane County to a record $859 million last year. The 9 percent increase over 2006 was double the average rate of growth going back to 1991, according to a recently released study done for the Washington Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development by Dean Runyon Associates.

Horizon Airlines may launch service between Spokane and Everett by next summer, spokesman Dan Russo said Thursday. He said the airline, which has been reducing service to many markets, must negotiate an agreement for ground facilities that could accommodate flight check-in, security and boarding at Everett’s Paine Field.

The Applied Sciences Laboratory based in the Spokane University District has been awarded an $8.5 million grant to develop a new material that’s tough as steel, yet explosive. The lab, an offshoot of the Washington State University Institute for Shock Physics, will receive $6.4 million. Collaborators in Minnesota and California will split the rest of the money from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Wall Street credit woes have not yet filtered down to Riverside Avenue in Spokane or Sherman Avenue in Coeur d’Alene, Inland Northwest financial leaders said last week. Loans for restaurants, income properties or construction may be problematic, but money is readily available for other business purposes. Demand remains solid.

Congress and the president can respond to the current financial crisis with new laws and regulations, but those measures will not curb for long the abuses that have deposited a $700 billion mess in Washington, D.C., Whitworth University Professor Keith Wyma said Thursday. Self-interest inevitably finds ways around or through legal constraints, he said. To more permanently discourage misbehavior, he said, individuals must believe personal and professional satisfaction lies in doing what is right.

Greater Spokane Inc. wants to look at ways local governments might be able to adopt shared permitting and fee practices, transportation funding and other policies that would streamline government, President Rich Hadley said Wednesday. But he stressed the economic development group does not want to revisit local government consolidation, a move county voters rejected in 1995.

An Avista Utilities line crew that assisted a man with a severe head injury and a Spokane Valley man who rescued two children from a burning home will receive awards for their actions at the Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference Wednesday and Thursday at the Spokane Convention Center. As many as 2,000 are expected for the event, which manager Susan Troy said will include 70 presentations by more than 100 speakers. Topics include “Human Resource Issues: Recruitment, Discipline and Harassment”; “MRSA and Other Bad Bugs”; and “Workplace Bullying: Causes and Cures.”

Alton’s Tires will merge with Billings-based Tire-Rama Inc. at the end of the month in a deal that will unite two of the Northwest’s larger home-grown tire dealers. It will also allow Alton’s founder Duane Alton to retire 44 years after he began the business with a single store. He gradually built one of the Inland Northwest’s most recognized franchises while venturing in and out of conservative politics.

Julia Trostel endured 150 interviews and filled three suitcases with rejection slips before she found a job at the Inland Northwest Lighthouse. Thursday, she and 12 other blind workers, their six sighted co-workers and dozens of family members, friends and public officials gathered outside a former Tidyman’s store on North Addison Street to dedicate a new Lighthouse facility that supporters hope will eventually employ 40.

The unemployment rate in Washington climbed to its highest level in almost four years last month, and the State Employment Security Department’s top economist Tuesday predicted harder times ahead as layoffs mount. The rate also climbed in Spokane County, even as employment increased. As was the case for all of Washington, employment numbers just didn’t rise as fast as the the number of those looking for work.

August unemployment levels in Kootenai County were double those of a year ago, according to an Idaho Department of Labor report released Friday. The report showed much of Idaho is suffering from declines in construction and manufacturing related to the nation’s housing crisis.

Wisconsin Pharmacal, hired to make non-spermicidal lubricants developed by INGfertility, is instead selling a nearly identical product that violates the Valleyford company’s patents and trademarks, according to a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court. Pharmacal’s knockoff is hurting the sales of INGfertility’s PRE-Seed and PRE, which are the first vaginal lubricants appropriate for couples trying to conceive a child, the suit filed in Spokane says. Most lubricants kill sperm.

The Spokane International Airport board of directors moved a major runway extension forward Wednesday with the hiring of San Francisco-based URS Engineering to complete plans for a project that could cost as much as $50 million. URS will work with Taylor Engineering Inc. of Spokane on the 2,000-foot extension, to 11,000 feet, that airport Director Neal Sealock said will allow departing planes to carry more passengers and cargo during summer months. Hot air reduces wing lift, so planes need more runway for take-offs, he said.

Spokane’s cost of living improved in comparison with other cities, according to new survey results for the second quarter of 2008. With the national average for costs set at 100, Spokane registered a 91.2, meaning the city is 8.8 percent less expensive to live in than the average city. More than 300 cities were studied.

United Airlines will end direct service between Spokane and Chicago on Nov. 1, a spokesman for the airline confirmed Monday. Jeff Kovich said the decision to cancel Chicago service is one of many the airline made in response to high fuel prices and a softening economy.

Spokane County hotel occupancy has been flatter than a king-sized bed in 2008 and that speaks well of the community, industry analysts said Friday. Two-thirds of 15 major convention markets in the United States have reported off years, said Lindsey Culbreath, director of sales for Kentucky-based Smith Travel Services.