Bert Caldwell

Attorneys Richard Eymann, Gene Annis and Darrell Scott gather Friday to announce the settlement in Riverfront Park. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Shea Construction Inc. will start remodeling the Davenport Hotel early next year, the landmark hotel's executive director said Thursday. Jeffrey Ng said the Spokane contractor was selected from among a dozen builders who submitted bids for the project, which has tantalized city residents since the former owners locked the doors in 1985. "It was a very tough decision," Ng said, because several of the bidders came highly recommended.

Want a little action on the Washington State University football team? Don't call a bookie. Call a banker. State National Bank in Garfield is offering a certificate of deposit with a yield adjusted upward with every Cougar victory.

Premera, the largest provider of health insurance in Washington, next month will throw another stitch into the bond between its two major subsidiaries. Medical Service Corp. of Eastern Washington and Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska will begin offering each other's product lines to customers in their service areas, said Premera President Betty Woods. Now, she said, potential Blue Cross customers in Eastern Washington must purchase those coverages through a separate sales office.

Key Tronic Corp. Wednesday announced an agreement with Gateway 2000 Inc. that could produce $10 million in new business for the Spokane maker of computer keyboards. Executive Vice President Ron Klawitter said Key Tronic could produce up to half of the two million keyboards shipped with Gateway computers each year. The units are priced at just under $10, he said.

Megawatts could become megabucks for tribes willing to explore the potential for a new kind of "red power," attorney and business consultant Margie Schaff said Wednesday. The tribes' unique status and the deregulation transforming national energy markets open opportunities that have yet to be fully explored, she told a Spokane gathering of tribal leaders and utility officials. Schaff said the options include everything from forming tribal utilities to creating regulatory bodies that would replace state oversight of the companies that provide not just electricity, but water, natural gas and other services as well.

United Security Bancorporation of Spokane has agreed to buy Community Bancorporation and its subsidiary, Bank of Pullman, for $12 million in cash. The deal announced Wednesday, when completed later this year, would be the third executed this year by USB. And with the purchase of five branches from Wells Fargo and the pending merger with The Wheatland Bank, the acquisition of Community will almost triple USB's branch system in just one year.

Removal within 10 years of four dams on the lower Snake River and John Day Dam on the Columbia River could cost the Bonneville Power Administration more than $2 billion through the year 2032, according to a new study prepared for the Northwest Power Planning Council. And those results do not take into account the loss of the navigation and flood-control capabilities the dams now provide, said council members who heard the report Tuesday in Spokane.

A small Spokane publisher of investment books has reached a tentative agreement to purchase a Phoenix company that specializes in refurbishing computer chip-making equipment. Terms are still being negotiated, said Greg Ruff, president of Investment Book Publishers Inc. of Spokane. He said a combination of factors brought the unlikely couple to the corporate altar.

A second class-action lawsuit has been filed against Itron Inc. alleging the company and several of its officials committed securities fraud. The complaint filed Wednesday in Spokane County Superior Court echoes a suit filed four months ago in U.S. District Court. Both claim the Spokane Valley maker of meter-reading devices overstated its technology's capabilities, in the process artificially inflating the value of its shares.

Ken Leonard, left, E. Suzanne Case and Larry Tripp are the forces behind Team Management Software Ltd. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Residents of Odessa and Harrington will soon have an opportunity to save almost 10 percent on their monthly electricity bills. The Grant County Public Utility District plans to begin selling power in the two communities within the next few weeks, said Dave Osborn, a power planner for the district. PNM Energy Marketing, a subsidiary of Public Service Co. of New Mexico, also expects to enter the market, commercial marketer Al Anzures said.

Pentzer Corp. has expanded its Creative Solutions Group with the addition of companies in California and Florida. Revenues from White Plus Inc. of El Segundo, Calif., and Target Woodworks of Hialeah, Fla., will bring the group's total annually to more than $100 million, said Vice President Jan Plester. Also, she said, White's design abilities will complement the production capabilities of some of the group's other West Coast units.

Customers of Washington Water Power Co. who become unemployed or disabled won't have to worry about paying their utility bills for six months if they buy a new line of insurance the company introduced Wednesday. The Guaranteed Payment Plan will cover up to $400 a month in natural gas and electricity charges for the customer or a surviving spouse.

Customers of US West Communications could pay an additional $1.50 per month for telephone service if Washington regulators approve an agreement announced late Monday. The company, along with the staff of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, and consumer and business representatives, negotiated timetables for retirement of its investment in everything from poles to switches. The commissioners could take action on the settlement later this month.

Steve Matsko will step down as area president for U.S. Bancorp as part of a management restructuring that follows completion of its merger last week with First Bank System. But the reshuffling in the bank's historic downtown office tower will be invisible to customers, who can expect few if any changes in its 17-branch Spokane network, he said. Continued operation of the branch at Third and Stevens is under review, Matsko said, but no decision has been made on its future.

Itron Inc. on Wednesday announced the signing of a $44 million contract to install a network that will read 450,000 meters for Virginia Power. Installation will begin in November with a 5,000-meter pilot, said Itron spokeswoman Mima Scarpelli. Full-scale implementation should start in the first quarter of 1998, with completion expected by the end of the year. Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, serves about two million customers in Virginia and North Carolina. Scarpelli said Itron's network will be installed in areas where the utility thinks rivals will most likely try to pick off customers as deregulation opens up traditionally exclusive service territories. Virginia Power now uses a system based on Itron's hand-held equipment. The new system uses tiny radios to relay readings from modules mounted on the meters to a central computer. "It's a terrific contract for us," Scarpelli said. "This is a nice testimonial for Itron and our technology." The announcement included a caution from President Johnny Humphreys that the contract would not produce the gross margins of non-network systems. Scarpelli said the company wants to discourage projections that might overstate the earnings potential from the new business. Margins will improve as the market and technology mature, she said.

Ownership of "ENACT" computer software that helped school districts around the Northwest use energy more efficiently has been transferred from the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Programs to Illinova Energy Partners. Michael McSorley, the program's software team leader, said the state did not want to compete with private providers of similar products, which did not exist when ENACT was written by the Washington State Energy Office in the mid-1980s. Also, he said, the state couldn't afford to rewrite the DOS-based program in a Windows format.

Avista Energy has invested $25 million in a new partnership with one of the country's largest natural gas marketers. The Washington Water Power Co. subsidiary will split ownership of Howard/Avista Energy LLC, a limited liability company, with Howard Energy Marketing Inc. of Traverse City, Mich. Howard did more than $1.5 billion in business in the one-year period that ended April 30, said Avista President Lloyd Meyers. Howard sells almost 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily. Among the company's 1,600 customers are Chrysler Corp. and Procter and Gamble.

The long-anticipated, often-frustrated renovation of Spokane's Davenport Hotel will start early next year, Executive Director Jeffrey Ng said Friday. The downtown landmark could be accepting its first guests by the end of 1999 - more than 14 years after the prior owner locked the doors, Ng said.

Ray Daigh, Rahco International's chief electrical engineer, works on the control panels of the Self Guided Transport Vehicle. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review,

A new study prepared by a Portland consulting firm rates Washington Water Power Co. the second most efficient utility in the United States. Of the 94 electric companies included in the survey and analysis by Barakat & Chamberlain Inc., only American Electric Power Co. outperformed WWP.

The country's first one-stop provider of energy, telecommunication and security services Monday added Itron Inc. to its product offerings. Itron will join companies like AT&T; and ADT on a growing roster selected by EnergyOne, which was formed last month by UtiliCorp United Inc. of Kansas City and PECO Energy Co. of Philadelphia. Itron spokeswoman Mima Scarpelli said the deal, when signed later this year, will give the Spokane Valley company a new distribution channel for its line of meter-reading equipment.

The Millennium Bug will take a bite out of some Spokane area businesses and government agencies, but the swelling should be relatively minor. Most have applied "bug repellents." And for the consultants and other exterminators selling solutions to the problem, the bulging will occur in the wallet.