Bert Caldwell

Distributors of memberships in a Bellevue-based travel services company have irked some consumers by offering free air fare to Mexico to those who attend sales presentations, then backing off. But a spokeswoman for Platinum Passports Ltd. said the come-ons are not services offered through the company. They should be scrutinized like any contract, she said. The Platinum Passport distributor in Spokane is Royal Holidays.

Local and state business leaders plan to form a Spokane Regional International Trade Alliance. The new organization will be launched formally on March 5 at a luncheon at Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. Chairman John Wagner said the group will encourage increased development and awareness of international trade by building on existing relationships with local businesses and government as well as ties to West Coast ports and trade groups.

Bruce Winer was hired as construction manager of the STA Plaza after a multitude of problems threatened the project. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

The U.S. embargo of Cuba costs American business as much as $2 billion a year, and defeats its own purpose - liberalization of the island country, a recent visitor said Thursday. Chris Haralam, an English instructor at Mukogawa Ft. Wright Institute, called the embargo a "dinosaur policy" pushed by Cuban refugees with influence disproportionate to their numbers. Congress, for example, has enacted legislation that would attempt to tighten the screws further, in part by punishing other countries that trade with Cuba, he said.

Tel-West Communications Inc. Friday became Nextlink, just in time to ride the wave of change in telecommunications that legislation signed Thursday by President Clinton will unleash, the head of the renamed company said. Greg Green said the company, which was acquired by Craig McCaw last year, will have its own central switch and much of its downtown fiber-optic cable system in place by late summer. The equipment, worth $10 million, will enable the company to compete with US West Communications as an independent provider of dial-tone service, he said.

The historic overhaul of U.S. telecommunications law codifies many reforms already in place in Washington state, regulators and telephone company officials said. But the pace of change will likely accelerate as competitors push into new markets with more services at prices that should, all services considered, offer a better deal for consumers. "The customers are the winners," US West Communications spokesman Harry Grandstrom said.

Would-be merger partners Washington Water Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Resources are not letting a rebuff from federal regulators change the fundamentals of their proposed business. In a small mountain of supplemental testimony filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week, the companies chose to explain, not alter, the unique characteristics of the interstate combination. FERC nearly scotched the deal last month. Commission members questioned the $450 million in savings the companies estimate the merger would produce over the next 10 years.

Signs of the times. Jim Baggett manages the Spokane branch of Labor Ready, a thriving employment company that evolved from an unsuccessful restaurant venture. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review <

Bankruptcy filings in Spokane soared 31 percent in 1995, reaching levels not seen since the economic dog days of the 1980s. The figures are another sign, along with declining construction permits and sluggish retail sales, that the feverish economic growth of the early 1990s has caught a chill. But, noted local economic commentator Phil Kuharski, the information may also reflect changing attitudes about debt, and in the nature of the debt itself.

A tiny Odessa, Wash., company may build a unique engine for ultralight aircraft in Spokane, according to company officials. 4-Cycle Inc. holds three patents on a system that uses crankcase pressure to supercharge small engines, both gasoline and diesel, said Senior Vice President James Canode. The result is a near doubling of horsepower, he said, and an impressive weight-to-horsepower ratio of almost one-to-one.

D. Michael Jones, former president of Old National Bancorp, will return to Spokane next week as president of Source Capital Corp. The company, which specializes in commercial loans secured by real estate, also said incumbent President Alvin J. Wolff Jr. would continue as board chairman. Wolff has headed Source since it was organized out of the bankruptcy of Selectors Inc. in 1991.

With $18,900, you can buy a midsized car or a very compact, one-year existence for a family of four in Spokane or Coeur d'Alene. And that sum leaves little room for a breakdown that could leave a family destitute by the side of the road. It also assumes the family's only debt is a small car payment. "We see this sort of scenario quite a bit, except they all have credit card debt," said Mark Harnishfeger, head of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service. "They have a slew of them."

One of the nation's largest insurance companies is contesting an appraisal of damage caused by a sprinkler system at a Spokane building used for college classes. In a U.S. District Court complaint filed last week, Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. also says retired Washington Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Williams was not competent to serve as umpire in the dispute.

Yellowstone Pipe Line Co. owners do not yet know if a segment of petroleum pipeline closed last spring will be replaced, an official for the partnership said this week. David Vanderpool, a pipeline engineering expert, said the oil companies that deliver petroleum products from Montana to Spokane and Moses Lake through the Yellowstone conduit are studying the costs of adding new pipe between Missoula and Plains. The new route would replace a portion that has been closed since last April, when a 40-year right-of-way agreement with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation expired.

A plan that would have tripled the cost of high-speed telephone lines to some users was shelved by Washington regulators Monday, but a spokesman for US West Communications said the proposal will likely be resubmitted later this year. Harry Grandstrom said the company will leave its existing rates for Integrated Service Digital Network service in place until the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission completes deliberations on the company's request for a general rate overhaul. Refiling will probably push implementation of any new ISDN rates into 1997.

Getting re-energized. WWP Chairman Paul Redmond, shown in WWP's system operations room, has had to shift gears while regulators continue to consider its proposed merger with Sierra Pacific Resources. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Boeing Co. was up, up, up and mining was down as stocks of companies with Spokane area operations tracked prices for their respective industries in 1995. Investors launched Boeing shares 66 percent based on new orders for airplanes from resurgent airlines. The stock gained altitude despite one of the longest strikes in company history, which idled 300 Spokane workers. Boeing's performance, along with that of the 29 other stocks used to calculate the Dow Jones industrial average, helped push that market barometer up almost 34 percent for the year.

A Spokane County Superior Court judge Wednesday made final a $3.5 million verdict in a condemnation case that may be the most expensive ever resolved by an Eastern Washington jury. With interest and attorneys' fees, the total cost to the Washington Department of Transportation will be almost $5 million, 10 times the final offer made on property taken for construction of the U.S. Highway 395 bridge over the Little Spokane River. When completed a year ago, cost of the project was estimated at $10.7 million, but department attorney John Hurley said that assumed only $900,000 in land costs.

The managers of U.S. Bancorp's Qualivest mutual fund group say they are approaching 1996 cautiously despite confidence about the nation's economic fundamentals. Qualivest's nine funds will remain fully invested, said Tim Leach and Jeff Grubb, but they will watch for signs of weakness in such areas as technology and interest-related issues. "There are some areas where the economy could slip," said Leach, who is president and chief investment officer for Qualivest.

November home sales in Spokane County increased in comparison with 1994, but prices dropped by 3 percent despite lower mortgage rates. According to the Multiple Listing Service of the Spokane Association of Realtors, 463 homes sold last month, five more than a year ago. The value of all sales slipped to $51.1 million from $52.2 million, reflecting a decrease in average price of a little more than $3,000.

John and Mary Bell stand along the proposed power line corridor. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

The Bonneville Power Administration has Larry Weis boxed in. The feeling is familiar. The general manager of the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District has faced challenges from several quarters since moving over from the Snohomish County PUD in 1991. Now, he and other district officials are on the threshold of committing the utility district to the biggest expenditure in its 60-year history - $22.5 million for a new power line and substations that will largely wean the system from what Weis calls "Mother Bonneville."

Omak Wood Products Inc. has completed a reorganization that wipes almost $50 million in debt off the books and preserves 475 jobs in hard-pressed Okanogan County. The plan also perpetuates a cooperative relationship among creditors, workers and management that drew national attention when employees first bought a majority interest in the sawmill and plywood plant in 1988. "At least this gives the company an opportunity to go forward," Spokane attorney Shaun Cross said Thursday, the day new incorporation documents were filed.

FOR THE RECORD: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 CORRECTION: The disciplinary history of Spokane securities dealer David M. Black shows only one complaint with the National Association of Security Dealers in Black's 26 years of investment counseling. That 1986 complaint, based on low net capital requirements, did not involve a customer. A Dec. 5 story implied Black had a history of disciplinary problems with NASD.