John Stucke

An agreement announced Wednesday by Avista and state regulatory staff scales back a proposed double-digit utility rate increase for the company's Eastern Washington customers. The deal does allow an increase that will push the average monthly electric bill $6.39 higher to $70.76, and natural gas bills about $1 higher to $84.49 a month.

Shares of Ambassadors Group Inc., the Spokane educational travel company that markets the People-to-People program, sank to 52-week lows Tuesday after reports that fewer students are interested in the company's excursions. The stock price closed at $22.22 on Tuesday, down $17.73. The 44 percent drop in value wiped out close to $400 million in paper wealth as 20 percent of the stock – or about 4.1 million shares – traded on the Nasdaq exchange.

The Spokesman-Review intends to lay off about 30 employees and has offered early retirement incentives as the newspaper fights a struggling business model. Publisher W. Stacey Cowles said Monday that several years of flat revenues including advertising and circulation sales are forcing cutbacks as costs continue to rise at the rate of inflation. He anticipates that the combination of layoffs and retirements will eliminate a total of about 40 jobs.

Avista's request to raise electricity and natural gas rates in Eastern Washington is excessive and should be rejected, the Washington attorney general's consumer advocacy division said in testimony filed Wednesday with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission. "Avista customers have seen frequent, substantial increases in their electric and gas bills over the last six years," said Simon ffitch, chief of the attorney general's Public Counsel Section.

Across Spokane County 154 public servants earn six-figure salaries, ranging from school superintendents to the top library official and nine battalion chiefs of the Spokane Fire Department. A review of the base salaries of these top-tier local government employees found more than $18 million in local tax dollars will be spent this year on these employees. Their total compensation would be much higher if retirement pay, health insurance coverage, and other benefits were included.

The pending sale of a Coeur d'Alene-based police training-video company to Blackwater USA, under fire for its militaristic actions in Iraq, has hit a snag as the Iraqi government pursues the military contractor's ouster. Rick Gallia, chief executive officer of Backup Training Corp., said he hopes the maelstrom of news and controversy about Blackwater subsides so he can complete the sale.

Retirees of Kaiser Aluminum may be eligible for a $600 lump sum payment this year to offset about half of the out-of-pocket Medicare Part B costs as the company's post-bankruptcy fortunes rise. There are about 9,000 former Steelworkers, including surviving spouses, retired from the company that once had mining, refining, smelting and production plants strung around the world. About 3,000 live in Eastern Washington and worked at the company's large Spokane plants, including the Trentwood rolling mill and the now-shuttered Mead smelter.

Avista's proposal to raise electricity and natural gas rates by $144 a year for the average Eastern Washington household may leave the elderly and poor with a stark choice: go hungry or be cold, said opponents of the company's plans. "They're already facing tough decisions," Marie Raschko, a volunteer with Aging & Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, said Tuesday evening during a public hearing.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane and its 82 parishes are sewing shut a devastating chapter for the Eastern Washington church.

The 2,700 employees of Deaconess Medical Center and other units of Empire Health Services have received some job assurances as the sale of the hospital system nears. Job security is a central concern in Empire's probable sale to Community Health Systems Inc., the largest for-profit, publicly traded hospital chain in the United States. Fueling the worry among employees is that their union contract does not contain definitive succession language that would bind Community Health to the terms hammered out two years ago between Empire and Service Employees International Union 1199NW.

A bushel of wheat grown in Eastern Washington fetched more than $10 a bushel last week – a price that until this month seemed unfathomable. Grains have been selling for record prices since midsummer, but few could have expected buyers in Portland to pay $10.25 on Friday.

Parking cheats beware. A member of the Diamond Parking patrol is riding a bicycle to prowl many of the 45 or so lots in the downtown Spokane core, catching up with people trying to steal a few minutes of off-street pavement.

Lawyers in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane bankruptcy case have agreed to shave about 5 percent from their legal bills, freeing up an extra $400,000 for payouts to clergy sex abuse victims. The agreement, if approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams, would end a fee dispute among several law firms and the U.S. Trustee's Office centering on how much the firms should be paid.

An Avista proposal would cut natural gas bills this winter for its customers in Washington and Idaho, as costs for the heating fuel have fallen. The Spokane-based utility seeks a 6 percent decrease in Washington, which would lower the average customer's bill by $5.32 a month.

Spokane keeps waiting to see if the credit crunch afflicting the mortgage industry across the country will spread to the Northwest. So far, the region has avoided the problems created elsewhere by the subprime meltdown.

Key figures in the Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. accounting scandal have reached deals to settle costly lawsuits filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Among them: C. Paul Sandifur Jr., owner of the Metropolitan group of companies, whose stubborn leadership style and questionable business acumen have been blamed for the collapse of the $2.3 billion financial conglomerate.

Turns out that Saudi Arabia has to import fuel after all. The world's leading oil exporter is buying barley from Washington farmers to feed camels and sheep raised by the country's famed Bedouin tribesmen, who have raced camels for thousands of years.

Federal regulators erred when they did not consider new evidence that Pacific Northwest electricity markets were manipulated in 2001, according to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That finding on Aug. 24 remands a major case back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and reignites claims that some companies unfairly profiteered during the electricity crisis and should refund money. It ensnares Avista Corp. in another round of legal wrangling resulting from the 2000-2001 energy crisis, in which markets were manipulated and prices skyrocketed. Buyers of the expensive electricity want the contracts re-examined and their money back.

Bankruptcy lawyers who have billed the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane more than $10 million want to fight about the legitimacy of their fees in secret. It's an odd step for a high-profile case, where more than $10 million of a $48 million settlement is coming from the pews.

Rockwood Clinic is struggling with a mild budget deficit and has clamped down on discretionary spending such as holiday parties, gifts and cards, a golf tournament, and administrative bonuses. Perhaps the most significant is a spending freeze for new positions and careful scrutiny before filling vacant positions.