Week in Review

Home sales and prices reached record highs in Washington last year, a new study from a WSU real estate research center said. Though the affordability issue is most dramatic on the west side of the state, home prices in Spokane County are increasing rapidly as well. Separately, both the Spokane and Kootenai County Realtors groups reported increased sales and higher home prices in January compared with the same month last year. In Spokane, the dollar volume of sales rose 25 percent and the average sales price for a home sold in January was $150,115. In Kootenai County, sales volume rose 42 percent and the average sales price jumped 25 percent to $175,519.

Tuesday

Magnolia Hi-Fi said it will close its only Spokane store, on North Division, by the end of the month. The Seattle-based retailer operated a store here for 10 years, but it became harder to supply and buy advertising for because it’s the only location in this market, Magnolia said.

The Pentagon said it’s investigating eight more Air Force contracts handled by Darleen Druyun, the former Air Force official who was convicted last year of giving The Boeing Co. special treatment on a tanker lease deal. Four of the eight contracts, which together have a value of $3 billion, involve Boeing.

Sales of prescription arthritis drugs plunged at the end of 2004, after Merck pulled Vioxx from the market and studies raised safety concerns about other painkillers, new data show. Some people switched to nonprescription pain medication but doctors believe others are suffering pain because they don’t know what to do.

Wednesday

Spokane County has postponed for a few months the second round of an economic summit to better define its goals, county commissioners said. The first summit was convened in December by then-Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin, with the goal of defining clearer lines of responsibility between economic-development groups. Her successor, Mark Richard, said the commission needs more time to talk with community leaders about the intended focus of the next session.

Thursday

Avista Corp. CEO Gary Ely earned close to $875,000 in 2004 and will receive a 10 percent raise in 2005, a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission said. Last year, Avista hiked natural gas rates by about $10 a month for Washington residential customers and by about $13 a month for Idahoans due to rising costs, the utility said.

A Bankruptcy Court judge’s ruling scuttled efforts by Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. to obtain potentially damaging documents pointing to alleged malfeasance by its former auditor. The documents were part of a court-ordered examination, but if Met or its creditors want them, they’ll have to obtain them through discovery, the judge said.

Friday

President Bush signed a bill that aims to discourage multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuits by having federal judges take them away from state courts. Under the legislation, class-action suits seeking $5 million or more would be heard in state court only if the primary defendant and more than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state.