Avista boosts foundation funds
Avista Corp. added $750,000 to its foundation this week.
The money raises the Avista Foundation endowment to about $3.2 million, the company said in a press release this week.
The foundation, begun in 2002, grants money to nonprofit organizations in communities served by Avista Utilities.
Last year, Avista and the foundation gave a combined $1.3 million, most of which was given to health and human service organizations.
Of that, the company put $565,000 into Project Share, which helps poor people pay for heating their homes.
The company said the contributions are not funded by ratepayers.
Avista is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings report on Friday.
Spokane
MovieBeam stake sold to investors
The Disney Co. has sold off majority interest in its MovieBeam entertainment system to a group of investors for about $52 million, the company said in recent financial documents.
Alex Izzard, a former Disney-MovieBeam executive, has been named CEO of the company.
The MovieBeam subscriber-based movie system was launched in Spokane and two other cities in 2003. In April 2005 Disney shut down the system, saying it was upgrading the service, which delivered recent movies to home set-top boxes via over-the-air TV signals.
Michelle Cox, a spokeswoman for MovieBeam Inc. in Los Angeles, would not say whether the company will resume operations soon.
Oakland, Calif.
Fast-food fee will fund clean-up
Fed up with burger wrappers, french fry containers and paper cups, Oakland officials have decided to force fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses to help pay for cleaning up street trash.
Under a tax approved Tuesday night by the City Council, businesses will be assessed between $230 and $3,815 annually, depending on their size. More than three-quarters of the affected businesses would only pay the minimum fee, which amounts to 63 cents a day.
The city would use the projected $237,000 a year to hire small crews to pick up litter in commercial areas around high schools and middle schools where most of the garbage is found.
Chicago
Sun-Times offers news wire service
The Chicago Sun-Times is picking up where the shuttered City News Service left off, launching a 24-hour news wire scheduled to begin Monday.
The STNG Wire, short for Sun-Times News Group, “will be a service very much like the City News Service of old,” said John Barron, editor-in-chief of the Sun-Times.
Like City News, the STNG Wire will focus its coverage on police and courts. Barron said the STNG Wire already has several subscribers, but he wouldn’t elaborate.
About 10 people have been hired to run the service, including some staffers from both recent and older incarnations of City News, Barron said.