The federal government is talking about distributing $600 checks to citizens as a way to stimulate the lagging economy.

But Boeing has an idea of its own that will make the government's payout look like petty cash at least to Boeing workers.

The aerospace giant will be handing out bonus checks equal to 15 days pay to some 47,000 workers in the Puget Sound area Feb.21.

The checks to Boeing union engineers and technical workers and to non-represented employees will average around $5,100 for engineers and $4,000 for technical workers, the company said.

The checks are part of the company's Employee Incentive Plan that's designed to reward workers when the company exceeds its own internal productivity and profit goals.

The company's big employee bonanza wasn't designed as an economic stimulus, but it will inject more than $200 million into the local economy.

The program, established in 2000, has paid employees here and in other Boeing locales 90 days extra pay since its inception.

Boeing won't reveal the exact benchmarks it uses to calculate the reward, but they measure how Boeing workers deliver goods and services to customers and how efficiently that work is carried out.

"We exceeded out 2007 business plan goals, thanks to a strong focus on both growth and productivity by the people of Boeing," said Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney.

Excluded from the incentive plan are Boeing's union machninists, its production line workers. The machinists' contract doesn't include a provision for EIP participation.

According to trade publication Advertising Age, Old Navy wants to change the way you think of its discount clothes and, in the meantime, shore up sales.

Here's an excerpt from the Ad Age story:

The division of the struggling Gap Inc. is trying to shake off its traditional discount image with a new logo and marketing campaign for the spring 2008 season aimed at women in their 20s. The aim is to recapture some of the market share lost to competitors such as Target in recent years.

The campaign will be officially unveiled today in New York at an event featuring performances by DJ AM and Natasha Bedingfield.

For the month of December, Old Navy reported an 8% decline in stores open at least a year, on top of a 10% falloff during the same period a year ago. In the third quarter ended Nov. 3, the most recent quarter for which information is available, Old Navy saw same-store sales drop 8% on top of a 7% tumble in the comparable period.

The new campaign, which was overseen by Exec VP-Marketing Michael Cape, a former J.C. Penney marketer, will include TV, print, online, direct mail and in-store elements. The TV commercials are intended to be a miniseries, with each spot following a group of 20-something women as they embark on relationships, road trips and the like.

The average Tacoma regular gas price hit $3.01 today, down nearly 49 cents from last year's mid-May high, says AAA Washington

That's slightly over the national average of $2.986 per gallon but nowhere near the price in Hawaii, $3.479 a gallon.

Don't count on those prices going much lower, says Olympia-based gasoline guru Tim Hamilton, executive director of Automotive United Trades Organization.

"We're on the floor now," said Hamilton. "In Eastern Washington, we're seeing prices going up already by six or seven cents a gallon."

Some oil industry analysts see gas prices approaching $3.50 a gallon early this summer if demand remains good.

Gas prices in Tacoma hit an all-time high in mid-May last year with prices for regular at $3.459 a gallon.

Hamilton says how high prices will go depends on how car owners react to ever-rising prices at the pump.

Even a five percent reduction in driving could reverse the price rises and keep them relatively low.

A major disruption in supply -- say a refinery fire -- could push prices over $4 a gallon. A series of calamities coupled with unchecked demand could put prices over $5.

On the other hand, a major recession that cuts driving could depress crude oil and gas prices.

"The good news about a recession is that it will be cheaper to drive to the unemployment office," he said.

If gas prices top out over $4 a gallon, you can meditate on this picture taken earlier this week at an ARCO station in Kent and pine for the "good old days" of late January.

Milwaukee. A couple of years ago, you couldn't get there from here at least if you were looking for a non-stop flight.

Now two airlines, Midwest and AirTran, are competing on the route.

Milwaukee is Midwest Airlines' hub. It established the route to Seattle several months ago. But it got company when AirTran Airways announced recently that it will start seasonal service between Milwaukee and Seattle beginning May 6.

AirTran, which unsuccessfully tried to take over Midwest, now is moving into Midwest's home territory. AirTran has also announced flights from Milwaukee to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego in addition to several eastern destinations.

The new AirTran non-stop leaves Seattle at 11:35 a.m. and reaches Milwaukee at 5:10 p.m. The return flight departs at 8:40 p.m. and reaches Seattle at 10:45 p.m.

Expect some competitive price cutting on that route as AirTran tries to steal Midwest passengers. Keep Milwaukee in mind, too, if prices to Chicago begin inflating. Milwaukee is closer to some northern Chicago suburbs than Chicago's Midway and O'Hare airports.

China Eastern Airlines says it is ordering 30 single aisle aircraft from Boeing Co.

The price of those 737s is $1.94 billion at list prices in 2005 when the airline secured options on those aircraft.

The airline said it will begin taking delivery of those planes in 2011.

The China Eastern order is not yet included in Boeing's weekly order book update which reports the company has recorded orders for a total of 61 aircraft through Tuesday.

Eighteen of those orders are new in the last week. One order was for an additional 737 from Southwest Airlines, Boeing's biggest 737 customer. The other 17 aircraft, all 737s, were sold to customers not yet identified by Boeing.

Q: What's new, pussycat?
A: The Murano Hotel.

Q: And do you know the way to San Jose?
A: Yes, and Tacoma as well.

I'm working on a story for Monday - it's one of our regular business Q-and-A pieces - and yesterday I interviewed Howard Jacobs, the chief operating officer at Provenance Hotels.

We had a great discussion about the Murano Hotel, formerly the Sheraton, in downtown Tacoma. I was asking him about the opening gala, sheduled for March 8 at the Pavilion.

A Provenance spokeswoman tells me that the event may soon be sold out, at $500 per plate.

The draw: Burt Bacharach will be performing.

I asked Jacobs if Bacharach's songs are on the Murano's in-room iPod menu.

Not yet, but they will be.

Tacoma-based TrueBlue, Inc. reported a decrease in net income for fourth quarter of last year due mostly to minimum wage increases and the company's closing of offices.

TrueBlue is the parent company to Labor Ready and other temporary staffing agencies.

The company generated net income of $14.4 million or $0.33 per diluted share, a decrease from $21.6 million or $0.42 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2006.

"That’s due the pricing pressure of the tough economy," CEO Steve Cooper said Wednesday. "We have not been able to pass through all the costs ... and we closed a lot of offices and that had to be expensed."

TrueBlue's revenue increased 4.6 percent to $353.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to revenue of $338.1 million for the same period in 2006.

"The revenue is all driven by the acquisitions we’ve done," Cooper said. "Our core business revenue is flat."

TrueBlue acquired a Florida-based construction and aircraft mechanics staffing companies last year.

Profit was up at two Northwest companies in today's earnings announcements, though one did far better than the other.

According to The Associated Press, Starbucks Corp. said Wednesday its fiscal first-quarter profit rose by less than 2 percent, and it detailed plans to open fewer domestic stores and more overseas to revitalize the coffee house chain.

During fiscal 2008, the company plans to open about 425 fewer domestic stores and 75 more overseas than previously planned, for a global total of 2,150 new stores. The company also plans to close about 100 poorly performing stores in the United States.

Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz said the slowdown in U.S. growth will allow the company to make better use of its time, money and staff and could ease reduce “cannibalization” of existing stores.

And also from The Associated Press: Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by fast-growing international sales.

The Web retailer also issued better-than-expected guidance and appeared unconcerned about a possible recession.

Amazon’s earnings in the crucial holiday quarter climbed to $207 million, or 48 cents per share, from $98 million, or 23 cents per share, in the same period last year.

DuPont-based Venture Bank this week reported record net income of $12.7 million for 2007 – $1.6 million, or 14.4 percent, above the figure for 2006.

For the fourth quarter, Venture reported income of $3.2 million, $100,000 above the figure for the same quarter a year before.

Total assets at Venture were $1.2 billion at year-end, up 22.7 percent from the end of 2006.

Non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans were 0.40 percent at year-end, up from 0.10 percent a year before. The allowance for credit losses increased to 1.34 percent from 1.25 percent.

“We are closely managing our loan portfolio in light of the housing downturn,” said President and CEO Jim Arneson. “We continue to see opportunities in both commercial and residential construction and development projects.

File this in the news-you-can-use-but-won't category:

Those 100-calorie packs filled with a smattering of Oreos may be good for your waistline but they aren't good for your wallet.

You are going to pay a premium for having the food manufacturer dole out those smaller portions in cute little packages.

A survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that 100-calorie packs cost, on average, 2 1/2 times as much per ounce as similar products in larger packages, the Rocky Mountain News reports.

A CSPI comparison of 30 different 100-calorie packs found that the premium charged for those snacks ranges from 16 percent to a whopping 279 percent.

With all the talk about portion control, consumers have been quick to embrace those 100-calorie packs, sales of which have reached $200 million a year, according to The New York Times.

And while some are new products, many are just smaller bags of the same old pretzels, crackers and cookies.

The 100-calorie packs cost about the same as a package of the same snack. But take a closer look at the cost per ounce, and the difference becomes clear.

CSPI found, for example, that a box of Keebler Right Bites Chips Deluxe 100-calorie packs cost $2.50, while a bag of Keebler Chips Deluxe Chocolate Chip Cookies cost $3 — but weighed four times more.

From a calorie and cost perspective, a better option would be to either buy the big bags and divvy up the portions yourself, or skip the crunchy stuff and have an apple instead.

Production problems nagging Boeing's 787 Dreamliner program will have minimal financial effects on Boeing Co. finances, the airplane maker's chief executive said today while announcing robust earnings and higher projections for next year.

Full-year 2007 earnings per share grew 85 percent to $5.28 a share over 2006 while full-year revenues rose eight percent to $66.4 billion. Operating income rose 93 percent over the previous year.

Those record earnings for the year were $4.1 billion up from $2.2 billion last year.

"Our 2007 results demonstrate the kind of quality financial performance we can achieve through our simultaneous focus on growth and productivity," said Chairman Jim McNerney. "We added substantial backlog,made major efficiency gains, and executed well on our production and services programs. Despite some development program challenges, we are a strong company growing stronger, and we expect continued improvement in our financial results in 2008 and beyond."

Other financial indicators for Boeing showed strong performance in 2007:

* Commercial airplane orders set a new record, 1,413.
* The company's total backlog of orders grew 31 percent to $327 billion.
* Cash flow jumped 28 percent to $9.6 billion.

In last year's fourth quarter, the company reported similarly encouraging results.

Earnings per share rose from $1.29 to $1.36 though revenues remained flat. That result beat the average of analysts' projections of $1.32 a share.

Boeing Chief Financial Officer James Bell said much of the earnings performance came from high efficiencies in both the commercial airplane division and Boeing's defense business.

Both those major businesses yielded operating margins of in the 11 percent range.

The continued problems getting the first 787 flying -- the date has been postponed three times and is now set for late June -- has preoccupied the stock market. The market has punished Boeing since last summer.

"A good operational showing, but 787 is likely to continue to drive the stock, for better or worse," Robert Stallard, a Banc of America Securities analyst told Bloomberg News.

Boeing stock was up $2.91 or 3.59 percent to $83.87 a share in midday trading in New York.

The deferral of the first delivery of the 787 from late this year to the first quarter of next year will mean deferring some income Boeing would have received this year until next, and Boeing's projection for aircraft production in 2008 will fall by 5 to 10 planes, said Bell. The projection now calls for Boeing's Puget Sound factories to build between 475 and 480 aircraft this year.

The company also adjusted its projected 2008 revenues downward to between $67 billion and $68 billion. That range is down about $500 million. It raised its expected earnings per share, however, to as much as $5.85 a share for the full year. That's up between 10 and 15 cents a share.

Whatever negative effects the late deliveries may have on the Dreamliner program are diluted, Bell said, because those effects will be spread over the huge volume of orders Boeing has won for the plane, 857 to date.

McNerney said the company has a "best of Boeing team" working on the 787 production and supplier issues, and he expects to hit its new deadlines.

The 787 has been delayed because suppliers failed to complete major subassemblies on time, and Boeing has been forced to finish work on those large pieces at its Everett plant. The problem was exacerbated, too, by shortage of some critical parts including high-tech fasteners.

Boeing workers began major assembly work today on the sixth version the company's popular twin-jet 777.

The 777 Freighter will be the largest twin-engine air freighter in the world.

The first 777 Freighter will be delivered to Air France in late 2008.

That freighter is based on the 777-200LR passenger aircraft. The freighter is equipped with a strengthened floor, a large cargo door, a permanent bulkhead between the cargo and pilots' compartments and a cargo-handling system.

Boeing has sold 80 777 Freighters to date amounting to about 20 percent of the backlogs for 777s. The freight aircraft will be built on the same assembly lines as the 777 passenger aircraft in Everett.

The battle for discount shoppers continues: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is discounting some products by as much as 30 percent.

The price reductions will be available on thousands of items, including food, televisions, gym equipment and home products, the discount chain said today in a statement, according to Bloomberg News.

Wal-Mart is marketing itself as the lowest-cost retailer for groceries, drugs and consumer electronics after an attempt to boost sales with designer items at higher prices in 2006 trailed the company’s expectations.

More aggressive price- cutting worked for Wal-Mart during the holiday shopping season, helping the retailer outpace rival Target Corp.

“It’s an especially daring strategy considering most of their competition is passing through the food inflation to the consumer,” said Patricia Edwards, a Seattle-based portfolio manager at Wentworth, Hauser & Violich. “What Wal-Mart is doing is taking mindshare; when you think of saving money, who comes to mind?”

Increasing its outreach to various sectors in the automobile world – business, collecting, restoration, design – the LeMay Museum announced today that racing legend Johnny Rutherford has joined the board of directors.

Rutherford has an extensive racing record that includes 27 Indy car victories with 23 pole positions. He ranks seventh on the all-time Indy car win list, and he set an all-time Indy Car qualifying lap speed record of 215.189 mph in 1984 at Michigan International Speedway.

Rutherford is one of only four drivers in Indy Car history to have nine straight seasons with a victory in each, and to have driven in five decades. Rutherford has been inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

David Madeira, LeMay Museum president and CEO, said Rutherford “is an icon in the racing world and we are thrilled to have him on board. He definitely will bring a unique and much needed perspective to the museum’s efforts in expanding its social network among automotive enthusiasts and in creating our new building in downtown Tacoma.”

Alaska Airlines has begun inspections of its fleet of 39 Boeing 737-400s after three incidents in which wing flaps on Alaska 737s fail to deploy fully.

The inspections, done at night while the planes are out of service, are expected to take about two weeks.

The voluntary inspections by the SeaTac-based airline came after three emergency landings in Alaska. In each, the wing flaps, which increase the size of the wing surface and improve the aircraft's ability to fly at low speeds, failed to extend to the extent commanded by the pilot.

The planes are able to land without flaps, but at somewhat higher speeds than with them extended. No injuries happened during the incidents on Jan. 11, 20 and 26.

Alaska's 737-400s are an average 12 years old. The airline also has newer Next Generation Boeing 737-700s, -800s and -900s in its fleet as well as McDonnell Douglas MD-80s, which it is retiring.

Alaska Boeing 737-400 combination freighter and passenger jet

An interest rate cut may help Washington Mutual Inc.

The company, which reported its first quarterly loss since 1997 this month after a $1.6 billion writedown in its home-loan unit, said it expects income to increase as the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, Bloomberg News reports.

Kerry Killinger, chief executive officer of the biggest U.S. savings and loan, said today net-interest income would increase by about $150 million for every 25 basis point cut in the Fed’s benchmark rate. Killinger spoke at a financial services conference in New York sponsored by Citigroup Inc.

The Federal Open Market Committee will announce its decision on a potential rate cut tomorrow. The panel last week cut the target rate for overnight loans three-quarters of a point to 3.5 percent. It was the largest reduction since the Fed began using the rate as its main policy tool in 1990.

Keith Flickinger has joined the LeMay Automobile Museum steering committee. Flickinger – president and owner of Precision Motor Cars, Inc., an auto restoration business based out of Allentown, Penn. – is also the curator, chief adviser and buyer for the private car collection of Nicola Bulgari, Vice Chairman of BVLGARI, S.p.A., a member of the museum board.

David Madeira, museum president and CEO, said Flickinger "brings an abundance of knowledge and expertise in auto restoration to the Museum. His connections and experience will be invaluable to the museum as we look both to restore and add collector cars to the LeMay Collection.”

Flickinger began his career in the restoration business while still in high school. He started his own business in 1988 when he launched a full-service restoration facility. He took the position with Bulgari after restoring a 1942 Buick Woody now in the Bulgari collection.

It goes like this: The husband or wife of someone serving in Iraq gets a call. The caller – saying he or she represents the Red Cross – says the spouse has been injured while on duty and has been med-evacuated to a hospital in Germany.

The caller then claims that the person here at home must provide detailed information before treatment can begin. The information? Social security number, date of birth, perhaps even account numbers.

Well, the caller is attempting to steal the information. The Red Cross, according to a Better Business Bureau alert this week, does not typically contact family members or dependents directly, and almost always conducts its business through a commander or first sergeant.

=> Read more!

Boeing Co. has sold eight 777 freighters for use by a new joint venture freight and express carriers formed by Lufthansa Cargo and DHL Express.

The new planes will be used mainly for express shipments between Asia and Europe on weekdays and on weekends for freight to multiple destinations from Europe including the United States.

DHL and Lufthansa will share capacity on the flights with any excess space not occupied by a flight's main user becoming available to the other.

The planes, valued at $2 billion at list prices, were ordered by Deucalion Capital VII Ltd.

Deucalion Capital will lease the planes to AeroLogic, the new joint venture between Lufthansa Cargo and DHL Express. The eight planes were initially ordered by Avion Group in 2005, but the deal was canceled.

Dave Lewis, former general manager of the Tacoma Rainiers, has taken the position of general manager of the Bellingham Bells. He is also a minority owner of the team.

The Bells play in the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League, and are unaffiliated with a major league team. Players, unpaid, typically arrive from local colleges and universities.

The Bells’ season entails 42 league games and perhaps eight non-league games, beginning in early June and lasting until mid-August.

The umbrella ownership group of the Bells is Brett Sports, and one of the owners is George Brett, a former Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer. Bobby Brett, who played minor league baseball, is the managing partner.

The Bells play at Joe Martin field in Bellingham, and can accommodate over 2,000 fans. Lewis says he expects to average 1,500 fans per game this coming summer.

Along with the Bells and the Spokane Chiefs hockey club, Brett Sports also owns three other baseball teams: the Spokane Indians, Tri-Cities Dust Devils and the High Desert Mavericks in Southern California.

Puyallup-based Valley Community Bancshares, Inc., the holding company for Valley Bank, on Friday reported record earnings for 2007.

Earnings for year increased 12 percent to $2,538,000, or $2.20 per diluted share compared to $2,259,000 or $1.96 per diluted share during 2006.

The company also reported an 18 percent increase in its shareholder dividend.

At the annual meeting this month, the board of directors approved a $1.00 per share cash dividend to shareholders of record on December 31, 2007.

“During 2007, the Bank increased profitability to a record level while maintaining excellent credit quality,” said David Brown, Valley president and CEO. “The Bank has no exposure to sub-prime loans and has limited exposure to real estate construction loans by focusing our marketing efforts to our core business, namely business lending.”

Valley Bank serves South King and Eastern Pierce counties with eight full-service banking facilities and a drive-up facility.

Junior Achievement has named Michael Phillips, chairman of Russell Investments, as a 2008 laureate to the Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame. He joins 86 laureates who have been honored since the award was first given in 1987.

This year he joins Tomio Moriguchi, CEO of Uwajimaya, Inc., and Father Wiliam J. Sullivan, S.J., Seattle University chancellor since 1998 and president from 1976 to 1996.

Junior Achievement is a nonprofit organization that educates young people in business and economic matters.

Phillips, who also serves as chairman of the LeMay Automobile Museum board, will be inducted on Wednesday, March 12, at the Marriott Seattle Waterfront. The celebration begins with a 6 p.m. reception, with the program to follow. Tickets for the gathering are available at $250 – or $2,000 for a table of eight – by calling 206-296-2600.

Proceeds from the event benefit Junior Achievement programs serving students K-12 in the Puget Sound area.

You may be getting a big check in the mail in the next few months that politicians and the Federal Reserve hope you will use to buy a new TV or a pair of expensive shoes. But what will you really do with it?

Take our poll and tell us where your money will go.

When the first 20 or so 787 Dreamliners leave Boeing's Everett final assembly plant they won't be delivered directly to airline customers.

Boeing now plans to fly them to San Antonio, Texas where Boeing has a big maintenance facility to make final modifications.

They'll need finishing touches because those 20 or more planes are likely to be assembled before the Dreamliner finishes its flight certification testing.

That testing is likely to uncover some modifications that need to be made to the final commercial version to ensure its safety and reliability. Because Boeing doesn't have the room to do the work in Everett, it will fly the planes to Texas where Boeing uses part of a former Air Force base to maintain and modify Air Force planes.

The six flight test aircraft, possible a little worse for wear because of the hundreds of flight test hours on them, will be refurbished to like-new condition in San Antonio, Boeing says.

Boeing Co. and Lockheed-Martin have teamed up to compete with Northrop Grumman on the design of a new manned bomber for the Air Force.

That bomber will be smaller than Boeing's legendary B-52 and will fly at subsonic speeds.

The Air Force wants to put the first one into service by 2018.

The Boeing part of the effort is being led by Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems based in St. Louis.

Boeing and Lockheed have worked together before on the F-22A Raptor fighter, major parts of which are built of composite materials at a Boeing facility at Boeing Field in Seattle.

A bit of aviation history retired in the California desert Thursday.

The plane, a Boeing 767, was infamously known as the "Gimli Glider" because of its harrowing descent to a landing at an abandoned Canadian Air Force Base in Gimli, Manitoba without engine power.

The plane's fuel gauges were inoperative, so the amount of fuel on board had to be measured by putting a dipstick into the tanks. The fuel load was then calculated using a mathematical formula. The problem was the crews used an English rather than metric formula wrongly leading them to believe they had more than enough fuel to reach Edmonton from Ottawa.

Both of its engines stopped from fuel starvation at cruise altitude. Its pilots glided the plane some 120 miles to a landing at the former Air Force base where a go-cart race had just concluded on the runway.

Here's a full account of the incident as well as details of its retirement.

Boeing Co. added 17 orders to its commercial airplane order list this week.

Sixteen of those orders came from Gulf Air. The Mideast airline ordered 787s.

A single order came from an unidentified buyer for a 737 equipped in a business jet configuration.

Those orders bring Boeing's order book in 2008 to 43 aircraft. For full details, go to Boeing's order site.

Now that the new plan for a three-building mixed-use complex on the Thea Foss Waterway has gained Tacoma City Council endorsement, don't expect construction to begin anytime soon.

Ted Johnson, one of the developers of the "Foss Harbor" high-rise complex, told the Thea Foss Waterway Development Authority Wednesday he expects getting the necessary state approvals could take as long as 14 more months.

The residential and retail complex is already some four years in the planning.

Johnson said he and his partner Herb Simon have changed their phasing for the project. Instead of building the north tower first, the developers now expect to build the tallest tower, the 180-foot south tower first.

And that tower may now contain some 40,000 to 50,000 square feet of office space in addition to the upper floor condominiums and lower floor parking.

Their plans now go to the State Department of Ecology for its approval. With a lengthy timeline for scrutiny, Johnson said he expects Ecology will issue its decision on the project early next August. If DOE's decision is appealed, that appeal process could extend the final decision until early April of 2009, he said.

The Simon and Johnson plan calls for three relatively narrow towers on the Foss Waterway's west side north of the East 11th Street Bridge. The northernmost will be 140 feet tall; the middle will reach upward to 160 feet and the southern tower will be 180 feet tall.

The towers' profiles have stirred controversy because of the potential to block views from downtown buildings on the top of the bluff above.

Nine hundred people are in support of a citizens' group request to rezone Port of Tacoma property in Thurston County to make it more difficult to develop.

Friends of Rocky Prairie submitted the list of names to Thurston County last week.

The port has purchased 745 acres near Maytown for a proposed logistics center -- a place to transfer cargo between trains and trucks.

Friends of Rocky Prairie is a citizens' group concerned about the environmental effects the proposed development might have on the area and nearby Millersylvania State Park.

Community activist and FORP member Sharron Coontz filed a request with Thurston County in November to change the zoning of the property to a less dense residential.

The property is now zoned residential and some industrial.

=> Read more!

Frontier Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: FTBK) today announced earnings for the fourth quarter and the year ended December 31, 2007.

Fourth quarter 2007 net income increased 2.7 percent to $18.0 million, compared to net income of $17.6 million for the fourth quarter 2006.

On a diluted per share basis, fourth quarter net income for 2007 was $0.40 per share compared to $0.38 for the fourth quarter 2006, an increase of 5.3 percent.

For the year ended December 31, 2007, net income increased $5 million, or 7.3 percent, to $73.9 million, compared to net income of $68.9 for the year ended December 31, 2006.

On a diluted per share basis, year-to-date net income for 2007 was $1.62 per share compared to $1.52 in 2006, an increase of 6.6 percent.

John J. Dickson, President & CEO of Frontier Financial Corporation, said, “We achieved outstanding earnings in 2007 despite margin compression, a balance sheet restructuring charge in the second quarter of 2007 of $2.5 million and a $3.9 million or 52 percent increase in the loan loss provision.”

The Internal Revenue Service Taxpayer Assistance Centers in Seattle and Tacoma will be expanding service to area taxpayers eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit by opening its doors on three Saturdays next month.

In addition to helping taxpayers who may be eligible for the credit, the extra days and hours are being added to the Seattle and Tacoma IRS walk-in office’s schedule to help lower–income taxpayers with total income of $40,000 or less for return preparation.

EITC is a refundable credit which can result in a refund of more than $4,700 for eligible taxpayers. Taxpayers with incomes of $39,783 or less may be eligible to claim this credit, depending on their filing status.

The Seattle and Tacoma IRS walk-in Taxpayer Assistance Center will be open on Feb. 2, 9 and 16 from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm.

The Tacoma office is located at 1201 Pacific Ave.

Those seeking assistance should being a valid driver's license or photo identification; Social Security cards for all persons listed on the return; dates of birth for all persons listed on the return; all income statements – Forms W-2, 1099, Social Security, Unemployment, or other benefits statements, self-employment records and any documents showing taxes withheld; dependent child care information – payee’s name, address and SSN or TIN; proof of account at financial institution for direct debit or deposit.

The weakening housing market coupled with tighter financing standards took their toll Wednesday on two major projects on Tacoma's Thea Foss Waterway.

The oft-postponed Foss hotel project won yet another delay from the Foss Waterway Development Authority Wednesday evening.

And a lawyer for Tacoma developer Prium Companies told the authority board Prium needs a year's postponement for the execution of sale of property planned for a mixed use office and residential project near the South 21st Street Bridge.

Seattle hotel developer Bob Thurston had told the Foss board that his planned boutique hotel project between Thea's Landing and the Esplanade on Dock Street that his bank now wants him to sell half of the condominiums in the hotel-condo project before it releases construction funding for the building.

The structure as it is now designed has 100 hotel rooms and 22 condos as well as garage and restaurant space.

Foss Hotel

Ironically, Thurston has told the authority, the condos he added to the design two years ago to enhance its bankability are now a detriment to the project. Thurston incorporated those condos to the project when the condo market in Tacoma and the nation was hot and the hotel market was lukewarm. With home sales now weakening, he told the board last month, it would be easier to finance a building that had no condo component.

Thurston and his partners bought the site from the authority in November and had faced a deadline of this month to start construction. The authority board extended that deadline until April 28.

The hotel project, first hatched four years ago, has been delayed numerous times because of issues regarding its financing and design. The board picked a California developer to build out the hotel site and the site of condo building to the north over a rival because that developer promised to build a hotel. The original proposed hotel owner dropped out early on and Thurston, owner of Seattle's Inn at the market, stepped in.

Regarding the proposed office-residential building near the bridge, Prium general counsel Matt Sweeney said the
"tremendous uncertainty" in the market is slowing Prium's plan to construct a new Foss building.

Prium also lacks the shoreline permits needed to start construction. The developer hasn't been pressuring the state to expedite those permits because the market is weak, Sweeney said.

"I didn't see any advantage in saying, 'Run, run run,' when things were getting 'bad, bad,bad," said Sweeney.

The board is expected to consider Prium's request for a year's delay in the purchase date for the site at its February meeting. Prium has already spent some $3 million on the site preparing it for construction, planning the building and seeking permits, according to Prium's chief operating officer.

SeaTac's Alaska Air Group pledged to stay independent today despite industry moves to merge several of the nation's larger airlines.

Alaska Air Group Chairman Bill Ayer said continued independence appears preferable to mergers or sales for the two airlines he heads, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air.

"For us the best future appears to be to remain independent," Ayer said.

Several of the nation's airlines, United, Delta and Northwest in particular, are talking about possible combinations.

A merger with a larger carrier would likely mean a reduction of service to Alaska communities the airline services as well as consolidation issues for the merging airlines' employees and technological systems, he said.

Historically, Ayer said, the promised efficiencies of consolidations haven't panned out for merging carriers because of difficulties with merging labor seniority lists and diverse types of aircraft and information systems.

Ayers' remarks came against a backdrop of better earnings announcements for the full year and the fourth quarter.

In 2007, Alaska Air Group's net profit was $125 million or $3.09 a share compared with a net loss of $52.6 million or $1.39 a share in 2006.

=> Read more!

Alaska Airlines has enhanced its Web site, www.alaskaair.com, with a new on-line tool designed to make it easier for its frequent fliers to find available award seats.

When a frequent flier in Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air's Mileage Plan selects "Award Reservations" on the site and specifies a destination, a new "Award Finder" shows frequent flier award seats available not only on the days the customer specifies but every day of the month the flier selects.

The trick of accessing the "Award Finder" is to check the box that says the flier is flexible with the days he can fly.

Formerly, if a frequent flier didn't find an available flight to his liking on the day he specified, he would have to start a new search for alternate dates.

"We strive to make more award seats available than other carriers," said Rick Rasmussen, Alaska's director of customer loyalty. "Our new ‘Award Finder' makes it even easier to find the best award itinerary available for travel where and when you want to go."

The new tool allows customers to see all award-seat options for one-way and roundtrip itineraries on Alaska and Horizon, including Saver and Peak award seats, coach and first-class seats, and award-sale seats. Customers can book a different award-seat type each way on a roundtrip.

Horizon Air's experiment with air service to Santa Rosa north of San Francisco apparently is showing encouraging results.

The SeaTac-based carrier is adding a daily roundtrip between Santa Rosa and Las Vegas beginning April 24.

That service increase follows the announcement of a second flight flight daily to Seattle beginning April 6.

Once the new flights are in place, Horizon will have six daily flights from Santa Rosa serving Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and Las Vegas.

Horizon began serving the Sonoma County airport last March. Airlines had abandoned the airport after the 9-11 tragedies, and Horizon agreed to experiment with service to Los Angeles and Seattle.

Sonoma County residents otherwise are forced to drive through San Francisco to that city's airport or to Oakland.

Adding another member from the Motor City, the LeMay Museum at last week’s board meeting selected Peter Horbury to join the board of directors.

Horbury is executive director of design at Ford, where he oversees the design strategy and execution of all Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products in North and South America.

He joins Detroit colleagues Scot Keller, staff director of corporate brand and technology communications at General Motors, and Ed Welburn, GM Vice President of global design.

With an automobile design career spanning more than three decades, Horbury has been involved in the design of more than 50 cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles. In 1998, the UK publication Autocar magazine named him “Designer of the Year”.

Horbury began his career with Chrysler UK then moved to Ford. He has served as the executive director of design for the Premier Automotive Group, managing design for Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. Before his work for the Premier Automotive Group, he was also the design director of Volvo, overseeing studios in Sweden, Spain and California.

Born in England, Horbury holds a degree in industrial design from the Newcastle upon Tyne College of Art, a master’s degree in automotive design from the Royal College of Art in London and an honorary doctorate from Northumbria University.

For the seventh time in the seven years it has been nominated, Russell Investments of Tacoma has been named to Fortune Magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

The annual list is primarily compiled using randomly offered employee surveys, which count for two-thirds of the assessment. The other third measures criteria including benefit packages, hiring practices, diversity and training opportunities.

Russell President and CEO Craig Ueland said, “We take pride in being a great place to work both because it is the right way to treat our associates and because it helps us achieve continued success. Being a great workplace helps us attract, retain, and motivate top talent, who, in turn, can thrive at Russell and ultimately help our clients succeed.”

Russell placed 65th on the list. Among other Washington companies recognized were Starbucks, 7th; REI, 34th; Nordstrom, 36th; Seattle law firm Perkins Coie, 55th; and Microsoft, 86th.

Russell joined only 21 other companies on the list that pay 100 percent of associates’ healthcare premiums, and it is one of only 18 companies that offers paid sabbaticals.

Reporter Devona Wells will discuss the prospects for upscale retailers to move into South Sound shopping centers.

The chat follows a story that ran in Sunday's business section on why we don't have a Pottery Barn or Banana Republic or Sephora or a whole list of shops that consumers are begging for.

You can submit questions now for the discussion that will begin at noon today. If you miss the conversation, you can read the transcript.

Faced with growing competition from cheaper rivals, Starbucks Corp. is testing $1 short cups of drip coffee with free refills in its hometown, The Associated Press reports today.

That’s about 50 cents less than an 8 oz. cup of joe the Seattle-based coffee retailer normally charges, though prices vary from store to store.

Small cups of premium coffee at McDonald’s Corp., Dunkin’ Donuts and other lower-cost competitors typically start in the low $1 range, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Starbucks’ new test program today.

=> Read more!

Seattle's Unico Properties LLC has opened its newest building, an 85,000-square-foot, three-story structure on the Allenmore Hospital campus in Tacoma.

Designed by Tacoma's BCRA, the building is constructed to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver standards. The structure was built with sustainable materials, energy-efficient systems and environmentally responsible construction methods, said BCRA.

MultiCare Health System, Allenmore's parent company, is the anchor tenant for the building. It is leasing two floors.

The building houses an outpatient imaging center, a laboratory and office space for internal and family medicine physicians.

The Hotel Murano in downtown Tacoma and the museum on the Thea Foss Waterway are not the only glass-related success stories in the South Sound. There’s another one in Lakewood.

Sound Glass – in business 25 years – will break ground on its future headquarters at 5422 74th St. W. at 2:00 p.m. today. City of Lakewood officials will be on hand for the event, at the former site of the Hartzog Nursery

The company’s $4 million facility will enclose 22,000 sq. ft. says Damon King, marketing manager. The site also includes 10,000 sq. ft. of retail space, available for lease. The facility is expected to open in September.

Sound Glass also operates showrooms in Kent and Bremerton.

Southwest Airlines today joined the parade of airlines moving to install Internet capability on their aircraft.

The Dallas-based airline annnounced it will begin testing a satellite-based connectivity system this summer on four of its Boeing 737 jets.

Southwest will use the same vendor at SeaTac's Alaska Airlines, California's Row 44, to provide the satellite connections.

Alaska will begin testing the Row 44 equipment on one of its aircraft this spring. If the test is successful, Alaska hopes to begin the rollout of the Internet capability late this year or early next year on its 114-plane fleet.

Southwest and Alaska aren't the only airlines dipping their toes in Internet waters. American Airlines announced this week it is equipping a small fleet of Boeing 767s which it uses on transcontinental flights with a cell tower-based Internet system.

Jet Blue Airways is already testing another land-based system, but that system is limited to e-mails and other low-bandwidth uses.

Alaska picked the satellite system because it offers Internet access over the ocean and in remote areas that aren't covered by land-based cell-tower systems. Alaska now flies to Hawaii from Sea-Tac and Anchorage.

Boeing pioneered airborne Internet connectivity with its Connexion system which it sold to several foreign airlines. The Connexion system, however, proved to be too expensive and too heavy for domestic carriers hit by the backlash from the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Boeing dropped out of the Internet business two years ago.

SeaTac's Horizon Air will add its seventh Canadian destination to its route map May 1 when it begins flying between Sea-Tac Airport and Prince George, B.C.

The flight will depart Sea-Tac at 1:20 p.m. and from Prince George at 3:45 p.m. The flight will take an hour and 45 minutes.

Prince George, 471 miles north of Vancouver, is the center of commerce and tourism in Northern British Columbia.

The Horizon flight is the first international connection for city's airport. Horizon will fly the route using a 76-passenger Q400 turboprop aircraft.

Washington Mutual Inc., the country’s biggest savings and loan, today said it slashed 2007 cash bonuses for its top executives, The Associated Press reports.

Stephen Rotella, WaMu’s president and chief operating officer, will receive a bonus of $912,800 for the year, a 71 percent cut from the $3.1 million he got in 2006, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Chief Financial Officer Thomas Casey’s bonus was cut 71 percent to $391,200. James Corcoran, president of WaMu’s retail banking division, will receive $277,100, or 70 percent less than a year ago.

Last week WaMu said Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger would not accept a bonus for the year, after the thrift reported it swung to a $1.87 billion loss, dragged down by the sinking value of its mortgage portfolio and rising defaults and delinquencies. Like other U.S. financial institutions, WaMu has been struggling since summer with turmoil in the housing and credit markets.

In 2006, Killinger’s bonus totaled about $4.1 million.
Washington Mutual also said Tuesday that the executives will forfeit 67.4 percent of their restricted stock awards for the year.

WaMu’s shares added $1.22, or 9 percent, to close at $14.77.

The union that represents more than 20,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers has a new executive director.

The executive board of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) today named Ray Goforth as its new executive director.

Goforth replaces Charles Bofferding, who was forced out last July after 16 years as the union's executive director.

Goforth has served as a union representative and advisor for 10 years at Local 17 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Workers (IFPTE)in Seattle. Local 17 represents engineers working for local and state government.

The SPEEA board received 42 applications for the job. It culled that number to seven for extensive interviews and then reduced the field to three for further scrutiny.

Bofferding's demise at the union triggered six months of political turmoil at SPEEA. Members last fall ousted four executive board members who had ousted Bofferding and elected four to replace them.

The union faces further regular board elections next month. Stabilizing the SPEEA leadership is critical to the union because it faces major negotiations on a new contract with Boeing this year.

Besides Boeing Co. engineers and technical workers in Washington and other states, SPEEA represents engineering and technical workers of Spirit AeroSystems, BAE Systems and Triumph Composite Systems in Washington, Kansas, Oregon, California, Texas and Utah.

Ray Goforth

Just when it looked as if the latest American-Airlines-initiated $40 roundtrip fuel surcharge would stick, Northwest Airlines withdrew its higher fares from computerized ticketing systems Tuesday.

That led to a mass exodus of domestic airlines from the price increase leaving fares basically where they started at midweek last week.

Airline industry watchers say there are counter trends at work: The airline industry wants to raise fares to combat higher fuel bills, but the souring economy is leaving them anxious that higher fares may scare off too many consumers.

A breakthrough order for Airbus with former all-Boeing Hawaiian Airlines may be in jeopardy.

Hawaiian, which flies Boeing 767 and 717s, ordered six Airbus A-330s and six Airbus A-350XWBs in November and took options on a like number of each aircraft.

If the airline buys all 24, the order would be worth some $4.4 billion at list prices.

The airline, unable to reach agreement with its pilots union over the compensation and rules for flying the new aircraft, said late last week it may be forced to cancel the order.

That could force Hawaiian to renew leases on some or all of the 767s it now flies.

Boeing faced a similar cancellation when Air Canada and its pilots couldn't agree on terms for flying new Boeing 787s and 777s. Air Canada cancelled its order, but later renewed it when the airline and its pilots came to agreement.

Vought Aircraft Industries, the Dallas-based aerospace company, recently told our sister paper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram it is solving the problems at its Charleston, S.C. plant that builds parts for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

That new plant has been singled out by Boeing as one of the sources of delays that have pushed delivery of the first 787 out about nine months.

Vought has replaced the leadership at that plant with a former Boeing executive, and Boeing has assigned high-level engineering and production talent to the Vought plant to help cure its production problems.

Vought builds two composite fuselage sections for the Dreamliner in Charleston.

Here's the link for the Star-Telegram story.

The Dreamliner order book continues filling despite problems with Boeing's ability to fill the first orders for the revolutionary airliner on time.

Spanish airline Air Europa today announced orders for eight 787 Dreamliners worth $1.3 billion at list prices.

The Air Europa order had been previously been listed as unidentified on Boeing's orders and deliveries Web site.

Air Europa flies from Spain to destinations in Europe, North Africa and Latin America.

The airline operates a fleet of 38 Boeing jetliners. It acquired purchase rights for eight additional Dreamliners at the same time it placed its firm order.

With new stores nowhere else in Pierce County opening at Uptown Gig Harbor, will shoppers from across the Narrows bridges be drawn to the center or will crossing the bridges – and the prospect of paying a $3 toll – keep away those from nearby Tacoma and University Place?

It seems that $3 is not such a big price to pay if you already make the drive to Seattle or elsewhere for J. Jill or Coldwater Creek. But, on the other hand, it could be more than shoppers want to hassle with.

Uptown Gig Harbor, which has 150,000 square feet of retail opening now through the spring, was built primarily with the Gig Harbor customer in mind. Developer John Hogan told me recently that statistics used to analyze the market did not include any community over the bridges.

“We really just wanted to make sure as a Gig Harbor project it could stand on its own, and if shoppers come from that primary trade area, that’s great. We didn’t know if the toll was going to create an additional artificial barrier or if it would bring down the barrier. Until the movie theater opens, that will be hard to determine,” he said.

The 10-screen Galaxy theater is expected to open next month and will, he said, be the most technologically advanced in the state.

“If there’s anything that will open us to the University Place shoppers, it would be our movie theater,” Hogan said.

Oh, and as previously reported on Biz Buzz, you’ll be able to buy a beer or glass of wine and sip it from your movie seat.

So, any thoughts? Will you be crossing the bridges, and paying a toll, to shop or take in a movie?

US Airways, the last holdout among the major US airlines, joined its competitors over the weekend in imposing a $40 fuel surcharge on roundtrip flights in most markets.

With US Airways on board, that price increase may endure. The latest round of price boosts was started late last week by American Airlines and quickly followed by several other majors.

A similar price move started by United Airlines 10 days ago failed when not all the major players followed suit.

The airlines say the price jumps are necessary to pay the increasing cost of jet fuel.

The fare increases have not been implemented in all markets, particularly in ones where there is extensive competition.

It was a clean sweep for New York area airports to win the dishonor of being the most delay-ridden among the nation's 27 biggest airports last year.

At the bottom of the list was La Guardia Airport with 57.62 percent of its flights arriving on time.

Newark's Liberty Airport came in a close second with just 58.05 percent of its scheduled flights arriving within 15 minutes of their advertised arrival times.

John F. Kennedy Airport had an on-time arrival performance of 59.78 percent according to figures from Flightstats.com of Portland.

Two warm weather airports, Orlando and Phoenix, held top honors on the on-time list. In Orlando, 78.49 of flights were on-time. In Phoenix, the figure was 78.17 percent.

Sea-Tac's performance, 73.39% was above the national average of 71.65 percent.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines rated mid-pack, eighth, among the nation's major national airlines in one-time arrivals last year, new figures from Portland's Flightstats.com show.

Alaska flights were on time 72.27 percent of the time last year. The airline was among the lowest in canceled flights with just 1.86 percent of its 185,991 flights canceled.

Leading the list for on-time performance were two perennial winners, Hawaiian and Aloha airlines, by virtue of the extraordinarily sunny weather in the 50th state.

Among regional airlines, Alaska's sister airline, Horizon Air, was the best with 81.2 percent of its flights arriving on time.

Here's the list of the major national airlines and their on-time percentages for last year:

1. Hawaiian 93.16%
2. Aloha 90.17%
3. Southwest 81.72%
4. Frontier 78.77%
5. Air Tran 77.95%
6. Delta 75.65%
7. Continental 72.95%
8. Alaska 72.27%
9. America West 71.88%
10. Northwest 71.23%
11. United 69.90%
12. Jet Blue 69.32%
13. US Airways 68.70%
14. American 68.34%
15. Midwest 68.31%
16. Virgin Amer. 64.99%

Just to make it clear, which I didn't in my first post, here's how the new Alaska Airlines double mileage deal to two California airports from Seattle works:

Customers qualify by meeting two criteria: Register for double miles at Alaskaair.com.; fly two roundtrips Seattle-Los Angeles or Seattle-San Francisco between March 15 and May 15, 2008.

Then you'll receive double frequent flier miles on each subsequent trip on those two routes from May 16 through the year's end.

Roundtrips to other Bay area or LA area airports don't count either as qualifying flights or double miles flights.

United and Continental airlines today matched a fare increase started by American Airlines and matched by Delta late this week.

That increase, advertised as a fuel surcharge, raises fares by an average of $40 roundtrip. That amount varies in some cases depending on whether there is extensive low-fare competition on the route.

According to FareCompare.com, Continental's fuel surcharge plan is somewhat more complicated than the general fare increases implemented by other airlines.

Its fare increases depend on the passenger's departure date with a $20 surcharge for flights departing on or before June 11, $40 surcharges for peak summertime flights that drop to $20 again Aug. 17.

The fare increase will likely stick if the two remaining large domestic airlines, US Airways and Northwest, go along.

A similar effort to raise fares started by United last week collapsed early this week when not all majors matched it.

Rick Seaney, FareCompare CEO, said Continental and United have also implemented $60 roundtrip increases on a few routes dominated by business travelers where they have little competition.

The Port of Tacoma commission reiterated its partnership with the Port of Seattle on environmental projects at its meeting Thursday.

The commission approved a resolution "reaffirming the port's environmental stewardship policy and collaborative partnership on environmental issues with the Port of Seattle."

The ports have been working together for more than a year on Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy – an effort to reduce maritime emissions that also includes the Vancouver, B.C. Port Authority.

The strategy focuses on reducing Diesel Particulate Matter and greenhouse gases, said Sue Mauermann, the port's director of environmental programs.

=> Read more!

With Homeland Security Secretary Michael Certoff cracking down on border crossing documentation beginning the end of the month, the line for Washington's "enhanced driver's licenses" could be long when the state starts accepting applications Tuesday.

Washington is the first state in the Union to create the kind of super license good for border crossing identification by land and sea from Canada and Mexico in lieu of a passport.

The requirement for a passport, passport card or enhanced license has been put off until June 2009 for land and sea crossings, but having an enhanced license will still help travelers from having to bring their birth certificate with them to the border.

Certoff told the news media this week that border officials no longer will simply accept an oral declaration that a person is an American at the border beginning Jan. 31.

They must have a passport, enhanced license or a drivers license and birth certificate or other document to get into the U.S. by land or sea. Air travelers have had to have a passport for more than a year now.

Don't expect a big celebration for the enhanced drivers license debut. The Department of Licensing has cancelled a big ceremony with Gov. Christine Gregoire scheduled for Monday. It will quietly begin accepting appointments Tuesday to get the license Tuesday at 11 licensing offices across the state.

Each applicant will be photographed and interviewed. They must bring with him identification, proof of citizenship and residency to the interview. The specifics are available at the DOL Web site: http://www.dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/edlproof.html.

After double checking the documentation through various databases, the DOL will issue an enhanced license. Processing may take a week or more.

The extra cost of the new super license will be $15 more than the regular renewal cost of $25. Identification cards will also be available for non-drivers.

Some of the documentation requirements on the DOL Web site appear to be somewhat ambiguous, so expect some delays until the process works out the bugs.

Here are the five licensing offices in the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area accepting appointments for the enhanced licenses:

Parkland: 253-536-6000

Lacey: 360-407-0041

West Seattle: 206-764-4001

Bothell: 425-489-1718

Smokey Point: 360-653-8278

See the DOL Web site for a list of all 11 enhanced driver's license offices.

Boeing's weekly tally of orders through Tuesday shows new orders for two dozen 787 Dreamliners.

Only one buyer, Swiss charter company PrivatAir, is identified.

Those orders bring Boeing's 2008 order totals to 26: the 23 unidentified 787s, the PrivatAir 787, one Boeing 747 business jet and one 777 ordered by Turkmenistan Airlines.

Boeing lists the orders as unidentified until the buyers themselves reveal their identity. That's a very delicate matter. Airlines have reversed orders in the past when someone jumped the gun an prematurely publicized their orders.

I’ll be working this weekend on a story about recession. First off, I’d like to define it – and to do so, I’d like your help.

There are a lot of formal definitions, and they’re easy to find. But I’d like to know how readers define it.

You’ve probably lived through more than one recession. Some people say we’re headed for another one. How will you know? What criteria will you use? How did it feel last time?

What’s a recession?

Please leave a comment or send an e-mail to c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com. Thanks.

I don’t want the week to end without relaying at least a few tidbits of good news - and there was good news this week about inflation hereabouts.

The Department of Labor, in reporting its latest compilation of consumer prices in the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area, said this week that that the cost of clothing, housing, furniture and alcoholic beverages was down for November and December.

Clothing fell 5.7 percent, furniture 1.3 percent, housing 0.2 percent and alcohol 1.4 percent.

Gasoline was down 2.1 percent in December (although it closed up 20.5 percent for the year).

Consumer prices overall, for the two months, rose only a minimal 0.2 percent.

The committee that decides how to apportion the governmental share of gambling revenue from Puyallup Tribe of Indians casinos met yesterday, and the recipients of $2.08 million were announced today.

The tribe is required by a compact to pay 2 percent of its revenue from table games, plus other revenue from slot machines, to local governments. The tribe was required to pay approximately $1.76 million from its 2007 revenue.

Not all requests were granted. The winners included Fife, which will receive $950,000; Tacoma, $847,801; Pierce County, $109,500; Puyallup, 75,000; and the state, $100,000.

“The money is for the impact of the casinos,” said tribal spokesman John Weymer this afternoon. “On top of that, we’ll be giving about $4 million for infrastructure improvements in Fife. The tribe is very aware of its role in the county, and has been more than generous in helping local governments.”

Terry Lee, chairman of the Pierce County Council, agreed. Earlier today, told of the decision, he said, “We really appreciate the relationship.”

The decision on how to divide the required funds was made by a committee comprising tribal representatives as well as those from local governments. Weymer said a formal check presentation ceremony will be held next month.

Amidst a 307-point, 2.5 percent loss by the Dow, Boeing Co. stock continued to weather the company's latest crisis Thursday.

The stock fell 35 cents or about .44 percent Thursday, the day after the company announced a further delay in the production of its 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing said Wednesday the first flight and its first delivery of the revolutionary composite-bodied plane will be delayed another three months. First flight is now set for the end of June and first delivery in the first quarter next year.

One analyst, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.'s Douglas Hamed, raised his rating on Boeing stock to "outperform" from "market-perform."

"A reasonable downside scenario is fully discounted into the share price," he said.

Washington Mutual Inc., the largest U.S. savings and loan, reported its first quarterly loss since 1997 after writing down the value of its home mortgage unit and setting aside $1.5 billion to cover bad loans.

The lender reported a loss in the fourth quarter of $1.87 billion, or $2.19 a share, compared with profit of $1.06 billion, or $1.10, a year earlier, the Seattle-based company said today. The lender, commonly known as WaMu, was expected to post a loss of $1.43 a share according to the average estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Washington Mutual is struggling to return its home-loan division to profitability. The company said Dec. 11 it would write down the value of its home-lending unit by $1.6 billion and slashed its dividend 73 percent. The lender forecast a loss for the quarter, cut staff by 6 percent and sold $3 billion in convertible debt to shore up capital.

“The loss is driven by high reserve ratios and they’ve now declared they will continue to take those high reserve ratios throughout next year,” said Frederick Cannon, an analyst at KBW Inc. in San Francisco. He rates the stock “market perform.”

Washington Mutual fell 93 cents, or 7 percent, to $12.46 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading today, leaving the stock down 72 percent in the past year. Earnings were released after the regular session ended. The lender climbed to $12.85 in late trading. It was the sixth-worst performing stock in the S&P 500 index last year.

If Sea-Tac Airport seemed more crowded to you this year, your instincts were right.

New year-end figures show 1.3 million more passengers used the airport in 2007 than in 2006. The airport's total passenger count surpassed 30 million for the first time. The final tally was 31,296,628.

Domestic traffic rose 3.88 percent, but international traffic jumped at an even higher rate, 9.36 percent, according to airport figures.

Last year's traffic to and from international destinations reached 2,710,809 passengers, 231,984 more than the previous year.

Sea-Tac's busiest airline in 2007 as 2006 was Alaska with 35 percent of the airport's traffic. In second place was Alaska's sister airline, Horizon, with 13 percent of the total traffic. The top 10 with their Sea-Tac total market share:

1. Alaska 35%
2. Horizon 13 %
3. Southwest 8.7%
4. United 8.6%
5. Northwest 6.7%
6. Delta 5.8%
7. American 5.2%
8. Continental 4.4%
9. US Airways 3.1%
10. Hawaiian 1.4%

Here's the top five international carriers at Sea-Tac based and their cross-border traffic:

1. Horizon 703,147
2. Northwest 346,590
3. Alaska 329,148
4. British 245,371
5. EVA 172,921

News of more delays in getting Boeing 787 Dreamliner production up to speed didn't deter a Swiss company from ordering another 787 today.

PrivatAir, a Geneva-based airline charter company ordered its second 787 and secured purchase rights for a third Dreamliner.

"The ever-increasing demand from charter customers for long range, large-cabin aircraft shows no sign of abating, said Greg Thomas, PrivatAir CEO.

The 787 will be equipped in a VIP configuration. At list prices, the order is worth $162 million.

With the PrivatAir order, Boeing has sold 841 Dreamliners.

Boeing announced the third delay in the first 787's first flight Wednesday. The first 787 is now scheduled to leave the ground for the first time in late June. That delay will push first aircraft deliveries into 2009.

This got lost in yesterday's Boeing news but it's still worth noting: John Buller, the chief executive of Tully’s Coffee, has quit after less than a year and a half at the company’s helm, and has been replaced by Carl Pennington, a former executive at the grocery chain Albertson’s Inc.

In a statement announcing the moves late Tuesday, Tully’s did not state why Buller and Chief Financial Officer Kristopher Galvin had resigned, according to The Associated Press.

Tully’s, which employs about 130 people at its Seattle headquarters, said it was trimming its corporate office staff by 14 positions as part of a restructuring.

The privately held company has delayed its bid to go public “due to overall market conditions” and needed less staff as a result, the company said in its statement.

Pennington, 69, is Tully’s sixth CEO since early 2001. He spent more than three decades at Albertson’s, which SuperValu acquired a year and a half ago. He left the company in 2001 and moved to Boise, Idaho, where he runs several Tully’s franchise stores throughout the state.

Buller, 61, joined Tully’s in August 2006 after serving as senior vice president of sales and marketing at The Bon Marche, which Federated Department Stores Inc. renamed Macy’s.

He replaced John Dresel, a former Seattle SuperSonics executive who had led the company for less than two years.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines today moved to defend popular California routes against newcomer Virgin America Airlines.

Alaska announced it will add three new daily flights between Seattle and Los Angeles International Airport beginning April 27 and change its schedule to depart on the hour from Seattle and on the half-hour returning from Los Angeles.

Virgin America, affiliated with Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways, has announced it will begin flying between Seattle and Los Angeles April 8 with three daily flights. It will add a fourth daily flight on May 11.

Virgin America begins flying to San Francisco from Seattle March 18 with three daily flights. United Airlines and Alaska nearly evenly split the San Francisco-Seattle market with 46 and 45 percent of the business respectively.

With the three more trips added in April, Alaska will have 15 daily flights between the Sea-Tac and LA airports. Alaska dominates the Seattle-LA market with 59 percent of the passenger traffic according to Farecast.com.

Alaska will also bolster its Seattle-Orange County schedule with one additional daily trip for a total of nine. It plans to add an additional daily roundtrip to San Diego in June for a total of eight.

The airline also will offer double mileage in six California markets for qualifying fliers. Among those airports are San Francisco (eight roundtrips daily) and Oakland (seven roundtrips a day).

To qualify for the double mileage, Alaska customers must fly two roundtrips either to Los Angeles or San Francisco between March 15 and May 15 and register for the promotion. Qualifying customers will receive double miles on any Alaska flights to Los Angeles or San Francisco from May 16 through Dec. 31.

The Tacoma Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau has a new executive director.

Mike Gommi, chairman of the Bureau board, announced this afternoon that the selection committee has chosen Tammy Blount – currently of Kirkland, lately of Texas and ultimately from Vancouver, Canada, where she was born and where she worked for several years at the Vancouver tourist bureau.

Blount was chosen from among 40 candidates, and was informed of the decision on Tuesday.
“I’m excited because it’s a position that can help the region realize its full potential,” she said this morning. “I want to be part of a community that’s growing.”

She offered no specific plans, preferring instead to wait until she’s had a chance to speak with local leaders and others interested in tourism in the region.

She begins work on Feb 1.

Look for a story in Thursday’s edition of The News Tribune.

It's already been more than five years since Boeing announced the concept plane that became the 787 Dreamliner. If today's new schedule delay holds firm, the time from concept to first delivery will stretch more than six years. Here's a timeline of the 787's development:
BOEING 787 DREAMLINER TIMELINE

December 2002 – Boeing abandons its plans for the Sonic Cruiser and says it will shift its efforts to a mid-sized, super-efficient replacement for the 767.

January 29, 2003 – Boeing selects Mike Bair as head of the program to produce the new airliner, then called the 7E7.

June 12, 2003 – The 7E7 will be the first large airliner with composite fuselage and wings, Boeing announces.

June 15, 2003 – A Boeing worldwide on-line poll gives the 7E7 another name, Dreamliner.

December 16, 2003 – Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Alan Mulally announces Everett will be the final assembly site for the 7E7.

April 26, 2004 – Boeing’s board officially launches the Dreamliner with an order for 50 from Japan’s All-Nippon Airways. The schedule then calls for a summertime 2007 rollout and a spring 2008 delivery of the first aircraft to All-Nippon.

January 28, 2005 – The 7E7 becomes the 787.

Sept. 23, 2005 – Boeing announces firm configuration for the Dreamliner.

Sept. 9, 2006 – The Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter completes first flight. The 747LCF is an oversized 747 designed to transport large sections of the 787 from partner company plants to the Everett final assemble site.

January 16, 2007 – Boeing’s 747LCF, now called the Dreamlifter, delivers the first large pieces of the first 787.

March 14, 2007 – Boeing’s Pierce County plant at Frederickson rolls out the 787’s first vertical fin.

April 3, 2007 – Orders for the 787 surpass 500, a record for a plane that has yet to fly.

May 11, 2007 – First 787 fuselage sections arrive in Everett via Dreamlifter.

May 15, 2007 – The 787’s wings are delivered to the Everett assembly site.

May 21, 2007 – Boeing begins final assembly of the first 787 Dreamliner at its Everett plant.

July 8, 2007 – Thousands watch the Dreamliner ceremony in person in Everett and via satellite at sites around the world. First flight is schedule then for late August or early September.

September 5, 2007 – Boeing’s Mike Bair says the first Dreamliner flight won’t happen until late November or early December. Deliveries are still set to begin in May 2008.

October 10, 2007 - The company reschedules first flight to late March; first delivery in late 2008.

October 16, 2007 – Pat Shanahan replaces Mike Bair as 787 program head.

December 11, 2007 – Progress report from Boeing. Boeing sticks with its schedule.

January 16, 2008 – First flight is postponed until end of June 2008; first delivery until 2009.

Popular clothing retailer H&M has announced plans to locate at Westfield Southcenter. H&M will be among more than 70 new stores and restaurants planned for a massive expansion of the Tukwila mall.

Mall general manager Andrew Ciarrocchi predicts the store’s draw will be far beyond typical. He’s expecting out-of-state H&M customers.

“I have no doubt that people will travel from as far as Portland,” he said, adding that fans of the stores might also swing by after landing at Sea-Tac.

Sweden-based H&M is among a group of retailers known for fast-fashion – merchandise that changes over more frequently than the traditional seasonal cycles and is typically sold at lower prices. (You might recall that fashion icons Madonna and Stella McCartney have designed clothing for the retailer.)

The two-floor, 25,000-square-foot store will be larger than any other store now operating at the mall. And it will also be the biggest of three planned for the Northwest, according to a release from H&M. The others are expected in downtown Seattle and University Village.

H&M plans to open at Southcenter in the fall, after the debut of the mall’s new expansion in late summer.

Highlights from the just completed news conference on the additional delays to the Boeing 787 program:

* Boeing doesn't expect to and doesn't want to announce another first flight delay beyond the new schedule of the end of June.

* Parts shortages are down from thousands to a few dozen on the first Dreamliner.

* The company won't be producing the 109 787s it had promised by the end of 2009. It doesn't know how many yet, but it's working on an answer. Stay tuned.

These hastily called morning teleconferences about more delays to the 787 program are becoming an unscheduled but regular ritual at Boeing.

So, it wasn't surprising that Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Scott Carson posed the question everyone was thinking just minutes ago when he hosted another 787 delay teleconference.

"What's going to be different this time?" he asked rhetorically. Why should we believe that today's delay announcement isn't just another in an seemingly endlessly continuing series of delay proclamations.

His answer:

Boeing's prior predictions were based on theoretical analyses of projected progress on fixing the problems with the first 787. Fancy Boeing intellectual exercises, if you will, about what Boeing's Everett factory should be able to accomplish and how much time it will take.

Today's projections, which add three more months to the first flight schedule, are based not in theory so much as in actual practice.

What Boeing found is that in a factory and production process designed and built to snap together already finished modules into a complete plane, work moves more slowly when it is forced to do things for which it was not designed.

"If there's anything we've learned, it's that we've underestimated how long it takes to complete someone else's work," said Pat Shanahan, the new head of the 787 program.

=> Read more!

The Port of Tacoma staff and commission are aiming to make their meetings more "user friendly."

At its meeting Thursday, the commission will vote on "citizen presentation guidelines," which outline how and when citizens can speak to the commission.

The guidelines aren't necessarily new or all that different from how the port has handled public testimony at meetings in the past.

But the Tacoma port has been criticized by citizens' groups in the past year for not being transparent enough in its decision making.

The citizen presentation guidelines follow other initiatives by the port to allow the public more access to its commission and decision making processes.

The port commission recently voted to televise and Web stream its meetings. The port also temporarily moved the commission meeting time to noon to see if more people would attend.

The guidelines put in writing procedures for addressing the port commission.

For example, people wishing to speak at a meeting will need to register on a sign up sheet and the commission will ask for public comment before it votes on an item.

They are consistent with policies that other local governments have in place, said Julie Collins, the port's director of economic development and government affairs.

"This was part of a natural evolution of thinking about if a person is coming to (a commission) meeting for the first time, then what is the experience for them and how can we make sure it's as user friendly and straightforward as possible," Collins said.

I don't have an electronic copy of the guidelines now, but I'll post one when I get one.

The Port of Tacoma commission meets at noon Thursday at The Fabulich Center at 3600 Port of Tacoma Road.

Amidst all the handwringing about the latest 787 Dreamliner production delay, Airbus somewhat unexpectedly handed Boeing a bit of good news today.

For the second year running, Boeing Co. won the orders derby with its European rival, Airbus.

Airbus announced today that its firm orders for 2007 for new airliners totalled 1,341 compared with 1,413 for Boeing. That's a total of 72 jets difference.

The finish order was somewhat unexpected, though observers had expected a photo finish because Airbus had announced dozens of orders at the November Dubai Air Show.

In the end, Boeing was able to finalize more of its orders than Airbus before Jan. 1, thus winning the crown for the second year.

Both companies set new records for orders in a single year by a wide margin.

Airbus did have some good news about itself in the bragging contest. It built and delivered more airliners last year than Boeing, 453 compared with Boeing's 441. Again a finish line decision.

Both companies are predicting a more normal year for orders in 2008 for a couple of reasons: their production capacity is maxed out for the next four to six years depending on the model of aircraft, and the rush to order from emerging foreign airlines is diminishing.

Still the two companies, even at half the pace of 2007, would have healthy order years this year. As recently as 2003, the orderbooks were increasing only by 250-300 planes a year.

If you were hit financially by recent storms in Western Washington, you may be eligible for assistance from the U.S. Government, whether for low-interest disaster loans or deductions on individual federal income tax returns for losses to homes or vehicles.

The IRS, FEMA and Small Business Administration are inviting people to a free Webinar concerning disaster assistance.

Among the topics:
• Federal tax relief;
• Reporting losses;
• IRS, SBA and FEMA disaster assistance and emergency relief programs;

Date & Time: Thursday, January 31, from 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

=> Read more!

It came as no surprise early today when Boeing Co. announced that the first flight of its 787 Dreamliner would be delayed until the end of June and the delivery of its first commercial 787 until early 2009.

The announcement had been foreshadowed in the aviation press and industry blogs for weeks as reports emerged from Boeing's Everett plant that the assembly of the first plane was moving more slowly than Boeing had hoped.

Monday Boeing spokespersons were issuing a terse "No comment" to reports that the delay was again being extended, an almost sure sign that a new delay was afoot but not yet official.

Early this morning, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Scott Carson issued this statement: "The fundamental design and technologies of the 787 remain sound. However, we continue to be challenged by start-up issues in our factory and in our extended global supply chain."

So now it looks as if the final assembly and ground testing of the first 787 will have taken a year from the time Boeing's partners delivered the major pieces of 787 to Everett last year.

The problems, multiplied by a million, are not unlike we encounter when we buy one of those "some assembly-required" products at the local discount store only to discover that parts are missing and that the pieces don't fit together as neatly as the manual says they do.

Boeing's big suppliers delivered the big composite parts, the fuselage, wings, tail and so forth empty of much of the wiring and plumbing they were supposed to install at their own factories. And to add aggravation, they were missing aerospace-grade fastners and in some cases had substituted ordinary hardware store-grade fastners to hold the plane together for the ceremonial roll-out on July 8.

Boeing still insists that the additional delay, now nine months or so beyond the first projections, will have no impact on its 2007 financial results and no material impact on 2008 earnings.

I suspect the financial analyst community will take issue with that prediction. Boeing faces potential financial penalties from its customers for the delivery delays, and its delay in producing saleable 787s on schedule will no doubt reduce its revenues in both 2007 and 2008.

The big trick will be moving from the year it's taking to assemble the first 787 in Everett to Boeing's projection that when the production bugs are exterminated it will do final assembly of a Dreamliner in just three days.

Tacoma's Mountain Pacific Rail, a Tideflats-based rail repair and construction company, is auctioning all of its rail equipment Thursday morning.

The 28-year-old company got out of the rail business last year and is concentrating on its pipeline inspection service instead, said Mountain Pacific president Jim Ellestad.

Mountain Pacific entered the rail business in 1980 re-railing derailed railroad equipment. The company broadened its business into track repair and maintenance and ultimately into new track construction.

The company laid tracks for Sound Transit both in Tacoma and Seattle.

The auction begins are 10 a.m. Thursday at 3548 Lincoln Avenue. James G. Murphy Inc. is handling the auction.
A catalog of the equipment to be sold is available at the Murphy Web site, www.murphyauction.com

Speaking of franchise opportunities....along with the press release from Gold’s Gym (see below) announcing development in Tacoma, I heard this week from the folks at Royal Restrooms (“A regal portable restroom experience”) of Georgia, who said there was a franchisee in “your area” with whom I might want to speak.

Well, it turns out the franchisee is in Maple Valley, which isn’t quite my area (although it is a nice place to visit in the spring). Still, it sounds like an interesting idea. Upscale porta-loos. Running water. Some even have showers.

Kym McCarty, marketing head at RR, told me today that the company continues to look for franchisees.

FYI, here’s what the facilities look like:

Two historic downtown Tacoma buildings, Old City Hall and 711 Pacific Ave., are now on the sale block.

Old City Hall, once destined to become condominiums and then shifted to offices, is being offered for $6.95 million.

Old City Hall

The 711 Pacific Avenue Building, perhaps best known as the site of the Matador restaurant, has a sale price of $4.65 million.

The owners' plans to convert Old City Hall to condos was thwarted when office tenants with longer leases couldn't come to agreement with the building owners about a buy-out of the remainder of their leases.

Old City Hall, once the seat of Tacoma's municipal government, was converted in the '70s to a vertical shopping center, but gradually reconverted to offices as the shopping center died out.

The building's owners had started to renovate the building at 625 Commerce St. to up-scale offices, but have slowed the work pending a possible sale.

The two-floor 711 Pacific Avenue building has been completely renovated.

Old City Hall's offering is being handled by Colliers International while GVA Kidder Mathews is offering 711 Pacific Ave.

Gold’s Gym is looking for franchisees in Tacoma. A recent press release across my desk (which led to a recent blog item on the subject) said Gold’s Gym “announces development plans for Tacoma.” However, after a quick conversation with the senior vice president of franchising, Keith Albright, in Dallas, it turns out that the company isn’t actually announcing specific plans.

“Tacoma is a market we identified late last year,” Albright told me earlier today. “We identified 20 or so markets across the country we thought were high priority targets. We’re endeavoring to move into the Tacoma area.” Hence the pitch for franchisees.

Gold’s has around 30 gyms in Washington, Albright said. Surprisingly. there are also five in Cairo, Egypt; 11 in Lima, Peru; and others in India, Indonesia, Russia, Poland and other countries.

Albright promised to call when actual development plans are due to be announced.

Once the gym is ready to open, here’s what it might look like:

The City of Tacoma is suing the Spirit of Washington for breaching a contract to operate a dinner train between Freighthouse Square and Lake Kapowsin.

The Renton-based company signed a 10-month contract with the city last year to run its dinner train on Tacoma Rail tracks toward Mt. Rainier.

The agreement stipulated that the Spirit of Washington would pay the city – via Tacoma Rail – for use of its rail infrastructure, equipment, staff and storage space.

Tacoma city council members and business leaders greeted the dinner train with much excitement. Some hoped that it would get the city closer toward creating a tourist train to the mountain.

The Spirit of Washington train began offering trips in August, but then abruptly stopped the service on Oct. 28.

The city is seeking more than $105,000 in damages, mostly money owed for the use of Tacoma Rail's infrastructure and staff.

=> Read more!

Air Pacific has ordered three more Boeing 787 Dreamliners to add to the five 787s it already had on Boeing's order book.

The Fiji-based airline ordered the three additional twin-engine, long-range aircraft last year, but Boeing had the buyer listed as unidentified until now.

The 787s will replace and expand the airline's fleet of two Boeing 747-400s and one Boeing 767-300ER. The purchase of eight Dreamliners is worth more than $1 billion at list prices. It's the largest single capital purchase in the history of the South Pacific nation.

The aircraft will be powered by General Electric engines.

Boeing Co. stock lost nearly five percent of its value Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal today joined the chorus of media and aviation insiders predicting that Boeing would once again postpone the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing stock closed at $77.86, down $3.81 or 4.67 percent Tuesday. The stock continued to decline in afterhours trading. In late afternoon, the stock was trading at $77.35 a share, a 52-week low. Boeing stock traded as high as $107.83 a share in 2007.

The Journal said the Dreamliner's wiring and instrumentation is still not fully installed on the initial plane and that the project is still hectored by parts shortages.

Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said the company had no comment on the reports of further delays.

The publication predicted the first flight could slip from the currently officially scheduled late March timeframe to as late as June.

The 787's first flight has already been delayed several times. It was originally set to take its first flight from Everett's Paine Field in late August last year.

Boeing gave unprecedented power to its contracting partners on the Dreamliner, a move that so far has left Boeing lagging seriously behind its schedule when they failed to deliver completed major subassemblies.

If the first flight is again delayed, it could push the delivery of the first aircraft into 2009 and reduce the number of 787s (109) the aircraft maker had promised to deliver in 2008 and 2009 together.

Those late deliveries could trigger penalty payments from Boeing to the airlines that ordered the planes and reduce Boeing's projected revenues for both 2008 and 2009.

Washington's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 4.8 percent last month from 4.7 percent in November, the state's Employment Security Department reported today.

The state also added 7,100 jobs in December.

The average unemployment rate for 2007 was 4.7 percent – the lowest annual jobless rate for the state since it began compiling the data in 1976.

“Washington’s record year of low unemployment, even when a lot of the nation is seeing set-backs, shows that we’re making good decisions and doing right by businesses in this state,” said Governor Chris Gregoire. “It is heartening to go into a new year with such a strong economy.”

Professional and business services added 3,100 jobs across the state in December, their largest monthly increase since December 2000.

The weakest major industry sectors were retail trade, down 1,700, and financial activities, down 600.

Read more about the state and Pierce County unemployment numbers in Wednesday's business section.

Weyerhaeuser Co. is selling its European engineered wood products operations to Finnforest of Finland.

Terms of the sale of Weyerhaeuser's iLevel operations in Europe were not disclosed, The Associated Press reports.

Customers of iLevel include wholesale distributors, building material dealers, structural systems suppliers and industrial manufacturers.

The deal covers about 30 personnel in sales and technical support, as well as supply commitments for iLevel's wood products brands in Europe.

Weyerhaeuser iLevel Vice President Carlos Guilherme says the deal will allow iLevel to concentrate on business in North America.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a list of exemptions that taxpayers should avoid, so if you’ve heard of some cockamamie exemption from this year’s income taxes, watch out.

Those scams and schemes don’t work. The Internal Revenue Services says that some people keep trying, and if they do submit frivolous claims, there’s a penalty.

In 2006, Congress increased the penalty for frivolous tax returns from $500 to $5,000. The increased penalty amount applies when a person submits a tax return or other specified submission, and any portion of the submission is based on a position the IRS identifies as frivolous.

The four new frivolous claims pertain to the following:

• Misinterpretation of the 9th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution regarding objections to military spending;
• Erroneous claims that taxes are owed only by persons with a fiduciary relationship to the United States or the IRS;
• A nonexistent “Mariner’s Tax Deduction” (or the like) related to invalid deductions for meals;
• Certain instances of misuse or excessive use of the section 6421 fuels credit.

Carlile Transportation Systems – one of Alaska's largest trucking companies – has named Linda Leary its new president.

Leary now works out of the Anchorage-based company's Tacoma office as Carlile's vice president of sales and marketing.

Carlile's main business is getting cargo to and around Alaska.

The company's fleet of trucks hauls everything from construction equipment to frozen food from the Lower 48 to the northernmost state.

Its logistics department also manages and tracks complicated transports that could include trucks, trains and ships for the company's customers.

Carlile built a 60,000-square-foot terminal in Tacoma's Tideflats and moved from Federal Way into the new facility about two years ago.

Leary joined the company in 1985. She earned a Masters in Global Supply Chain Management from the University of Alaska and an undergraduate degree from the University of Maine.

“Linda has been instrumental to the growth of Carlile over the past 23 years and she has the unwavering support of the board of directors and our 635 employees,” said co-founder and current Carlile president Harry McDonald.

McDonald will remain the company's chief executive officer. Leary will relocate to company's headquarters in Anchorage and begin her new position March 1.

Amazon.com will make an appearance at the Super Bowl.

The Associated Press reports that come Super Bowl Sunday, the online retailer will get a leg up in the digital music race it’s running against Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store.

And not just any leg: Justin Timberlake’s leg.
The boy band heartthrob turned Grammy-winning R&B singer will appear in a spot for Pepsi, kicking off a yearlong $1 billion giveaway of MP3s, CDs, videos, consumer electronics and other items on Amazon.

Back in 2004, PepsiCo Inc. and Apple forged a similar partnership, which started with an iTunes Super Bowl commercial promoting legal music downloads, to the tune of Green Day’s version of “I Fought the Law.” The companies gave away 100 million free iTunes downloads that, with rising iPod sales, helped push Apple to the forefront of the digital music industry.

Working with Amazon this year is a big deal for Pepsi, which said it will spend more on its “Pepsi Stuff” advertising campaign than on any past marketing effort.

For Amazon.com Inc., the arrangement could mean even more.

In September 2007, Amazon launched a digital music store and committed to sell only MP3-format tunes, which can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto an unlimited number of CDs and played on most portable devices, including Apple’s iPod and Microsoft Corp.’s Zune.

=> Read more!

I didn’t want to let the passing of Kaz Nakamura go without notice from The News Tribune. I wrote an article a few years ago that mentioned his contributions, and I’ve watched his legacy grow.

Nakamura, 80, was the first employee of Rushforth Construction. Founder Bill Rushforth - who started the company in Tacoma with $500 and a ‘40 Ford pickup – went looking for help at the carpenter’s union hall. There he found Kaz. That was in 1952.

Nakamura died on Jan. 9th.

Born in Fife and a 1947 graduate of Fife High School, Nakamura spent much of World War with other Japanese in a U.S. concentration camp.

He retired as superintendent in 1989, and the business has passed to his sons. I wrote in 2001 that the company had its beginnings “building a few gas stations around town and a car wash on 38th Street.”

Today, Rushforth has grown into one of the region’s most respected construction companies. Several recently restored buildings in downtown Tacoma bear witness to the care Rushforth gives to its work - and the company’s reputation, as well as its future, have come in great part thanks to Kaz Nakamura’s hard work and example.

Join our conversation about the proposed retail project on Bridgeport Way. You know, the construction site you pass on your way to Trader Joe's or the Lakewood Mall. Dan will be online until 1 p.m. but you can check back during the day to see his answers.

The conversation follows a column Dan wrote in Sunday's paper.

SeaTac's Horizon Air will add a second daily round trip between Seattle and Santa Rosa, Calif. beginning April 6, the airline announced today.

The airline already serves Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco in Sonoma County, with a single daily roundtrip to Seattle and another to Portland. It also connects Santa Rosa with Los Angeles.

The airline will use 74-passenger Bombardier Q400s on the flights, which will be seasonal with service reverting to Horizon's winter schedule on Oct. 27.

The new seasonal flight will depart from Seattle at 5:55 p.m. and from Santa Rosa at 8:35 p.m. The flight duration is two hours and 10 minutes.

Horizon began Santa Rosa flights a year ago after other airlines had abandoned the airport after the 9-11 terrorist tragedies and their subsequent downturn in air traffic. The Santa Rosa service saves Sonoma County residents a lengthy commute to either San Francisco or Oakland airports.

Bahrain's Gulf Air ordered 16 Boeing 787 Dreamliners this week, the first major order for Boeing this year.

At list prices, those 787s are worth $4 billion. The Mideast airline also took options for eight more of the super-efficient jets. If Gulf Air exercises that option, it could raise the transaction value to $6 billion.

Including the Gulf Air order, Boeing has 18 aircraft orders in January. The two others are a Boeing Business Jet for an undisclosed buyer and a 777 for Turkmenistan Airlines.

The delivery of the first Dreamliner to Gulf Air is set for 2016. Boeing already has orders for more than 800 Dreamliners before the first of the new jets flys.

That first flight is scheduled for late March, but some analysts predict that schedule will slip further.

Boeing Co. released a new study today showing that if the Air Force picks its 767AT aerial tanker over Airbus' rival A330 tanker, the Air Force will save $14.6 billion in fuel costs over 40 years.

The study by Conklin & de Decker, an independent research firm hired by Boeing, claims the 767 aerial tanker fleet will consume 24 percent less fuel than a fleet of A330s.

The study's release was clearly a counter shot to Northrup Grumann's planned announcement today that Airbus will produce A330 freighters in Mobile, Ala., along with A330 tankers should the Air Force give it the $40 billion tanker contract. Northrup Grumman is working with Airbus and its corporate parent, EADS, on the tanker proposal.

The new study compares published data from commercial aircraft, the Boeing 767-200ER and the Airbus A330-200, from the which the tankers will be derived.

In a quick reading of the study, however, its authors don't seem to consider the fact that the A330 tanker will be a larger airplane than the 767AT and thus may need fewer flights to deliver the same amount of fuel to fighters and other aircraft.

The Air Force could make a decision on the tanker contract early this spring.

Here's one of the stories I'm working on today - for all you South Sound fitness fans.

Word has it that Gold's Gym - which has 19 locations in Washington - will soon be adding three locations in Tacoma.

Stay tuned.

Fred Kiga, former director of corporate and government relations with Tacoma's Russell Investments, has been named a Boeing Co. vice president.

Fred Kiga

Kiga, who joined Boeing last year as director of state and local government relations, is now vice president of state and local government relations and global corporate citizenship, Boeing said.

He replaces Bob Watt, who retired from Boeing at the end of 2007.

Before joining Russell, Kiga was director of the Washington State Department of Revenue and later chief of staff to Gov. Gary Locke.

Prior to working with the state, Kiga was a senior manager with the Seattle office of Arthur Anderson and vice president of Washington Mutual Bank.

Her serves on the Board of Regents of the University of Washington from which he has earned three degrees: bachelors and masters of business administration and a law degree.

EADS, parent company of Boeing rival Airbus, will announce Monday it will begin building its A330F commercial freighter at its new Mobile, Ala. plant if the Air Force awards it the contract for airborne tankers, the Mobile Press-Register reported today.

The announcement is the latest shot in the political war between Boeing and Airbus and its U.S. partner, Northrop Grumman, to win support for their entry in the contest to build the new tankers.

Northrop and Airbus are proposing a modified version of the Airbus A330 airliner. Boeing is proposing a military version of its 767 airliner which is built in Everett.

The Airbus plane is a newer design than the 25-year 767, but Boeing has had the hometown advantage because that plane is designed and built in the U.S.

Northrop and Airbus bought a site in Mobile to produce their tanker to deflect criticism that they were selling a European product.

EADS has other reasons to move some production to the U.S. The European company is suffering financially because airliners are sold in U.S. dollars, while most of Airbus' costs are in euros. The decline of the dollar versus the euro has made Airbus costs higher while Boeing's dropped.

If Airbus produces or buys more in the U.S., it can take advantage of the weak dollar.

Comes a call from a worried reader. She says she loves Home Pride bread as baked in the South Sound by Interstate Brands and sold at the Hostess bakery outlet on Tacoma's Hilltop – the one that's closed.

It's the brick building at 1720 So. 7th St., near the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Sprague.

She's correct - the store has closed. The building has been sold. But what are lovers of Home Pride, Wonder Bread and Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Suzy Q's, Cup Cakes and Sno Balls to do?

A call to Interstate Brands in Lakewood sends me to the Wonder Bread Thrift Store at 10014 Pacific Ave. The manager, Mr. Bill, explains that the Tacoma outlet is indeed closed. But he's open.

And he's got bread.

Electrical power generated by the wind and transmitted over Bonneville Power Administration lines has surpassed 1,000 megawatts peak capacity, BPA said today.

A thousand megawatts is enough to power some 680,000 Northwest homes and is equivalent to a normally-sized coal-fired power plant.

The capacity to generate windpower started slowly in the '90s but has expanded sharply in the last three years.

Until the fall of 2005, the windpower generation capacity in the region was less than 250 megawatts. By December that year, the windpower generation had jumped to 475 megawatts. By 2006, the wind capacity had reached 775 megawatts. By November of 2007, the peak windpower capacity had surpassed 1,000 megawatts.

Northwest power planners see the region's windpower capacity growing to 5,000 megawatts over the next two decades, the BPA said.

In the wake of a state audit of the Port of Seattle that found the port wasted $97.2 million in public funds, initiative king Tim Eyman is pitching a voter initiative to eliminate the port.

He revealed a few details of the initiative during the question-answer portion of the Seattle City Club legislative preview today.

This from Eyman:

When we do our initiative on this, here’s the approach we’ve decided to offer King County voters:

1) The initiative transfers all port operations and responsibilities to the King County government, eliminating the Port Commission, its five commissioners, and its staff.

2) The savings from this consolidation allows the immediate elimination of the Port’s property tax levy; and

3) It requires the State Auditor to regularly investigate and monitor King County’s new port responsibilities and regularly report to the public on its operations.

=> Read more!

Washington Mutual, the U.S. savings and loan slammed by slumping mortgage markets, has held "very preliminary" merger talks with JPMorgan Chase, CNBC is reporting today.

No deal is imminent but the talks were held fairly recently. CNBC isn't revealing its sources but says that JP Morgan also may be interested in two other regional banks, Suntrust Banks and PNC Financial Services, and is likely to acquire one of the three sometime this year.

Washington Mutual's shares closed at $14.69, up 53 cents or 3.74 percent.

A Chicago developer and a California teachers' pension fund have paid $21 million for a 260-acre tract in DuPont where they plan a new business park.

First Industrial Realty Trust Inc and the CalSTERS pension fund bought the acreage which has expansive views of Puget Sound around an 18-hole golf course.

The partners plan to build a $1 billion corporate park that will include both offices and high-tech manufacturing activities.

Weyerhaeuser Real Estate has spent more than three decades developing DuPont into a residential and office community. While the residential development at what the company called Northwest Landing has boomed, the office and industrial part of the development has lagged after initial successes attracting Intel and State Farm Insurance.

The development is the site of a former dynamite plant operated by E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. DuPont acquired the 3,200-acres in 1906 and began dynamite production three years later. The chemical company built a village to house workers on the site.

DuPont rented the houses in the town to workers until 1951, when it allowed workers to buy them. The plant site was so large because the company feared accidents that could cause huge explosions that could devastate nearby homes and business if they were located too close to the plant.

Today’s the day - for those of you who want to get your income taxes into the system and out of the way.

This morning, the Internal Revenue Service began accepting electronically submitted tax returns.

Last year, according to IRS spokeswoman Judy Monahan, approximately 55 percent of individual income tax returns from Washington were filed electronically. In total, over 2.9 million individual returns were filed from Washington, with over 1.6 million filed online.

Taxpayers may use IRS e-file through their tax preparer, or with a computer using tax preparation software. This software is available on the Internet for online use or for download.

As many as 13.5 million taxpayers who use five forms related to the Alternative Minimum Tax legislation will have to wait to file tax returns until the IRS completes the reprogramming of its systems for the new law.

Taxpayers who use the following forms should wait until then to file: Form 8863, Education Credits; Form 5695, Residential Energy Credits; Schedule 2, Form 1040A, Child and Dependent Care Expenses for Form 1040A Filers; Form 8396, Mortgage Interest Credit; and Form 8859, District of Columbia First-Time Homebuyer Credit.

For more information, visit the IRS at www.irs.gov.

Port of Tacoma commissioners are not enthused about a legislative proposal to merge the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett into one Puget Sound Port Authority.

It was the first topic broached by Sean Eagan, the port's state government affairs manager, today during a commission study session on the port's legislative agenda.

Commissioner Ted Bottiger said that Tacoma has "a lot to lose" when it comes to the bill, especially in terms of the tax levy that the commissioners often tout for remaining unchanged.

=> Read more!

We’re looking for local shoppers and their opinions on the retail make up of the South Sound. Would like to see some of the high-end retailers you can only find in Seattle and Bellevue, such as Pottery Barn, Banana Republic, Williams-Sonoma and Crate & Barrel? Or is the local shopping scene fine just as it is?

Please contact business reporter Devona Wells at devona.wells@thenewstribune.com or 253-597-8652.

It turns out that you’re angry about cell phones and curious about games.

The Better Business Bureau in DuPont has released its annual list of the region's Top 20 inquiries and complaints.

Leading the complaint column:
1. Cellular telephone service and supplies
2. Computer software and services
3. Internet shopping services
4. Internet services
5. New car dealers
6. Collection agencies
7. Travel agencies and bureaus
8. Banks
9. Magazine sales
10. Auto repair and service

Among the top inquiries:
1. Games and supplies
2. Internet services
3. Market survey companies
4. Computer software and services
5. Roofing contractors
6. Real estate loans
7. Work-at-home companies
8. Internet shopping services
9. Movers
10. Retail jewelers

Good news for those of us trying to lose weight in 2008. USA Today reports that Starbucks is hyping its "Skinny" lattes.

From a story posted Wednesday

The coffee chain has big plans to roll out "lighter" products in 2008, says Michelle Gass, senior vice president of global products.

This month's are Skinny lattes and mochas, 90 calories because they're made with non-fat milk, sugar-free syrup and no whip. "A latte is not a big indulgence when it's only 90 calories," Gass says. At lunch, Starbucks is introducing 330-calorie Chicken Bruschetta sandwiches.

Other restaurants also are offering light versions of their food, USA Today reports.

Jack in the Box launched low-cal chicken strips. Cheesecake Factory rolled out light salads. Applebee's says Weight Watchers menu sales could jump 8 percent. Panera Bread is selling half-sandwich and half-salad combos. Sonic's fat-free Double Berry Smoothies are new.

Turns out the holidays weren't so merry for many retailers including Target and Macy's. But Costco went its own way with a better-than-expected shopping season.

The Issaquah-based company reported a 7 percent increase in same-store sales, better than the 5.6 percent estimate.

Many other merchants failed to meet their already lowered sales projections during December, and their performance during this critical sales period led some stores to reduce earnings outlooks for the fourth quarter, The Associated Press reports.

Nordstrom Inc. said same-store sales fell 4 percent last month. The Seattle-based retailer said total sales for the five weeks ended Jan. 5 fell to $1.22 billion, down 3.8 percent from a year earlier.

The weak retail market added one more reason for investors to be pessimistic about the economy. The weaker-than-expected holiday sales came as consumers cut their spending due to higher energy prices and the ongoing housing slump.

=> Read more!

Galaxy Theaters, the Sherman Oaks, Calif., chain that's opening a new digital super theater in Gig Harbor's new Uptown Gig Harbor lifestyle shopping center next month, may designate one of its 10 screens as "adults only."

That's the word from Uptown Gig Harbor developer John Hogan.

"Adults only" doesn't mean the screen will play NC-17-rated features, but rather it will be restricted to patrons over 21 who don't want the on-screen dialogue to compete with crying babies or restless teens.

There's a possibility, too, that the theater may serve something stronger than the ordinary Coke, Sprite and bottled water to its patrons if they wish.

While serving mixed drinks to movie patrons is unusual in this country, it's not uncommon in some European countries where martinis there are as common as buttered popcorn here.

The idea isn't unknown in the Puget Sound area either. The two Big Picture movie venues in downtown Seattle and Redmond have bars in the lobby.

The adults concept is designed to lure back to theaters Baby Boomers who have abandoned first-run movies for the comfort of the big screens at home.

Boeing Co.'s schedule for the first example of the 787 Dreamliner is about three weeks behind its extended timeline, says a well-connected industry blog.

The plane, which Boeing says will make its first flight at the end of March, is proving more troublesome than expected because of the problems of parts shortage and work left undone by major suppliers, says Flightblogger.

The 787's debut flight has already been delayed from August, then September, then November and now March because of those problems.

Boeing delayed the whole program by six months in December to allow its suppliers to catch up with unfinished work.

Flightblogger's Jon Osterow says much of the problem remains in Charleston, S.C. where Vought and Alenia are building major fuselage sections in new plants with new employees.

Boeing stock was bumping around close to $82 a share this morning. That's about $25 a share less than its 52-week high.

With all the talk of a weak economy and Tacoma losing its luster as a place to conduct business, it’s good to hear from a company – especially a manufacturer – that plans to stay and grow hereabouts.

I spoke this morning with Jeff Wax, vice president of Northwest Steel & Pipe Inc.
Last October, the company sealed a $6.8 million deal for 15 acres and a handful of buildings at 52nd Street and South Proctor – that’s in the South Tacoma industrial area off South 56th near South Tacoma Way.

“We’re going to develop the property,” Wax said.

=> Read more!

Southwest will add an additional flight each to Chicago's Midway Airport and to Salt Lake City from Sea-Tac Airport beginning May 10.

The new flights are part of a system-wide schedule adjustment Southwest announced today in Dallas. That schedule shake-up eliminates 40 existing flights and adds 49 more.

Most of the flights Southwest is eliminating are in markets where the airline has many flights. The airline, for instance, is cutting two daily flights from Chicago to Las Vegas. After the cut, it will still have 10 daily flights between the cities.

Oakland loses many flights, but again, those cutbacks in all cases will still leave Southwest customers with many choices. The airline, for instance is cutting back by two the daily flights between Oakland and Los Angeles. That still leaves 18 daily flights between those cities. Southwest is also eliminating two daily flights from Oakland to Burbank, leaving 15.

The Dallas-based carrier is not eliminating any flights originating in Seattle.

The big winner in the schedule changes is Denver where Southwest is adding a handful of cities. Southwest begins flying from Denver to Los Angeles five times daily. Likewise it adds Philadelphia (two flights), Raleigh (one flight), San Antonio (one flight), San Jose (one flight), and St. Louis (three flights) to its Denver route map.

After shunning Denver for years because of high airport costs and competition, Southwest reentered that market two years ago and steadily has expanded its presence, putting pricing pressure on the two dominant Denver airlines, Frontier and United.

The schedule adjustments are part of Southwest's effort to squeeze out an additional $1 billion from its network this year.

Peninsula residents can forget about making the trek across the bridges. In case you haven't noticed, Gig Harbor is becoming the business center of Key Peninsula and even south Kitsap County.

Witness these recent developments:

* Construction and opening of such big box retailers as Target, Office Depot, Petco, Home Depot and Costco.

* Last summer's debut of the luxuriously equipped Gig Harbor YMCA.

* The ongoing construction of the 80-bed St. Anthony Hospital and an adjacent 85,000-square-foot medical office building. The hospital's construction is just the latest battle in the war between Tacoma's two big hospitals for business on the Peninsula. Multicare recently fired a salvo in that war with the opening of its lodge-like medical center complex on Point Fosdick Drive.

* The roll-out of Pierce County's first upscale "life-style" center, Uptown Gig Harbor, with such high-end retailers as Chico's, Ann Taylor and Coldwater Creek in town-like setting.

* The planned mid-February premiere of the new Gig Harbor Galaxy theater equipped with digital projectors, surround sound and multiple screens.

Why the sudden explosion of new commercial construction?

Gig Harbor developers and planners discuss why on Sunday's News Tribune Business page.

Trader Joe’s has begun phasing out some products from China, according to a report from the Arizona Daily Star.

The Daily Star reports that:

The discount natural-foods retailer has discontinued single-ingredient items from mainland China but will continue to carry products that have an ingredient from China in their makeup.

The company planned to find alternative sources for such products by Jan. 1, according to a statement e-mailed by company spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki. Affected products include edamame, or fresh green soybeans, and others.

“Safety is of utmost importance to Trader Joe’s,” Mochizuki said in the e-mail. “We are diligent in making sure that all our products sold in our stores meet if not exceed USDA and FDA guidelines. We feel confident that all of our products from China meet the same high quality standards that we set for all of our products. However, our customers have voiced their concerns about products from this region, and we have listened.”

=> Read more!

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a special alert today warning that counterfeit cashier’s checks bearing the name Bank of Astoria are in circulation.

“The counterfeit items are reportedly associated with a mystery shopper scam and a consumer prize reward scam,” the agency said in a morning release.

The FDIC said the counterfeit items display rounded corners and a security feature statement embedded in a darkened top border and along the bottom border between two padlocks. Authentic checks have square corners and display a padlock icon and security statement to the right of "DOLLARS." The bank's logo, name and "122 Duane, Astoria, Oregon 97103" appear in the top center. "REMITTER" is printed in the top-left corner.

The FDIC recommends that anyone with information concerning the bogus checks should contact Bank of Astoria Vice President and Regional Operations Manager Sue Piaskoski at spiaskoski@bankofastoria.com.

Tacoma-based Columbia Banking System, parent of Columbia Bank, bought Bank of Astoria in 2004 for $45.8 million.

Microsoft founder is leaving the company's day-to-day operations this summer and spoke for the last time at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this week.

During his speech, he showed a video about his coming retirement and the quest to find a new hobby. There are some laugh-out-loud moments. The movie shows Bill seeking jobs with people such as Bono, George Clooney, Jon Stewart and Hillary Clinton. He makes fun of his physical fitness and his skills at Guitar Hero.

A news release from Tri-Film, the Kirkland company that created the movie, describes the film this way:

The video, called “Bill’s Last Day,” is Gates’ riotous spoof illustrating how he might spend his last full day at Microsoft, and his relentless pursuit of a new “day job.” Since it aired yesterday morning at the Show, hundreds of thousands have viewed audience-attending, bootleg tapes of the video, uploaded onto popular Internet site, YouTube.com.

During Gates’ keynote speech, he explained it will be the first time since he was 17 years old he wouldn’t be working full-time at Microsoft come July. “I’m not sure what that last day is going to be like, so I asked some friends to help me prepare for that, and we got together and did a little video,” he said, smirking on stage and cueing the Tri-Film short before a live audience of thousands.

A check on You Tube shows that this video has been viewed 500,000 times since Monday.

Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s biggest savings and loan, fell to the lowest since 1995 in New York trading and the risk of default on its debt jumped on renewed concern about the slumping U.S. mortgage market, Bloomberg News reports.

The company fell $1.81, or 14 percent, to $10.93 at 9:13 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The Seattle-based thrift has declined 76 percent in the past 12 months.

Washington Mutual plans to report a fourth-quarter loss and write down the value of its home-lending unit. The company is shutting 190 loan offices, reducing the staff about 6 percent and slashing its dividend as bad loans continue to rise. Last month it sold $3 billion of convertible preferred bonds to shore up capital.

“The company will ultimately need to take further charges for its loans and securities portfolios,” analyst Jim Bradshaw of D.A. Davidson & Co. wrote in a Jan. 7 research note. Washington Mutual “may need to further augment capital along the way given current market conditions.”

The Nasdaq fell 2.36 percent today - down 58.95 points - but don't blame Brian Vance. Just because he rang the opening bell doesn't mean he has any responsibility for what traders did.

Vance, president and CEO of Heritage Financial Corp., was in the Biggest Apple to celebrate the Olympia company's 10 years on the Nasdaq exchange.

I spoke with Vance earlier today, and I'm working on a story for tomorrow's paper. And just to put things in perspective, Heritage, which trades as HFWA, was down 0.8 percent on the day, much better than the peer group, which was down a collective 1.1 percent.

That's Vance in the middle of the photo, flanked by Nasdaq officials, with SVP and former CFO Ed Cameron on the far left and current SVP and CFO Don Hinson on the far right.

The Bingham Family and Park Place Motors of Bellevue have added to the capital campaign at the LeMay Museum with a pledge of $250,000. The pledge, part of the “Drive for America’s Car Museum,” was presented by David Bingham, chairman and CEO of Park Place Ltd.

In recognition for the gift, Bingham will select a room to be named for Park Place Motors in the new museum.

Plans remain in place to break ground for the facility this year and open by 2010.

“Park Place Motors joins the ranks of other key companies and organizations in the automotive industry that sponsor the museum, and we’re delighted at this generous gift given to help us complete the first stage of the campaign,” said David Madeira, LeMay president and CEO.

Park Place is the West Coast’s largest luxury, sports and special-interest automobile dealership, and features brnads including Aston Martin, Spyker, Shelby and Lotus along with pre-owned Porsches, exotic and collector cars.

“Their customers comprise a vital component of our growing audience within the collector and enthusiast communities,” Madeira said.

The cost of Pierce County hotel rooms rose at a rate higher than the rate in any other region in the state in November – while the county’s occupancy rate fell at a rate likewise higher than any other.

The occupancy rate in Pierce County was 59.6 percent, down 5.3 percent from November 2006. Statewide, the occupancy rate was 66 percent, down 0.6 percent from a year before.

Occupancy rates fell in five state regions, and rose in five. Southwest Washington saw the largest increase, up 6.9 percent, according to Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood.

The average daily room rate in Pierce County, $80.37, was up 17 percent from November 2006. Statewide, rates were up 5.8 percent – to an average of $120.54. All regions showed an increase for the month, with Southwest Washington seeing the smallest at 1.4 percent.

Boeing's employment isn't seeing the huge gains and losses that once characterized the company's workforce in Washington, but the company added enough workers last year here to staff a good-sized company.

According to recently released figures, Boeing employed 74,160 workers in Washington as of Dec. 31, 2007. That's up 5,590 from Jan. 31, 2007.

Washington remains by far Boeing's largest center of employment. California, which ranks second, has 27,279 Boeing workers, down 930 from the end of January.

Of the seven states with the largest Boeing employment, only Washington and Pennsylvania gained workers last year. Pennsylvania's increase was a relatively modest 218 to 5,077.

Arizona, California, Kansas, Missouri and Texas all lost Boeing employment.

The company as a whole added a net 5,232 employees in 2007.

Credit Boeing's booming commercial aviation business for the employment gains here. The company has a backlog of more than 3,400 airliners scheduled to be built in the Puget Sound area over the next five or six years.

Brian Vance, president and CEO of Olympia-based Heritage Financial Corp., will ring the bell to open tomorrow’s session of the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York.

The honor commemorates the company’s 10 years on the exchange. Accompanying Vance for the 9:30 a.m. (ET) ceremony will be Don Hinson, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and Ed Cameron, senior vice president and corporate secretary.

Heritage operates in the South Sound as well as Central Washington. The stock closed up 74 cents in trading today, to close at $20.00.

The union that represents Boeing's engineers and technical workers in the Puget Sound area is nearing a hiring decision on a new executive director.

Finalists for that position as the day-to-day head of the 20,000-member Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) are to appear before the union's board Jan. 17 for an interview. Some 40 persons applied for the position, but that number has been culled to a handful.

The union has been without a permanent executive director since mid-year when the board forced out longtime executive director Charlie Bofferding.

The board itself has been in turmoil with the membership ousting several members who had voted to force out Bofferding.

That same membership will be electing new board members this spring, but not before a new executive is hired.

That decision is expected before month's end.

Will Boeing's efforts to create an innovative open architecture computer communication system aboard its new 787 Dreamliner make the plane's control and safety systems vulnerable to hackers?

The Federal Aviation Administration has raised that possibility in a rule published in the Federal Register. In part, the FAA says the system potentially "allows new kinds of passenger connectivity to previously isolated data networks" such as flight control and navigation systems, and airline business and administrative support functions.

As a result, the rule states, "The proposed data network design and integration may result in security vulnerabilities from intentional or unintentional corruption of data and systems critical to the safety and maintenance of the airplane."

Boeing said it's aware of those possibilities and has designed in "air gaps" and firewalls to prevent someone on board from disrupting the plane's systems.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Starbucks Corp. have ended a marketing pact that included music promotions in the coffee chain’s stores and CD’s sold with both companies’ logos, The Associated Press reports.

Both companies said the decision to end the pact was mutual, without explaining why. Starbucks and XM began their marketing deal in October 2004.

To get out of the deal, XM issued about 1.85 million shares worth about $22 million to the Seattle-based coffee retailer, XM said Monday in a regulatory filing.

Starbucks has the right to sell those shares, which represent less than 1 percent of XM’s total 314.2 million shares outstanding at the end of September.

If Starbucks does not generate $22 million from the stock sale, XM said it may be forced to issue more shares to Starbucks or pay the difference in cash.

XM, which is being bought by rival Sirius, also said it will continue to broadcast a channel carrying the Starbucks brand for a limited time.

“It’s not going to be removed from our lineup immediately,” XM spokesman Chance Patterson said.
Starbucks said the channel, which used to be Starbucks Entertainment Channel on XM channel 75, has been renamed Starbucks XM Cafe and is on XM channel 45.

December traffic for both of SeaTac-based Alaska Air Group's two airlines increased substantially in December, the airline holding company said today.

Alaska's Airlines December traffic increased 6.3 percent and Horizon Air's traffic jumped 7.8 percent from the same month in 2006.

Alaska Airlines flew 1.561 billion revenue passenger miles (RPMs) from 1.469 billion flown a year earlier.
A revenue passenger mile is one paying passenger flying one mile.

Capacity during December was 2.059 billion available seat miles (ASMs), 5.2 percent higher than the 1.957 billion in December 2006.

Since passenger traffic grew faster than capacity, the airline's planes flew closer to capacity in December than in December 2006. That "load factor," the percentage of seats filled by paying passengers, was 75.8 percent for December 2007 compared with 75.1 percent in December the year before.

For regional carrier Horizon Air, the load factor, 72.4 percent stayed the same as December 2006 because capacity increased at the same rate, 7.8 percent as did passenger traffic.

Alaska Air Group will announce fourth quarter and 2007 results in a release scheduled for Jan. 24.

The staff of the Business Team is in today's edition with their picks – of stocks they believe will do well in 2008.

We're inviting readers to play along. Assume you have $10,000 to spend. Pick three commonly traded stocks and include them in a comment below. We'll do the math using Monday morning's opening trading prices.

You've got until Tuesday noon. The prize for the overall winner will be lunch with the team early next year.

Thanks for playing, and Happy New Year.

Microsoft Corp. said Friday it will give Xbox 360 owners a free video game to make up for poor performance over the holidays by the system’s online hub, The Associated Press reports.

Gamers log on to the Xbox Live Web site to buy games, television shows and movies to load onto their consoles, and interact with other players.

Video game blogs such as Joystiq recently reported that users had a slew of problems with the site over the holidays, including trouble signing in, downloading media and getting matched with online opponents.

“We are disappointed in our performance,” wrote Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live, on the Xbox 360 support Web site.

Whitten said record-breaking traffic and new-member sign-ups caused the “intermittent Xbox Live issues.”
Microsoft, which says it has sold more than 17.7 million Xbox 360 consoles since the system’s November 2005 debut, bulked up its capacity for gamers on Xbox Live both before the release of the wildly popular “Halo 3” and ahead of the holiday season.

The software maker did not publicly detail the problems Xbox users faced or the steps it has taken to fix the issues.

Whitten said the company will give a free game from the Xbox Live Arcade, but did not say which titles will be chosen, or when.

The state Attorney General's office is warning consumers about official-looking postcards that note your car warranty is about to expire.

The postcards urge you to call a toll-free to make sure you are covered.

But, the AG's office says, think twice before you call.

The mailers are advertisements aimed at pressuring you into buying an expensive service contract, according to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.

The AGs office has noticed an increased number of consumer complaints concerning these postcards, which are from out-of-state companies offering extended warranties.

The mailers look like official notices from your car's manufacturer and may include your name and "customer ID" number.

“If you receive a postcard warning you to renew your vehicle warranty, don’t take the information on face value,” said Assistant Attorney General Mary Lobdell. “Your car or truck’s initial warranty may be far from expiring or may have expired long ago. These notices usually aren’t from your manufacturer or dealer; they’re ads from businesses that want to sell you an optional, pricey plan to cover future repairs.”

=> Read more!

Alaska Airlines, dogged by substandard on-time performance this year, has improved its on-time arrival percentage to 13th among American airlines.

Alaska's on-time performance in November as reported by the federal Department of Transportation was 78 percent, still below the average of 80 percent on-time arrivals by 20 domestic airlines.

Alaska's performance nonetheless was a big improvement over its 70.1 percent on-time arrival percentage in October that put it 19th on the list.

Here are some highlights from the monthly DOT report:

Overall

80.0 percent on-time arrivals

Highest On-Time Arrival Rates

1. Hawaiian Airlines – 92.4 percent
2. Aloha Airlines – 91.6 percent
3. Delta Air Lines – 85.6 percent

Lowest On-Time Arrival Rates

1. United Airlines – 75.5 percent
2. American Airlines – 75.6 percent
3. Atlantic Southeast Airlines – 76.7 percent

Most Frequently Delayed Flights

1. ExpressJet Airlines flight 2979 from Hartford, Conn./Springfield, Mass. to Newark, N.J. – late 88.46 percent of the time
2. Continental Airlines flight 1532 from Houston Bush to New York LaGuardia – late 87.50 percent of the time
3. ExpressJet Airlines flight 2076 from Newark, NJ to Indianapolis – late 85.19 percent of the time
3. Mesa Airlines flight 7462 from Washington Dulles to New York LaGuardia – late 85.19 percent of the time
5. American Airlines flight 350 from Chicago O’Hare to New York LaGuardia – late 83.33 percent of the time
5. American Airlines flight 1497 from Newark, NJ to Chicago O’Hare – late 83.33 percent of the time
5. ExpressJet Airlines flight 2717 from Newark, NJ to St. Louis – late 83.33 percent of the time

Highest Rates of Canceled Flights

1. Mesa Airlines – 2.9 percent
2. American Eagle Airlines – 1.7 percent
3. SkyWest Airlines – 1.5 percent

Lowest Rates of Canceled Flights

1. Frontier Airlines – 0.1 percent
2. Continental Airlines – 0.2 percent
3. JetBlue Airways – 0.2 percent

This from The Associated Press:

The maker of Monopoly is adding to its empire of board games.

Hasbro Inc., the world’s second-largest toy company, has agreed to buy privately held game maker Cranium Inc. for about $77.5 million, the companies said today.

Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro owns the board game brands Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, which make perennially popular games including Scrabble, Clue and Battleship as well as Monopoly.

Cranium, based in Seattle, is best known for its Cranium board game, which requires players to hum, draw and sculpt their way to the top. It makes a range of other games for children and adults and has sold more than 22 million games, books and toys worldwide.

=> Read more!

The figures are in and for those who took United Airlines to their holiday destinations, it wasn't a very merry Christmas.

Between Dec. 23 and Dec. 31, United canceled 1,031 flights according to FlightStats.com. And while the daily pace of cancellations has slowed, United was still canceling dozens of flights a day in the new year.

Tuesday it canceled 78 flights and Wednesday a similar number.

American Airlines, which has a hub at snowy Chicago just as United, canceled one-fourth that number of flights.

United said weather at its other major hub, Denver, added to the complication.

But United's pilots union said the Chicago-based United is just too thinly staffed to recover when the weather throws its a curve ball.

Boeing Co. sold 1,413 airliners last year, the company announced late Thursday.

That's 369 more than the company's record high of 1,044 set last year.

The magnitude of those figures was no surprise to aerospace analysts who had watched Boeing win new orders at a frenzied pace all year.

Here are the 2007 totals plane by plane:

737 -- 846
747 -- 21
767 -- 36
777 -- 141
787 -- 369

Last year's orders bring total orders for the 787 Dreamliner to 817, the highest order level for a plane before its first flight. The composite-bodied airliner is expected to fly for the first time in March.

But even that stratospheric achievement may not win Boeing the crown for the most orders in a year. Boeing's rival, Airbus, had logged 1,204 orders by the end of November not counting dozens of committments for new orders made at the Dubai Air Show.

Whether Boeing wins the honor of the world's biggest aircraft seller or not, matters little. Given the magnitude of orders in 2007, Boeing's Puget Sound aircraft assembly plants will be buzzing with work.

Last year's record follows two previous years in which the company sold more than 1,000 aircraft. Even if Boeing ratchets up yearly production to 525 aircraft a year from the 441 it produced in 2007, the company's backlog of orders(3,427) will take 6 1/2 years to reduce to zero even if no airline ordered a single plane in the meantime.

Here's the plane-by-plane situation and the time it will take to produce the aircraft given present production rates:

Aircraft-- Backlog--Production Rate--Booked through

737-- 2076-- 30/month-- Sept. 2013
747-- 125-- 2/month-- March 2013
767-- 52-- 1/month-- May 2012
777-- 357-- 7/month-- March 2012
787-- 817-- 10/month-- Nov. 2014

Both Airbus and Boeing executives expect 2008 orders to fall to more normal levels if only because the industry has little more capacity to deliver new aircraft in the next few years.

But more potential orders remain to be harvested. Most major U.S. carriers, have yet to commit to renew their fleets.

American Airlines needs to replace more than 300 of its aging MD-80 jets. Northwest has a big inventory of DC-9s that are three decades old and older.

United need new long-haul and mid-sized widebodies. Delta has ordered some new 777s, but will soon need to replace the 767s that are the backbone of its international fleet.

If oil prices keep climbing and airline fares can't keep pace, some of the huge backlog can disappear, but the orderbook is so full and Boeing's been so conservative in ramping up production that its unlikely a downturn could trigger cyclical layoffs anytime soon.

China's dominant aircraft manufacturers have an eye on the lucrative market for single-aisle aircraft in the 150-seat category.

China Daily reported this week that China Aviation Industry Corp I and China Aviation Industry Corp II may collaborate to develop such an airliner.

The aircraft would be a rival to Boeing's best-selling 737 and rival Airbus' A320 or their successors.

Boeing and Airbus received more than 1,500 orders for those two aircraft this year, making them the most popular in each company's product lines.

The rival companies have said they're likely to replace the 737 and A320 aircraft with composite-bodied, super-efficient jetliners in their catalogs beginning in about 2015.

The Chinese jetliner is expected to debut in about 2020.

AVIC I already produces the ARJ-21 regional jet, a DC-9 look-alike equipped with modern engines and flight control systems.

The ARJ-21 accomodates 70-85 seats.

Boeing produced 112 jetliners in 2007's final quarter, the company said today. That's 11 percent more than the company produced in 2006.

That brings 2007's total production to 441 airliners from the company's Puget Sound factories in Renton and Everett.

Boeing rival Airbus hasn't released 2007 production figures, but their statistics are likely to be a near match to Boeing's.

Chicago-based Boeing's most popular jetliner in 2007 was the single-aisle 737 with 330 rolling out the door in Renton.

83 wide-bodied 777s were produced in Everett with 16 747s and 12 767s being delivered to customers.

On the defense side, Boeing's best seller was the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Boeing St. Louis plant built 44 of those fighter jets in 2007. That same plant built a dozen F-15s during the same period. In California, Boeing's Long Beach plant built 16 C-17 four-engine transports.

The summer travel season brought more than 1.7 million visitors to Alaska, an increase of three percent over the 2006 travel season, the Alaska Tourism Industry Association said today.

Most of those visitors, about a million, came to Alaska by cruise ship, the association said. About half those cruise ships leave from Seattle on their journeys to Alaska.

Those summertime visitors spent a record $1.6 billion on tours, lodging, food and trinkets, the tourism group said.

Since 2002, when tourism dipped in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the number of visitors to the 49th state is up 30 percent.

Want to know the places you should have invested your money in 2007?

Russell Investment Group – our hometown financial guru – has published a listing of the top 100 global stocks included in the Russell Indexes, based on total returns for 2007.

Here's the report.

Following are some highlights of interest regarding this year’s report:

· 48 of the top 100 stocks are based in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), with 41 in India alone. Six of the top 100 stocks are financial services firms in India.

· Six stocks are U.S.- based firms and six are Australian.

· 39 of the top 100 stocks are in the materials and processing sector.

· Only 19 of the top 100 stocks are in the Russell Global Large Cap - the top 12 are all global small caps.

· The top stock based on 2007 returns is in China and the following five are in India.

Netflix Inc. and South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. will develop a set-top box that allows movies to be downloaded from the Internet and viewed on television. Bloomberg News reports.

The product will be sold later this year to Netflix subscribers, Seoul-based LG Electronics said in an e-mailed statement today.

Netflix, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. are working on technology to make on- line movies more convenient alternatives compared with renting by mail or at retail stores.

=> Read more!

Boeing Co. and Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Monday concluded all contractual obligations for the purchase of 100 airplanes worth $10.9 billion, Boeing said today.

The news comes after Boeing and the state-owned Dubai Aerospace said in November that they had signed a letter of intent for the sale of the planes.

The order includes 70 Boeing 737s, 15 Boeing 787s, 10 Boeing 777-300ERs and five Boeing 747-8 Freighters, Boeing said.

Boeing shares fell 84 cents to $86.62 in the regular trading session

The new sale comes just under the wire for Boeing to count in 2007. Boeing will announce final 2007 sales figures Thursday. Already, the company is assured of a record year with more than 1,200 jetliners sold.

Just a day after Pacific Seafood Group closed its Ruston Way fish market, Johnny's Ocean Fish Co., another longtime Tacoma seafood marketer announced it will reopen the historic market.

Northern Fish Products Co. said today it has leased the 74-year-old Old Town market and will reopen it this spring.

Northern Fish President John Swanes said Northern will begin remodeling on the over-water fish market building near the Old Town Dock on February 1. Swanes said he expects to reopen the remodeled market by April 1.

Opened in 1933 as Ocean Fish Co., the market did business under that name through 1975 when it was bought by Johnny's Seafood Co. and renamed Johnny's Ocean Fish Co.

Pacific Seafood Group, of Portland, a giant seafood distributor and marketer, bought Johnny's two years ago.

Bob Simon, Pacific's Washington manager, said Pacific decided to close the Ruston Way store because its sales had declined year over year for the last several years.

"It seems most customers decided to drive the extra five minute to the Foss Waterway location to take advantage of sale items as well as the greater variety of seafood options we offer at the Dock Street as well as the Lakewood locations," he said.

Northern's Swanes said his 95-year-old company will update the Ruston Way building which it will lease from its owners, a longtime Puget Sound fishing family, the Marinkovichs.

The store will broaden its line of ready-to-eat seafood dishes for Ruston Way walkers and nearby office workers.

Additionally, it will stock specialty seafood items such as winter troll-caught Alaska salmon that aren't available in supermarkets.

Northern is planning a fall event in conjunction with the Marinkovichs in which Marinkovich fishing boats will deliver fish directly to the store in same manner fishing boats did decades ago.

The state's Employment Security Department has busted more than 50 people across the country who filed false unemployment claims using a Washington cell phone numbers.

The scheme was discovered after fraud investigators identified several claims that were filed from a single Washington-based cell-phone number, according to an Employment Security news release.

The benefit checks for those claims were sent to addresses in Louisiana, the department said.

Investigators traced the cell phone back to a father and son who had filed Washington claims along with several of their friends.

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Greetings from the IRS: Nearly 13 million Form 1040 tax packages are in the mail this week.

Along with sending the tax packages, the IRS is reminding taxpayers “to watch for commonly overlooked tax credits and late tax law changes that could affect their tax returns.”

Last year, nearly 80 million tax returns used e-file, representing about 57 percent of all returns. This year, the individual income tax packages mailed to taxpayers do not include any tax credit forms and certain other forms due to late tax law changes involving the alternative minimum tax (AMT) “patch.”

Copies of these forms are available on IRS.gov. Taxpayers who e-file should update their tax software to ensure that they are using the updated forms.

The AMT changes also mean that as many as 13.5 million taxpayers using five forms related to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) legislation will have to wait to file tax returns until the IRS completes the reprogramming of its systems for the new law.

The IRS has targeted Feb. 11 as the potential starting date for taxpayers to begin submitting the five AMT-related returns affected by the legislation – although only three million to four million taxpayers file returns with the five affected forms during the early weeks of the filing season.

Only 66 percent of previously licensed mortgage brokers and 42 percent of previously licensed loan originators have fully renewed and been approved to do business in Washington State in 2008, the state Department of Financial Institutions said today.

DFI said it considers these numbers low. “The low number of renewals — compared to the number practicing prior to December 31, 2007 — is a concern,” said DFI Director Scott Jarvis, “particularly in light of the numerous notices issued.”

“We understand that the reduction reflects a dramatic drop in loan activity due to the downturn of the mortgage industry and a number of firms going out of business or dropping their state license,” Jarvis said, “but the reduction is still a concern.”

The agency advised consumers today “to verify that their loan originator and/or mortgage broker is currently licensed to do business within Washington."

Verification is available at dfi.wa.gov/cs/list.htm, or by calling 877-746-4334.

Also, DFI urged brokers and originators to seek a license if theirs has lapsed.

Gov. Chris Gregoire’s Task Force for Homeowner Security has issued its final report – outlining various problems with home loans and ownership and recommending solutions.

Among other things, the report “recommends a strong, clear and consistent state-wide consumer education and outreach program.”

Among programs and initiatives, the report calls for providing “grants or loans to assist qualifying low- and moderate-income homeowners, who are delinquent on their mortgage payments, to bring their loan current to be eligible to refinance into a different loan product.”

The report also recommends providing “tax credits, incentives, or other mechanisms to financial institutions or other mortgage originators” that are engaged in financial literacy and consumer education.

A copy of the report, issued Dec. 24, is available at dfi.wa.gov/taskforce/default.htm

Task force members included representatives from financial institutions and state and non-profit agencies.

Millions of $40 government coupons are now available to help low-tech television owners buy special converter boxes for older TVs that might not work after the switch to digital broadcasting, according to The Associated Press.

Here's the rest of the story from today's Business section:

Beginning Feb. 18, 2009, anyone who does not own a digital set and still gets their programming via over-the-air antennas will no longer receive a picture.

That’s the day the television industry completes its transition from old-style analog broadcasting to digital.

The converter boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 and will be available at most major electronics retail stores. Starting today, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration began accepting requests for two $40 coupons per household to be used toward the purchase of the boxes.

Viewers who have satellite or cable service will not need a box.

To request a coupon, consumers can apply online at www.dtv2009.gov. The government also has set up a 24-hour hotline to take requests, 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009).

Congress, in ordering the transition to digital broadcasting, set aside $1.5 billion for the coupon program, which will fund 33.5 million coupons and other costs.

The giveaway basically works under the honor system.

The first 22 million coupons will go to all households that request them. That includes a residence that gets cable service for one television but has a spare TV that still uses an antenna, for example.

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