In today's column, I wrote about the $157,000 advertising campaign for the Crystal Brame Family Justice Center. In the newspaper, you saw a version of the poster. Now watch the TV commercial.

The team at Rusty George Creative, a downtown Tacoma branding, design and advertising agency, came up with this concept to convince women in abusive relationships to contact the center for help.

When a facilitator described this commercial to a focus group of 12 clients of the Family Justice Center, six of them cried.

Let me know if it strikes you as powerfully as it struck me.

The commercial aired on cable television throughout the region in June and will run again in late November and December. Grants, including one from McGavick Graves, a Tacoma law firm, funded the campaign.

Following yesterday's 40 percent drop in value, Columbia Banking System stock rose 8 cents in Friday trading to close at $10.88.

The stock hit a 52-week low early in the day – slipping to $8.50.

Second-quarter results from the Tacoma-based company will be released July 24.

Do you recognize this unpeopled place?

Tollefson Plaza at South 17th Street and Pacific Avenue has inspired a groundswell of civic criticism as an uninspiring downtown wasteland. People don't naturally hang out there.

Yes, Tollefson Plaza in downtown Tacoma. A promised slate of summer lunchtime concerts and other magnet events predicted to draw you there won't happen this year.

Bickering and wordsmithing over contract language between the plaza owner, the City of Tacoma, and the prospective plaza event planner, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, means the Chamber may only test a couple of events this year, Joanne Buselemeier, the chamber's administrative manager told a crowd Friday at the City Center luncheon.

The contract, still unsigned, needs both City and Chamber approval. After that, the City will begin a procurement process for tables, chairs and garbage cans. And the Chamber must recruit an event planner and solicit sponsorship donations from a downtown business community suffering economic challenges to the donation accounts.

Consequently, Buselemeier explained, the Chamber still hopes for a Halloween outdoor festival aimed at kids and a Christmastime festival with a temporary ice skating rink and tree-lighting ceremony.

If the two sides get lucky, we still could see a Friday lunch concert or two in late August or September. But don't count on it.

Today is the day the IRS sent out the last of the Economic Stimulus Checks to those taxpayers who filed their returns before the April deadline.

But according to the Associated Press and the IRS, there’s still money waiting for people who haven’t yet filed their 2007 returns.

The IRS said it will continue processing late returns and issuing the checks throughout the year.

As before, the IRS is urging some 5 million Social Security recipients and veterans who don’t normally need to file returns to do so this year so they can qualify for the free money they’re due. The agency today urged those folks – and people who received extensions – to file by October 15 to ensure they receive a payment before the end of the year.

The Treasury Department said that this week, the last week of mass disbursements, it sent out 7.5 million payments worth $5.8 billion. Cumulatively, it has made 112.4 million payments worth almost $92 billion as part of the stimulus package that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law last February, according to the AP.

Eligible individuals can receive up to $600, and married couples $1,200, plus $300 for eligible children younger than 17. For people such as retirees who have no tax liability or filing requirement, there is a minimum payment of $300, or $600 for married couples.

For those of you wondering how Columbia Bank stock is doing today – after yesterday's 40 percent tumble – well, trading is fairly heavy, and two hours before the close the stock is up 3 cents over yesterday's close.

Early in the session, COLB hit a second consecutive 52-week low, at $8.50, but looks to be recovering. When I last checked the Bloomberg machine, trades are coming in around $10.85 per share.

After unch I'll post a full look at the stock and how its peers are doing.

Seeking to protect the resale value of 284-acre tract near Maytown in Thurston County, the Port of Tacoma is asking for a year's extension of a mining permit for the property.

The port is also asking a Thurston County hearings examiner to relax two conditions of the permit requiring it to make major modifications to local highways needed to access the site.

The mining site is part of a 745-acre tract that the port had considered using for a logistics center and rail marshalling yard. The port earlier this year abandoned that idea after determined local opposition to its plan surfaced.

The port now wants to sell the property.

Unless the port gets an extension of the permit or begins active mining on the site within three years from the time the permit was issued, the permit will expire. That expiration date is Jan. 3, 2009.

In papers filed with its two requests to Thurston County, the port says it wants to remove only about 500 cubic yards of gravel from the site for use in port construction.

Removing that gravel would solidify the port's claim that it has activated the permit by beginning activity on the site.

Port lawyers contend the port's planning and cleanup activities on the site so far constitute a beginning of mining activity, but the port clearly wants to bolster that claim.

The existing permit, which envisioned a large mining activity on the site involving as many a 760 truck trips a day during the summertime, requires that the port improve lighting at the gravel pit entrance and lengthen an off-ramp on I-5. The port contends those activities are unnecessary for the token mining operation it has in mind.

The port is considering a number of possible uses for the property including selling it to conservation groups or government to perserve it as parkland or to industrial developers for mining or warehousing.

The port spent more than $21 to buy the property in 2006 and more than $4 million preparing it for development.

If you ever wonder why airlines have stripped flying of nearly all of its civilizing amenities, take a look at a recent survey by Travelzoo.com about what travelers will endure to find that holy grail, low fares.

The 1,000-person survey found that 41 percent of air travelers would agree to give up bathroom privileges if they could get a 50 percent fare reduction.

Midwestern residents were the most willing (46%) to agree not to use the restroom. Makes sense. They don't have to endure six-hour transcontinental flights.

Some 28 percent of those surveyed said they would stand rather than sit if they could costs in half. Men (35%) were more willing to stand than women (21%) to win the fare savings.

No airline is considering such measures. Although standing-room-only would increase aircraft capacity, it wouldn't increase it enough to merit a 50 percent fare reduction. Likewise, eliminating restrooms wouldn't be much of a cost advantage even if airlines could legally and morally do so.

A German company five years ago briefly toyed with the idea of creating a standing "seat" for airlines that would give passengers a slightly slanted backrest and a safety belt. The New York Times wrote a couple of years ago that Airbus was marketing the concept to Asian airlines. Airbus quickly denied the report.

After 17 months of largely unproductive negotiations, Alaska Airlines pilots have filed for assistance from a federal mediator.

The pilots, who took up to 35 percent pay cuts in their last contract, want more pay and benefits, but Alaska, beleaguered by high fuel prices, says there's little it can afford.

The mediation request is the first in a long line of steps that could lead to a strike by the pilots.

The pilots' contract became amendable on May 1, 2007. Negotiations began in January of that year.

To strike, the pilots must first try mediation and if that is unsuccessful and the National Mediation Board releases them, they must first have a 30-day cooling off period. After that period, the pilots could strike if the president doesn't intervene.