In times such as these – with the markets upset, credit tight and worry common – we’d like to turn to readers for their perspective.

The News Tribune business team is preparing a story for this weekend, and we’d like to speak with readers. We will be interviewing the necessary officials and experts, but we’d like to know how Monday’s market meltdown, and the events of the past few weeks, have affected you.

We’d like to speak with consumers and the owner of small a business, a financial adviser and a losing shareholder, a retailer, a young investor, a retired person on a fixed income and an economist. Perhaps we can meet a parent who is trying to explain the economy to a child. Perhaps we can speak with you.

If you’d like to assist with the story, please contact Marcelene Edwards, business editor, at 253-597-8638 or marcelene.edwards@thenewstribune.com. Please include your name and a daytime phone number.

Thanks.

Along with all but two of nine regions in the state, the occupancy rate of Tacoma-area hotels fell in July. Statewide, occupancy was down 1.1 percent, according to Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood. In Pierce County, occupancy was down 2.8 percent over the same month last year.

In July in Pierce County, 80.3 percent of rooms were occupied. In downtown Seattle, 89.8 percent of rooms were taken.

The only regions seeing an increase were downtown Seattle, up 3.5 percent, and the Tri-Cities, up 0.7 percent. Snohomish County marked the greatest decline, down 8.6 percent.

All regions recorded an increase in average daily room rates. Pierce County hotels and motels were up 5.7 percent, to $90.82. Spokane recorded the highest increase, up 7.3 percent to $116.50. The statewide average, $143.45, was up 4.4 percent from 2007, while downtown Seattle, up 3.9 percent, stood at $190.27.

The failure of Washington Mutual may mean for empty offices in Seattle. So far, there's no word on what will happen to jobs at the Seattle headquarters and around the Puget Sound area but mergers typically mean job cuts.

Bloomberg News reports that the office vacancy rate is rising in Seattle for the first time in four years.

“Clearly, it won’t be good,” Matt Griffin, managing partner of Pine Street Group LLC, the Seattle-based developer of Washington Mutual’s 42-story headquarters, completed in 2006, said to Bloomberg News. “The question is: How many jobs will they decide to put on the market?”

Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, said it’s too early to comment about job losses at WaMu.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Sept. 25 acquired Washington Mutual’s assets for $1.9 billion after the U.S. government seized the thrift in the largest bank failure in the country’s history.

Washington Mutual owns about 1.2 million square feet at its headquarters and leases another roughly 600,000 square feet in Seattle, said Stuart Williams, a principal at commercial brokerage Pacific Real Estate Partners Inc. The bank already has sublet or offered for sublease some of that 600,000 square feet, he said to Bloomberg.

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Lonely though it might otherwise seem, Tollefson Plaza might just be teeming on Wednesday (from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) as would-be and already-do downtown Tacoma commuters gather to celebrate the beginning of a new campaign.

The "Downtown: On the go! Reinvent your commute!" effort
is a collaboration between the City of Tacoma, Pierce Transit, Pierce County and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber.

The goal of the campaign is to reduce traffic congestion by getting downtown workers, students and residents “onto buses and vanpools, out walking, and bike riding, and sharing rides with other commuters instead of driving alone,” according to a release from the organizers.

The Wednesday event will feature, music, chalk art, a chance to learn about single-driver alternatives (vanpools, walking, cycling, and so on) and there’s also talk of 2-for-1 cupcake coupons. And a bicycle expert will be on hand to check your ride, if you’re of the unmotorized, two-wheel ilk.

There’s also talk of free prizes.

For the 11th time in 12 years, Tacoma General Hospital is where area consumers say they want their health care, according to an award published in Modern Healthcare.

The National Research Corporation Consumer Choice Award is a survey of more than 200,000 households across the nation. Tacoma General is one of 226 hospitals to make the list, out of the 3,200 heath care centers across the nation.

"The staff at Tacoma General Hospital deserves the credit for this award," said Diane Cecchettini, president and CEO of MultiCare Heath System. "Their hard work and commitment to quality patient care has been recognized by the patients they serve."

Tacoma General first received the award in 1996. The survey for the award asks about which hospital has the best doctors, nurses, personalized care, community health programs and reputation.

With the Machinists' Union strike againt The Boeing Co. well into its fourth week, company-paid health insurance for strikers will end at mid-week.

Boeing paid its share of those benefits for September before the strike began, but without their working on the assembly line, some 27,000 workers will see their benefits disappear Wednesday.

The strikers can pay the full cost of the benefits themselves through COBRA, but those costs will be considerable, $364 to $1,538 per month for workers on their families depending on the plan they've chosen and the number of family members on the plan, said the company.

Though both the union representing some 27,000 striking workers and Boeing have said they're willing to return to the bargaining table, neither side has telegraphed its intention to make concessions from their previous positions, thus the stalemate.