At a Thursday afternoon rally sponsored by the Tacoma branch of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN – a rally attended by a dozen or so people, including those who spoke – the word went out to Governor Chris Gregoire and President-elect Barack Obama that the upcoming stimulus program should benefit the more troubled among us.

Following the meeting, Tacoma ACORN President Brenda Leichsenring said she was surprised that so few people attended. “I expected quite a bit more,” she said.

For those who did not attend, she said, “I would like them to know we need to stand together. People who live in these neighborhoods are in bad shape. We want the governor to now that whatever kind of stimulus packlage gets passed needs to target low- and medium-income people.”

She said job creation is critical in the coming months, and that the the funds allocated for Pierce County should go to increased unemployment benefits, more food stamps and “part of it to help families who are in foreclosure” by allocating funds to “community organizations like ACORN who would be able to have staff so we would be able to help them negotiate with their mortgage companies.”

“We are here,” she said. “We are everyday people. We are working class, working poor. We want things to be done so that we can go out there and work.”

Tacoma ACORN, she said, comprises some 70 people, with the statewide organization counting some 5,000.

Speakers Thursday included representatives from Tacoma Teamsters Local 313, the American Federation of Teachers and Safe Streets. Pierce County Councilmember Tim Farrell also spoke, as did unemployed worker Brandon Winston.

At the end, Leichsenring announced an ACORN rally in Olympia on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, Jan. 19.

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With I-5 closed for what could be several more days because of flooding and with Amtrak service suspended to the Oregon city, Horizon Air is adding extra planes to connect Sea-Tac to Portland.

The airline is offering a $119 fare for its frequent flights through Saturday.

The demand has been so brisk, said Horizon spokeswoman Jen Boyer, that the airline is adding more flights. On weekdays Horizon had been offering 25 flights between the two cities using 74-seat Bombardier Q400 turboprops.

Boeing's official final tally of commercial airplane orders, released today, shows the aerospace company won a net total of 662 orders in 2008.

That's a respectable number, but down considerably from the 1,400-plus it received last year.

Best-seller was the 737 with 484 orders followed by the 787 with 93 orders. In third place was the 777 with 54 orders followed by the 767 with 28. The 747 garnered only three orders last year.

The 2008 orders bring Boeing's total commercial airplane order backlog to 3714, a number that some analysts think will fall as financially troubled carriers cancel orders.

Even so, that figure represents more than eight years of production at the present pace.

On the production side, the company fell short of its 450-plane goal, producing 375 commercial airliners in 2008.

That shortfall was courtesy of two factors: a 58-day machinists union strike that shut down production and the continuing delay in getting the first 787 Dreamliner out the door.

The first production Dreamliner was to have been delivered to launch customer ANA Airlines in May of last year. Now that first commercial 787 is due sometime in 2010.

Boeing's orders will likely lag Airbus' by more than 100. Airbus typically waits until at least the third week of January to release final order figures.

Lakewood-based Northwest Commercial Bank CEO and President Kurt Graff announced Wednesday that Quinn Zander-Conn has been named senior vice-president and chief financial officer. He replaces George McNelly,
who has retired.

Zander-Conn is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he earned a degree in business administration with an emphasis in finance. He has also attended Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington and St. Martin’s University, where he studied accounting.

Before joining Northwest Commercial Bank in 2006 as assistant to McNelly, Zander-Conn spent three years at Columbia Bank.

He is a Puyallup native and a Rogers High School graduate.

McNelly spent 30 years in the banking industry. Before joining Northwest Commercial, he was with Hometown National Bank in Longview, which he joined during the bank’s startup phase. Previously he spent 20 years at Harbor Community Bank in Raymond.

Northwest Commercial, which opened in 2002, operates its headquarters branch as well as a branch in Auburn and a loan production office in Puyallup.

With highway and train access to Portland cut by hard winter rains and flooding, Horizon Air is offering a one-way bargain fare to Portland from Sea-Tac Airport.

Horizon operates 25 flights a day between the two cities.

The flights take about 45 minutes gate-to-gate on Horizon's 74-seat Bombardier prop-jets.

The new, lower fares are available for travel through Saturday.

Update: Horizon is also adding flights to Portland. Read more here.

For every online ad offering a job, there are 1.35 unemployed workers to fill it in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, a new study says.

The study by The Conference Board released Wednesday, reports that the number of job openings in the state dropped by 12,300 in December.

Even so, the Seattle-Tacoma area fares relatively well when compared with the nation. The Conference Board study pegs the average ratio of unemployed workers to job ads at 2.36 compared with 1.35 in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

Our metro area ranked ninth among 52 U.S. cities studied in jobs per unemployed worker. Only Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City has more jobs than job seekers.

On the bottom end of The Conference Board list, Riverside, Calif., reported 7.44 job seekers to jobs,and Detroit reported 5.32 unemployed workers per on-line job opening.