The state Department of Financial Institutions has posted a link on its Web site
saying that counterfeit cashier’s checks bearing the name of DuPont-based Venture Bank are now in circulation.

As required, the bank had contacted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to report the checks.

According to the FDIC notice, “The counterfeit items display the routing number 125107671, which is assigned to Venture Bank. A security feature statement is shown beneath the top border. The bank's logo and name are displayed in the top-left corner. The words ‘Cashier's Check’ appear inside of a box in the top-center area. Authentic cashier's checks are brown and display the words ‘Cashier's Check’ on the top-right side of the check. The bank's logo, name and telephone number appear in the top-center area.”

Should you receive or come in contact with any of these checks, the FDIC advises that you contact Chris Knudsvig, the bank’s assistant vice president and internal auditor, at cknudsvig@venture-bank.com or at 253-284-9510 ext. 7303.

Have Tacoma gas prices seen their summertime peak and begun their decline?

A look at the numbers from tacomagasprices.com shows that may be what's happening.

According to the Web site, average prices for regular unleaded fuel in the Tacoma area fell 3.2 cents over the last week to $2.76 a gallon.

That's still slightly higher than a month ago, but it may indicate a positive trend.

In any case, the price is considerably less than it was this time last year when pump prices were still rising and the average was $4.308 a gallon.

Three ARCO stations shared the honor of having the lowest priced gas in town at $2.59 a gallon. Those stations are located at 2802 Portland Ave., 17601 Canyon Road and South 112th and Steele streets.

Boeing's still grounded 787 Dreamliner is testing its mettle on the ground this week at Everett's Paine Field.

The plane began taxi testing Tuesday manuevering on the ground along the Paine Field runways and taxiways.

In one instance, the plane accelerated to fairly high speed and then slowed down using its brakes, engine reversers and spoilers to bleed off speed.

First flight still awaits Boeing's decision on how to best fix the wing-body join area of the aircraft after static tests showed weakness there.

Boeing has postponed the first takeoff for weeks because of that issue. The Dreamliner's first flight is now nearly two years behind schedule.

The newest duo of developers eyeing downtown Tacoma's historic Elks Temple with plans for its resurrection, first tried and failed to buy the nearby Old City Hall for an updated reuse.

Grace Pleasants, a Tacoma developer and her development partner, Rick Moses of California, say they first focused their energies on the Old City Hall.

That building was scheduled for conversion to condominiums, but that plan ran aground when two office tenants declined to give up their favorable leases and leave the building without considerable compensation.

Pleasants and Moses said they thought they could solve the office issue and convert the old building with the Italianate clock tower into residential units. The owners, Stratford Co., declined their offer.

Thwarted on Old City Hall project, they turned their energies to the nearby Elks Temple at 565 Broadway.

They now plan to buy the temple and the lots adjacent to it, resell the temple to Portland's McMenamins for use as a brew pub hotel and build a five story apartment building with a ground floor grocery story on the next door lots. Under their plan, the City of Tacoma would build a five-story garage as the foundation for the apartment and retail building.

The Seattle Times is reporting that members of the state's congressional delegation said today that Boeing is laying down an ultimatum to its biggest union: Unless a long-term agreement barring strikes by the Machinists is reached by this fall, Boeing will build a second production line for the 787 someplace outside Washington.

Here's the rest of Dominic Gates' story:

"The whole thing comes down to, can they get a long-term agreement with the union, with a no-strike clause," influential U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, said in an interview Tuesday. "That's what ultimately has to happen here in the next two or three or four months — or they are going to go elsewhere.

"I think if they get this agreement, they would stay."

In a separate interview, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson told her recently the company is seeking a long-term no-strike agreement with the Machinists union.

Carson also said Boeing will likely make its decision on the location of a second 787 production line this fall, though Gregoire said he did not specifically link the two elements as an ultimatum.

What the politicians seem to envision is some kind of "social contract" with the union in which Boeing would publicly commit to stay in this region in exchange for labor peace.

Concern about the location of a second 787 line has intensified with news that Boeing is buying the Charleston, S.C., plant of 787 supplier Vought Aircraft Industries.

Dicks, the third-ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, is an aggressive lobbyist for Boeing on issues such as its bid for the Air Force refueling-tanker contract and is close to the company's leadership.

He said the ultimatum was laid out for him and other members of the congressional delegation by "high-ranking people in the Boeing Company" whom he declined to name.

Dicks also said that at a March meeting with Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, arranged by Gregoire and held in the Washington, D.C., office of Sen. Patty Murray, "McNerney was very candid."

"The message was that we need to get a resolution of this (strike) problem. We can't live with this."

Both of Washington's U.S. senators and most of its representatives were present, Dicks said, as McNerney laid out how Boeing plans to do a detailed assessment of where to put a second 787 assembly line in an open competition, with Everett as only one option among several.

We've been writing about the struggles to get a first-class hotel built on the west side of downtown Tacoma's Thea Foss Waterway for more than four years now.

During much of that period, Seattle hotelier Robert Thurston repeatedly redesigned the project to make it fit the shifting marketplace. In the end, though Thurston and his partners felt confident enough to buy the property from the Foss Waterway Development Authority and invest considerable funds in drawing plans and securing permits, the project never broke ground.

Blame the economy and the deflated condo market for that. But throughout what must have been an agonizing process, we've heard little from the reclusive Thurston himself. We've called him many times, but he never chose to call back.

But now that Thurston is working to sell the site to Bellingham hotelier Hollander Investments, he's providing more details about just how the hotel situation came to this point.

Here is his explanation sent to us in an e-mail to help shed some light on the details and to flesh out what were perhaps oversimplified explanations in our stories:

• First, the mixed use (100 key hotel plus three floor condos) development we planned was permitted, and funded with equity and the debt. Site-4 was sold with the FWDA approvals. We’d met numerous requirements including capital requirements to move forward.
• We were ready to start construction, but decided otherwise because our equity partner flagged the business risk that was then surfacing of having to sell three floors of residential units. Without these sales our development plan would have failed.
•Condo sales, as evidenced at the adjoining waterfront were literally non-existent, and the neighboring retail had also not fared any better (no leases or buyers).
•Residential markets in Tacoma were in a state of collapse. Other markets later followed.
•The FWDA was advised that we would not proceed with our mixed use model because it was then not economically sustainable given the market shift in residential sales; the FWDA was offered to take back Site-4 at cost in November of 2008. In deference to FWDA requests we entered an agreement instead to sell to a third party who would bring capability, experience, and hospitality uses to Site-4.
•For us to proceed, in light of the failing residential markets would have been foolish and harmful to Tacoma’s waterfront development. Our large investment in plans, permits, drawings and more will not be recouped.