Regular gas prices dropped below $2.50 a gallon at at least three Tacoma-area outlets today as the decline in vehicle travel cuts demand.

The price for regular was $2.49 a gallon at two Tacoma ARCO stations and at the Costco near Tacoma Mall.

On average, local regular gas was selling for $2.70 a gallon according to Tacomagasprices.com.

That's down from $2.958 a month ago and from $3.206 a year ago.

Sea-Tac's Alaska Airlines recorded the best on-time arrival performance of the nation's eight major airlines in September according to new figures from flightstats.com.

The carrier's flights were 89.23 percent on time during September. Southwest Airlines was second among the majors with an 88.16 percent on-time performance.

At the bottom of the list of majors was Delta Air Lines with a still-respectable 81.77 percent on-time showing.

Beyond just the major carriers, Hawaiian Airlines was the best performer among all of the nation's carriers with a 93.6 percent performance.

Fifth on the larger list was Alaska's sister airline, Horizon Air, with a 91.7 percent on-time performance in September.

Among the world's 50 largest airports, Sea-Tac Airport was sixth with an overall on-time record last month of 89.21 percent. Among large U.S. airports, that was second only to Phoenix where 90.07 percent of flights were on-time last month. Tokyo's Haneda Airport was on top with a 95.88 percent on-time performance in September.

Flights are considered on-time if they arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time according to federal Department of Transportation standards.

Attorney General Rob McKenna is warning state residents to beware of some door-to-door magazine sales people claiming to work for a charity.

The attorney general's office says Fresh Start Opportunities, subject of an earlier warning last March, appears to be active again in Washington.

Fresh Start's youthful magazine sellers say they're working on earning money for college or to get a better job or to win points for a free trip, but their magazine sales work appears to be a scam, the attorney general's office said.

McKenna's office has received complaints from residents contacted door-to-door by Fresh Start sales workers. Those magazine customers say they paid from $50 to $784 for subscriptions to magazines that never were delivered.

Complaints to the organization's mailing address elicited no response and calls to the Fresh Start's toll-free number listed its "temporarily unavailable."

Natural gas rates for Puget Sound Energy customers are going down for the second time this year, according to a news release from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

The commission today approved PSE's request to lower natural gas rates by 16 percent due to the decline in the wholesale cost of fuel. The average customer will save about $14.88 per month -- bringing the average bill to $78.30 -- beginning Oct. 1.

PSE has 145,000 customers in Pierce County and 46,000 in Thurston County.

“Natural gas customers will soon begin to crank up the heat in response to cooler temperatures, I am pleased that they can expect noticeably lower heating bills this winter,” said UTC Commissioner Patrick Oshie.

This is the second price reduction of natural gas rates this year. The UTC approved in June a decrease of 1.7 percent or $1.62 per month for residential customers.

PSE also requested the UTC approve two rate adjustments for electricity service that will result in customers seeing a slight increase on their electric bills.

The news release noted that the commission's decisions today is separate from a request filed by PSE in May seeking a 2.5 percent in natural gas rates and 7.4 percent increase in electric rates. The UTC will issue a decision on that request by next March.

Natural gas companies are required to adjust rates periodically to reflect the changes in wholesale prices. Bellevue-based Puget Sound Energy serves more than 1 million electric customers and nearly 750,000 natural gas customers in 11 Washington counties.

Sea-Tac Airport, which has imposed standards on taxi drivers for years, now is doing the same for limo drivers serving the airport.

The airport now is requiring limo drivers serving the airport to pass a multi-part screening and training regime in order to serve the airport.

The program includes:

* Passing drug screening and criminal background checks
* Successful completion of a driver training course
* A basic health examination
* Service and transportation training

The airport says some 500 limousine services pick up arriving travelers at the airport. Drivers without the required For Hire or Chauffeur license will no longer be able to pick up Sea-Tac passengers.

That person at your door who says he’s from Comcast may not be from Comcast.

Click!, a rival South Sound cable-TV purveyor, is out today with a press release warning people that persons representing themselves as Comcast sales personnel are telling untruths about Click!

These claims, both false, are:

• “Comcast purchased Click! and you should switch to avoid the rush.” (In truth, the City of Tacoma owns Click! Network.)
• “Comcast provides Click! its programming and always has, so you don’t need the middle-man anymore.” (Actually, Click! purchases its programming from a national cable programming cooperative.)

“We’ve taken quite a few phone calls,” said Diane Lachel, Click! Network government and community relations manager, earlier this afternoon.

Over the past two to three weeks, she said, she has heard from more than a dozen Click! customers wondering about the door-to-door emissaries. She said she has physical descriptions of seven of them, and that she has contacted both Comcast and her franchise authority.

In the case of one purported Comcast salesman, Lachel said she had heard that the man had recently been let go by his employer.

Steve Kipp, Comcast spokesman, said Friday that any actual Comcast salesperson – whether employed by Comcast or by a contractor – should have multiple means of identification including branded identification and adequate paperwork from Comcast.

Should someone suspect that a salesperson is not truly employed by Comcast. Kipp suggested the resident should call 800-COMCAST.

“We will make sure we get that to our internal investigations team,” he said. “If they are saying those things, we would take action immediately.”

Tacoma gas prices appear to be settling in for the fall with prices hovering just below $3 a gallon.

Those prices have been moving within a fairly narrow range for more than a month in contrast to the roller coaster ride prices took for much of last year and earlier this year.

According to Tacomagasprices.com, the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular in Tacoma Friday was $2.929. That compares to 2.923 a week ago. and $2.847 a month ago.

In September 2008, the price of gas was in a free fall from a high of $4.35 a gallon in late July to $3.678 at this time last year.

The price fell to below $2.00 a gallon in mid-December before moving upward again over the next several months.

Several ARCO and Costcc stations are selling regular for $2.75 a gallon, considerably below the average price.

Experts expect gas prices may settle somewhat lower as demand drops as the weather worsens, but not as far as it did last year.

She took the money, says the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner, but she did not place it with insurance companies. The policies she sold were not real.

That’s the accusation in a cease-and-desist order issued to one-time licensed insurance agent Brenda L. MacLaren-Beattie and The MacLaren Group of Des Moines.

She and her company (which bears no relation to the MacLaren Group of Canada and Great Britain) have been told to immediately cease and desist from:

• Transacting the unauthorized business of insurance in Washington;
• Acting or holding herself out to be a Washington insurance agent or broker;
• Trying to sell Washingtonians any product requiring an insurance license.

MacLaren-Beattie had an insurance agent’s license in Washington until March 12, the office said in the order – which was filed yesterday in Tumwater. She had been licensed in this state since Aug. 25, 1997, but the license had expired.

It will not be renewed due to MacLaren-Beattie’s admitted acceptance of premium payments without actually obtaining the insurance, the OIC said.

The Office of the Insurance Commissioner is investigating eight such complaints against MacLaren-Beattie. All are from dentists or oral surgeons who thought they had purchased business coverage (represented as coming from Mutual of Enumclaw or Berkshire Hathaway) from her.

The OIC served a search warrant Tuesday on MacLaren-Beattie’s office in Des Moines, and the investigation continues, according to a press release.

For a look at the cease and desist order and further details of the case, click here.

Good news. Really. Prices are down. It’s costing less to live. Inflation is deflated.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is out this week with its latest two-month numbers. The All-Items Consumer Price Index for the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area is down 0.1 percent as of August, and the index is down 0.3 percent from August 2008.

Worth noting in breakouts: Groceries are down 1.5 percent for the two months; housing is down 0.1 percent; furniture is down 1.6 percent; medical care is down 0.4 percent; and apparel is down 5.6 percent.

Alcoholic beverages are up 0.9 percent; gasoline is up a mere 0.3 percent; and recreation up 0.8 percent. Gasoline, by the way, is down is down 28.2 percent for the year.

Electricity is static.

One sign that the auto industry is still alive and perhaps recovering came this week at Tacoma's Titus-Will Ford.

Ford was there with its rolling road show for its new Taurus, its 21st century effort to revive the nameplate that was once the nation's most popular.

The car that bears the Taurus name now bears little resemblance the rental car staple that the revolutionary Taurus had become in its waning days.

The new Taurus hopes to compete with and beat such domestic and foreign marque best-sellers as Chryler's 300, Toyota's Avalon, Audi's A6 and Lexus' GS 350.

Brad Hughes, Ford's Global Product Design controller, was among the team at Titus-Will for the local roll-out celebration.

Hughes, who like his company has weathered the storms that struck the auto industry in the last year, said he thinks cars like the new Taurus represent a reinvigorated Ford.

Ford was the only one of the Big Three domestic automakers that didn't enter bankruptcy.

The car itself is as much an electronics showpiece as an automotive one. It features a special key parents can give to their driving age kids that limits the car's top speed and audio volume.

The special key triggers a persistent seat belt reminder that chimes for six seconds at a time for five minutes. The key tells the car to alert the teen driver 75 miles before the gas is exhausted and prohibits disablement of the traction control.

Other electronic features include alerts for cross traffic when you're backing from a parking space, a blind spot alert, an adaptive cruise control and collision warning system.

The car itself, a muscular-looking design, in its top-of-the-line iteration, the SHO, can reach 60 mph in five seconds. Inside at speed, it's as silent as a refrigerator and as comfortable as the parlor at a men's club.

Not coincidentally, Ford announced today that Titus-Will had won the company's President's Award, an honor awarded to less than 10 percent of the 4,000 Ford dealers nationwide for superior service and customer relations.

If you’re looking for money from a so-called payday lender, look out.

The State Department of Financial Institutions is warning consumers that some unlicensed lenders are offering services that are illegal in Washington.

The department offers a solution: Check the license. Verify.

“State law requires all payday lenders — including Internet payday lenders — offering services to Washington residents, including online payday lenders, to be licensed by DFI before doing business in our state. Some online payday lenders offer services that are not legal in Washington,” the department said today in a press release.

Potential customers can check licenses by checking here, or by going to the DFI site at www.dfi.wa.gov.

People considering taking out a payday loan should also be aware of current and coming law, the department said. Starting Jan. 1, 2010 new payday lending laws and regulations go into effect. Under the new laws:

• You may only borrow a total of $700 or 30% of your gross monthly income — whichever is LESS.
• Your information will be registered in a statewide database, ensuring that all payday lenders in Washington have your most up-to-date loan information.
• You may only take eight payday loans per 12-month period.
• If you unable to repay your loan on or before the day it is due, you need to notify your payday lender. Your lender is then required to offer to allow you to pay back your loan over a period of 90-180 days depending on the size of the loan. The installment plan will not incur additional fees.
• Lenders may not harass or intimidate you when collecting a loan. If you are harassed, contact the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions and file a complaint.

A company that left town a decade ago, Bruegger's, is now talking about reestablishing itself in the Puget Sound area with two dozen or so of its bakery cafes.

Chris Cheek, vice president of franchise development for the Burlington, Vt., company, was in town recently to scout out the prospects of re-entering the Northwest market.

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