Prosser Balloon RallyOn January 27, 2010 the Tri City Development Council will be organizing the annual Tri Cities Regional Economic Outlook at the TRAC in Pasco, Washington. Experts will be talking about, but not limited to, agribusiness, health care, hospitality, real estate, and the retail industry. The keynote speaker for the luncheon will be Brian Wesbury and their will be a special breakfast featuring Ines Triary with the Department of Energy. The breakfast which begins at 7:30 costs $28 and the economic outlook presentation which goes from 8:45 until 1:30 costs $100. There is a discount for TRIDEC members and those who register for both the presentation and the breakfast.

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My BirdsRichland officials will be relooking at long term development plans for 2,000 acres south of Badger Mountain. The land is mostly comprised of farm land but if built on would be a mix of low and high density development with large tracts of open space. The deputy city manager has said that the bill for this urban development has been in the works for a while now and they are still reviewing and making changes to it. The original plan for the land was to have a golf course on it but the land owners decided to go in a residential housing direction.  On Tuesday city staff members will meet at 6:30 to give a presentation to the city council before the regularly scheduled meeting.

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Historic Franklin County CourthouseOn Monday we celebrate a man, who because of what he did, changed our country in ways he couldn't have imagined. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a big player in the civil rights movement. A bill to establish this day was first introduced to Congress in 1979 but fell 5 votes short of passing. Some didn't think that a private citizen should have a day in celebration of them because it would go against longstanding tradition. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan Matrin Luther King Jr. Day was established in recognition of his birthday. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed in 1986. Students of WSU Tri Cities' Multicultural Club are putting on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration tonight at the Three Rivers Convention Center tonight at 6:30pm.…

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Richland Washington Kiwanis Beach 99352Jim Hale from Orlando, Florida has family here in the Tri Cities and has visited quite a few times. A couple years ago when he visited he thought the area could really use a water park. Not until last July when he visited and temperatures reached 100 degrees did he get more serious about his idea. It wasn't hard for Jim Hale to visualize how a water park in the Tri Cities would look, all he had to do was look at the numerous water parks in his area. For this water park to become a reality sight and sound screen walls will have to be factored into the plans, there will need to be landscape to match standards along I-182, and a traffic study to figure out the best way to handle the traffic increase. This water park would include multicolored water slides,…

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Prosser Balloon RallyOn January 21 from 2-4 and from 7-9 the National Park Service will host an open house at the Red Lion Hotel Richland Richland Hanford House to hear input from the community about designing one of the Manhattan Project Sites as a unit of the National Park System. The Manhattan Project Sites include Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Hanford Site in Washington, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, and sites in Dayton, Ohio. All these sites played a big role in World War II as well as in ushering in a new age, the atomic age. At this time there is not a site to recognize the impact and the importance of the Manhattan Project. For this reason the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy have begun the Manhattan Project Sites special…

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Columbia River Boat SailingLocal Market Monitor, a real estate forecasting company based out of North Carolina has comprised a list of ten communities nationwide that have good housing market prospects. Number four in that list is the Kennewick-Pasco-Richland housing market. This company is forecasting the Tri City area to have a stable market this year. According to Carolyn Beggs, the chief operating officer, "The area's good job growth and low unemployment rate makes it a desirable housing market."Âť In the past six years the Tri Cities have had an average of 1,404 homes listed for sale at the beginning of the year, now that inventory number is down to about 1,000. Home sales are up, last year a record 3,122 homes were sold, up from 2,964 in 2008.

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Prosser Balloon RallyFor the past 26 years the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center has been the host of the Prosser Wine & Foods Fair. This year however, there will be a new host, Washington State University Prosser Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center. The reason for the change is that the Walter Clore center has been in the process of adding onto their facility but the changes haven't yet been finished. The additions are scheduled to be done 2012 which means that the Prosser Wine & Foods Fair will remain at WSU Prosser until 2011.

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Tri Cities Washington County CourthouseThe Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently put together a list of the employment numbers for November in metro areas nationally. Topping that list is Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Washington with 3,600 jobs added over the year; a 3.8 percent increase. Seattle fell quite a ways behind with unemployment rising 8.8 percent from 5.7 percent last November. At the bottom of the list with the most job loss was El Centro, CA with 29.2 percent unemployment and Yuma, AZ with 21.1 percent unemployment.

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