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Workers plan to install a major piece of public art at the convention center's North Building early Thursday morning.  

The 569,000-square foot North Building will open to the public in January. It's the last phase of the $600 million expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center. Artwork is an integral part of that project: the city plans to spend a total of $3.2 million on pieces for the center, said convention center spokeswoman Lexie Van Haren.  

(The money was raised through the city's 22-year-old percent-for-art program. There is more information about Phoenix's public art program here.)

That artwork includes Halo, a $75,000 work that's 32 feet in diameter and three feet tall. It will be suspended over the North Building's Monroe Street entrance. 

The bronze-colored wreath, which features stylized agave leaves, can have both cheery and dark connotations, says one of its creators, Kim Cridler. The former Valley resident was in Phoenix earlier this week as workers assembled Halo.

Wreaths are both a sign of good will and mourning,  said the 40-year-old Wisconsin artist, who worked on the project with her husband, William Bennie.   

"They are a symbol that there is a cyclical nature to life," she said. Latin phrases etched on the inside of Halo, "corona convivialis" and "corona funebris," allude to those meanings, Cridler said.  

Meanwhile, "agave leaves put a highly local flavor on an iconic entrance to the building," she added. 

The $350 million Sheraton project -- which is being built a few blocks away from the Hyatt Regency Phoenix -- was on the Hyatt owner's mind when the hotel sold for $96 million this month, a broker said. 

When the 1000-room Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel opens in October,  the 696-room Hyatt will have a new rival, said Romy Bhojwani, a senior vice president for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels.

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels was the broker for the seller, Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc.

"Downtown is getting this new supply and Strategic would have needed to spend significant capital to remain competitive," Bhojwani said.

The firm had other considerations, too. 

Overall, the Chicago company wants to focus their portfolio on upscale properties, the broker said. Strategic bought the Fairmont Scottsdale in 2006.

The Hyatt "was a non-core asset," Bhojwani added.

The buyer, Los Angeles-based DiNapoli Capital Partners, plans to spend $15 million to $20 million upgrading the hotel.

DiNapoli has an extensive hotel portfolio, including the Carlyle in New York City and the Fairmont in San Francisco.

The Sheraton project is financed by bonds, which cover costs for design, construction, debt issuance, legal fees and other expenses.

The hotel was built to help serve the nearby Phoenix Convention Center. The center will complete a $600 million expansion at the end of the year, city officials say.

Several nationally recognized business experts will convene next Tuesday at the Ikea store in Tempe for the Women's Leadership Exchange, a day long event aimed at women entreprenuers.

Poppy King, founder and CEO of cosmetics company Poppy Industries, will give a keynote address. King started her company when she was a teenager.

Attendees will also get to participate in workshops focused on ways to grow a business. The $99 registration cost includes breakfast, lunch, seminars and "speed coaching," in which business owners meet with experts on sales, business development, marketing and other topics for five minute

The event lasts from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Amid the banking industry's woes, credit unions are working to remind customers that they provide insured deposits too.

But for the most part, credit unions haven't been in the headlines - and that's good.

The National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund insures savings up to $100,000 per depositor per institution, with expanded coverage for certain retirement accounts and other situations, much as the FDIC fund stands behind bank deposits.

If anything, credit unions seem to be in better shape than banks, partly because they don't have as much exposure to mortgages. Among key stats, the Credit Union National Association reports an overall capital/asset ratio of 11 percent (compared to 10 percent for banks), with mortgage delinquences at less than 1 percent for credit unions.

That said, credit unions  are reporting brisk growth of mortgage lending so far this year, at a time when many other lenders have scaled back.

Compared to banks, credit unions say they operate more conservatively by holding more of their mortgages rather than selling them.  Also, since credit unions are not-for-profit entities owned by members, they claim their marketing pressures are less intense than at banks, helping to keep them out of trouble.

To the extent credit unions have been hurt by the subprime mortgage mess, it's primarily as "collateral damage," according to a statement by CUNA.. By that, the association is referring to members having trouble making payments on subprime loans they obtained elsewhere or members losing jobs because of the economic slowdown.

Americans, lighten up a bit.

The national mood is clearly in the dumps these days amid worries over foreclosures, spiking fuel prices and other economic pressures. Surveys portray a dispirited public, underscored by a massive drop in that most telling of opinion polls, the stock market.

But not everything has unraveled on the economic front. Here are a few examples of reasonably good news:

' Money-market funds

When the credit crunch hit last year, many experts worried about money-market mutual funds. Dozens of funds held exotic IOUs carrying credit risks. The fear was that defaults would cause funds to incur losses so that their prices would “break the buck” or drop below the standard $1 a share, triggering panic. Unlike bank accounts, money funds, which hold $3.5 trillion, aren't backed by federal deposit insurance.

But those fears have largely abated. The funds stopped buying shaky instruments, and most problem holdings have since matured, said Peter Crane, publisher of the Money Fund Intelligence newsletter.

He said 16 fund-management firms voluntarily absorbed losses on bad holdings, while investors continued to add money to the funds, diluting problems with new cash.

“The saving grace has been a large cash inflow,” said Crane. “Investors haven't blinked.”

' Card delinquencies

With millions of consumers struggling, you would think credit-card delinquencies would be spiking. Not so.

Some 4.5 percent of card accounts were 30 or more days late with payments, reports the American Bankers Association. That's in line with the five-year average of 4.4 percent.

Some experts speculate consumers are trying to stay current on credit cards so they can continue to pay for fuel, food and other necessities. Whatever the case, it's a positive.

“(Lenders) are still foreclosing on houses and repossessing cars but credit-card defaults are not going up the same way,” said Michael Sullivan of Phoenix debt-counseling firm Take Charge America.

' Consumer spending

Speaking of consumers, they aren't retrenching like many had feared, despite all the pressures facing the typical household budget. That's significant in an economy where consumers drive two-thirds of output.

Recent anxiety has centered on fears that the latest surge in energy prices “will finally be enough to push (the consumer) over the edge and with him the economy,” wrote Alexander Paris of Barrington Research in Chicago. “But real consumer spending growth has remained positive throughout.”

The pace of spending has slowed, and many people have shifted priorities to less-enjoyable purchases like food and fuel rather than autos or leisure activities. Even so, consumer spending is holding up.

' Employment totals

Consumer spending has remained resilient in part because the job market hasn't rolled over. True, the nation shed a net 438,000 jobs during the first half of 2008. But that pales with losses of almost 2.7 million from April 2001 to April 2003, coinciding with the most recent recession.

Businesses have been running lean in recent years and don't seem to be cutting loose as many people. Besides, corporate balance sheets are in fairly good shape.

“Companies didn't overhire, overspend or overleverage,” said James Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management in Boston. He thinks a recession, if one materializes, will be mild.

' Stock market valuations

The market recently entered bear territory, defined by a drop of 20 percent or more. Yet there are reasons to think most of the damage is behind us, considering that stocks typically fall about 30 percent in a bear swoon, said Swanson.

Also, stocks look cheap compared to bonds, he said, while noting that equities are less expensive now than they usually are heading into bear territory, which implies they might sustain relatively light damage.

The price/earnings ratio for stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index is near 20. During the last bear market, P/Es topped 40.

“We are nowhere near the valuation of the markets in 1999-2000,” agreed Jonas Zamora, a certified financial planner with Zacks Investment Research. “Many investors are downright negative and scared when, in reality, we need to have an opportunistic attitude.”

The article appeared in the July 13 issue of The Arizona Republic.
Reach Wiles at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8616.

Ok, super-wealthy Americans probably don't worry much about filling their gas tanks or making that next utility payment, but certain money issues do provide some anxiety.

In particular, many multimillionaires seem to worry about financial predators taking advantage of their children and other beneficiaries after they die.

Some 38 percent of respondents in a recent survey by JPMorgan Private Bank cited financial predators as the top concern for beneficiaries, while 29 percent cited potential family conflicts over their estates. Another 17 percent said they feared their children will become spoiled or lose their worth ethic, and 16 percent worry their kids won't be able to manage the assets they will inherit.

The survey was limited to 350 respondents with $25 million or more in investment assets.

It also revealed some other interesting findings:

' Rich  respondents seem to think the 30s is an appropriate age range for beneficiares to handle significant wealth.

' Some 26 percent of respondents said they don't know how much wealth is appropriate to leave their children, while another 26 percent said less than $5 million. The rest cited amounts higher than $5 million.

' The asset rich people most want to transfer to kids is the family home, cited by half of respondents. Another  quarter specified a private family company, with smaller responses for commercial real estate, family heirlooms and the family art collection.

There's an election around the corner in Chandler.… have you noticed?

It's hard to drive anywhere in the city without seeing the clutter of campaign signs.

I'm not a big fan of these street-corner signs. They're an eyesore, and after all, what do they tell you about the candidate? Nothing. They're really only good — and this point is debatable — for boosting a candidate's name recognition.

The thinking seems to be whoever musters the most volunteers to post the most signs on the most corners wins the name game. But is that really how you want to cast your vote? “Hey, I've heard of this guy. Sounds good to me!”

Here's an alternative: This Tuesday at 7 p.m.,  The Chandler Republic and the Chandler Chamber of Commerce are co-sponsoring a public forum where you can see the people behind the signs — and ask them questions. All six candidates running for Chandler City Council will be in council chambers, on the second floor of the downtown library, for a 90-minute question-answer session.

Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Jerry Bustamante and I will serve as moderators, asking the candidates a series of questions drafted by the chamber and the newspaper related to issues large and small facing the city. In addition, those in the audience will be allowed to submit written questions, which will be added to the mix.

I hosted a similar forum for the city election two years ago, and it was fascinating. For all the time people spend sizing up candidates at the national level, some of the most significant decisions that affect people's lives happen at the very local level. The issues these folks will tackle will impact you, right down to the neighborhood level.

So, rather than playing the name-recognition game, make the effort to see who wants to run your city — in person. I guarantee hearing the candidates answer questions on the fly will offer more insight to guide you when it's time to mark that ballot.

Data released today from RealFacts shows the average monthly apartment rent in the Phoenix area dipped to $812 at the end of July, compared to $817 three months earlier.

The Valley's second quarter average apartment rent is much cheaper than Flagstaff's $877 rate. But Tucson is the most affordable with an average rent of  $661. All three Arizona areas have occupancy rates hovering around 89 to 91 percent.

Las Vegas' average rent is $886. In Denver its $880.  Like home prices, rents were flat or down in many metro areas in the western U.S., according to RealFacts.

Seattle posted the biggest increase - 2.3 percent. It's average rent is more than $1,100.

Home prices in metro Phoenix dropped 18 percent between April 2007 and April 2008, according to the Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index.

What with all the dismal news lately – jobs disappearing, banks teetering, gas the approximate price of a fine wine -- I figure we're all due for a good laugh.

And so I give you … the TIME initiative -- Transportation and Infrastructure Moving Arizona's Economy.

The business and political leaders who put this thing on the November ballot are now suing the state “to correct an unethical and potentially illegal maneuver,” “to ensure that Arizona voters get a balanced and accurate description” of their $42.6 billion plan.

It seems that someone is trying to sucker punch their proposition. Make that a group of someones. Specifically, the Republican legislators who sit on the panel that writes descriptions of propositions that'll be on the ballot.

“Their move,” says David Martin, chairman of the TIME Coalition and president of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors, “is a slap in the face to the initiative process and the people of Arizona and is a desperate attempt to scuttle a citizen's initiative designed to improve quality of life and provide transportation options.”

So what, you must wonder, did these dastardly Republicans do, to be slapping and scuttling?

They told the truth.

In writing the description of the TIME initiative that'll go to voters, they say the plan would raise the state sales tax by 17.8 percent.

The power set prefers to think of it as a penny on the dollar. They also prefer much more talk about what we'd be buying and less about what we'd be buying it with.

And so they went to court this week, asking that the Republicans be ordered to produce an “unbiased factual summary” which is code for PULEEEASE don't call it a 17.8 percent tax hike.

“The Legislative Council's description,” they wrote, “is not helpful to voters, some of whom will surely be confused by the language and take it to mean that for every dollar spent on goods, they will have to pay an additional 17.8 cents in sales tax rather than an additional one cent in sales tax.”

To which I say this: hahahahahahahaha.

Here's an excerpt from the description approved: “The transaction privilege tax (“sales tax”) and the use tax would be increased from 5.6 cents per one dollar to 6.6 cents per one dollar (a 17.8 percent tax increase).”

Somehow, I'm guessing voters will puzzle out what that means. Just as I'm guessing they'll remember that this is the group that cut a deal with homebuilders, agreeing not to include a fee on new development as part of their plan.

One would think that if one felt the largest tax increase in state history is justified, one would sell it. Instead, TIME is hoping to hide it.

Which is bold – and brilliant.

Putting one over on the voters, after all, is a time-honored tradition in this state. It's why pols love to tell you they cut taxes, never mind that what you pay always seems to go up. It's why every city and school district says your taxes won't go up if you give them millions more to spend, never bothering to mention how much your taxes would go down if you don't.

In their lawsuit, the TIME folks point out that Republicans, in their descriptions of tobacco tax propositions in 2006, 2002 and 1994, never mentioned how much, percentagewise, taxes would rise. They're right. In 2006, a tax to fund kids' programs was referred to as an 80-cent-a-pack increase.

Can you imagine what might have happened, had voters realized they were raising the cigarette tax by 68 percent? Or that it was a 68 percent increase on top of the 556 percent hike in the tax on cigarettes over the previous 12 years?

All three, by the way, breezed by voters, proving that in politics that old axiom about honesty isn't true.

You know, the one that says it's the best policy?

(Column published July 19, 2008, The Arizona Republic)