Briefly

Verizon seeks residential rate hike

Verizon Communications has asked the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission for permission to increase its basic monthly phone charge by 75 percent, the company said Friday.

Verizon’s current basic monthly rate for residential phone service is $13, and the company has filed a proposal to raise that to $22.80 a month. Business customers’ basic monthly rate would increase to $39.50 from $29.70 a month. Those increases would affect only Verizon’s local telephone service, not its mobile service, said company spokesman Kevin Laverty.

The company provides service on about 21,000 telephone lines in Eastern Washington, mostly in Newport, Pullman, and small communities in south Spokane county and Whitman county, Laverty said. It provides service on about 850,000 lines in the state.

The company said it hasn’t asked for a general rate increase in Washington in 22 years.

Mountain West Bank earnings up sharply

Coeur d’Alene Mountain West Bank reported earnings of $3.6 million for the first six months of 2004, up nearly 24 percent from the same period in 2003. The results, released Friday, were influenced by the acquisition of Pend Oreille Bank in July 2003, and the purchase of AmericanWest Bank’s branch in Ione, Wash., in June 2004.

Mountain West is headquartered in Coeur d’Alene and has 16 branches in Idaho, Washington and Utah. It’s part of Glacier Bancorp, a holding company based in Kalispell, Mont.

Google sued for age discrimination

San Francisco Online search engine leader Google Inc. casts itself as an enlightened employer that pampers its employees with free meals to supplement plentiful helpings of stock options that could soon be worth millions of dollars.

But a lawsuit filed earlier this week by a recently fired Google manager offers a less flattering picture, contending the company has cultivated a culture that discriminates against older workers.

The civil complaint, filed Tuesday in Santa Clara Superior court, alleges Google fired Brian Reid, 54, as its director of operations in February 2004 because he didn’t fit in a culture emphasizing “youth and energy.”

Wrongful termination suits alleging age discrimination are common in corporate America, but Reid’s complaint could prove awkward for Google, an unorthodox company that has depicted itself as a progressive employer since its founding nearly six years ago.