Kentucky.com: Financial & Business - Wire
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• Post History at a glance
  A chronology of The Cincinnati Post and The Kentucky Post newspapers, which will close Dec. 31:1881 - Brothers Walter and Frank Wellman launch The Penny Paper in Cincinnati; they sell it later that year to James E. Scripps.1883 - E.W. Scripps, his brother who launched The Cleveland Penny Press in 1878, assumes control of the paper, then named the Penny Post.1890 - The newspaper becomes The Cincinnati Post and a sister edition, The Kentucky Post, is launched.1958 - The Post acquires the afternoon Times-Star.
• AP Interview: Scripps executive expects growth
  A restructured E.W. Scripps Co. will emerge in 2008, one that its designated chief executive says can grow."Long term, what you want to do is be a player in more markets," Rich Boehne, currently Scripps' chief operating officer, said in an AP interview. Scripps recently announced plans to split into two companies, with current CEO Kenneth Lowe to head the new Scripps Networks Interactive.E.W. Scripps, to be headed by Boehne, will include newspapers in 17 U.S. markets and 10 broadcast television stations. While the new company gets newer, growing businesses such as the Food Network and HGTV, Boehne said he is bullish on the future for local news on TV and newspapers and particularly in their online components."The growth opportunities are probably more immediate on the cable network side, but the wonderful change and chaos and lack of clarity in local media suggests that there's opportunity," Boehne said."When I'm in the newsrooms, what I preach constantly is in today's environment, it's much less about who, what, when and where. It's about why and what's next," he said. "In an environment where you do have a multitude of voices, the opportunity to bring context and color and perspective is I think our real role.
• Comments about Post's imminent passing
  "I grew up with The Kentucky Post. That was the first thing I did when I got home, look at the paper. They are true journalists. They did the ultimate coverage. I think that's something that's going to be missed." - Jerry Peluso, a Newport, Ky., city councilman whose family has been involved in Newport government for decades."They were very much part of a fabric of the city for their whole history. They had a distinctive voice .... It's just one more example of how that whole advertising and communications world is changing." - Lynn Marmer, group vice president of corporate affairs for Cincinnati-based Kroger Co."It's tragic. The Post is a very good newspaper. I think anytime you have a situation where you don't have multiple sources for news, then you are subjected to a particular view or potentially only one side of the story." - Mark Mallory, mayor of Cincinnati."There's a great tradition of journalism and colorful writing ... December 31st will be a dark day for our region." - Raymond Buse III, a former Post reporter and copy editor who's public relations director for the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber."A piece of history has gone. Obviously a voice has gone. On the other hand, they were a foundation for a lot of writers and other people who moved into higher positions. So the legacy lives on." - Alicia Reece, an Ohio tourism official and former Post intern who went into politics and served on Cincinnati's city council.
• Post, Cincinnati/northern Kentucky area, prepare for end
  A lively and influential voice in the Cincinnati region for more than a century already is a ghost of its former self as the final deadline looms for The Post.Daily circulation less than a tenth of its peak numbers, newsroom staff less than a third of its former size, the afternoon newspaper that once dispatched reporters to cover Hurricane Andrew's devastation in Florida, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the collapse of the Soviet Union now struggles to cover the city and northern Kentucky communities it helped change.With The Cincinnati Post and its sister Kentucky Post set to close Dec. 31, the some 50 remaining employees carry out their usual work while also deciding what to toss and what to take. The stacks of boxes full of files, documents and belongings grow."It's starting to hit home a little more now," said Luke Saladin, a Post reporter for nearly seven years. "But people knew it was coming. To me, The Post that people have historically known has already been gone for a few years."There's been little doubt about the fate of The Post, which increasingly looked like a journalistic Alamo battling powerful trends: first, the rise of the suburbs and changing lifestyles that pulled readers away from afternoon newspapers, then the rapid expansion of television news, and the Internet age that offers myriad sources for information and new advertising outlets.
• Union recommedning clerks at Ellis Park reject contract offer
  Pari-mutuel clerks and valets at Ellis Park are poised to go on strike on New Year's Day.The union representing them is recommending they reject a contract offer that includes a pay cut and shorter work day from track owner Ron Geary.The union, Service Employees International Union Local 541, represents about 150 pari-mutuel clerks who work the betting windows and in related jobs at the track, along with 10 valets who handle saddling racehorses and take care of jockeys' racing silks, helmets and other gear.A vote on the contract proposal is scheduled for Friday."Of course, we're not going to accept it. None of the (negotiating) committee approved it," said Herman Fehler, president of Local 541 of the Service Employees International Union in Louisville.
• Nurses to vote on new contract over the weekend
  Hundreds of Appalachian nurses who have been on strike since October will begin voting Friday afternoon on a tentative contract agreement between union and hospital officials.About 700 nurses at Appalachian Regional Healthcare will cast ballots between Friday and Saturday, said Pat Tanner, the nurses' chief negotiator. About 500 of those nurses are still walking the picket line. The votes will be counted Saturday night.Both sides say details of the agreement will not be disclosed until the votes are in.Earlier this month, the nurses rejected a contract proposal, which offered no assurances that striking nurses would get their jobs back.Tanner says the current proposal would allow all the striking nurses to return to work.
• Peabody: All power for planned power plant now spoken for
  An Ohio utility has increased its stake in a planned coal-fired power plant in southern Illinois, ensuring that all the 1,600 megawatts of output from the $2.9 billion project now have been spoken for, the developer has announced.St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. said American Municipal Power in Ohio has agreed to snap up 368 megawatts from the project, upping its share to 23 percent. The plant is being built on what's being called the Prairie State Energy campus near Lively Grove in Illinois' Washington County."This transaction completes our partner agreements for the project," with Peabody retaining a 5 percent stake, said Rick Bowen, Peabody's president of generation and Btu conversion.American Municipal Power, a 36-year-old nonprofit, serves more than 520,000 customers through member utilities in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Michigan.Peabody broke ground on the plant in October and expects it to be up and running in 2011 or 2012, eventually serving 1.7 million families from Missouri to Virginia.
• Lenders give Tropicana 1-year break on debt
  Lenders have given the former owners of the Tropicana Casino and Resort a year of breathing room before they can demand repayment of debt, the company said Friday.Tropicana Entertainment LLC said its senior lenders agreed to hold off for up to a year before declaring the company to be in default of its loan terms - a move that Tropicana said could have pushed it into bankruptcy.The deal was reached late Thursday night.New Jersey casino regulators stripped the Tropicana of its license on Dec. 12, determining that its owners, Crestview Hills, Ky.-based Columbia Sussex Corp., were incapable of operating the type of "first-class facility" required under state law.The loss of the license could have enabled lenders to almost immediately demand repayment of loans.
• Houchens boasts wide interests thanks to acquisitions
  From a humble start decades ago when its founder sold groceries from a rural Kentucky shed, Houchens Industries Inc. has blossomed into a far-flung company with a fondness for dealmaking - perhaps more than ever since cashing in on the sale of its cigarette subsidiary.It's been a heady year for Houchens, highlighted by deals with a British tobacco giant and a U.S. banking company. Yet the employee-owned Houchens, based in this southern Kentucky college town, clings to homespun principles and a more leisurely pace far removed from the corporate fast lane."It's a little bit more laid back than what you might think a larger com