The Tri Cities may not need President Bush's proposed economic stimulus package.

Dean Schau - the most quotable labor analyst of all time - reports that employment in Benton and Franklin counties grew by 5.9 percent last year, creating new jobs in in food processing, retail trade, business and professional services, leisure and hospitality and government.

Hanford added 1,000 workers over the year, and so did the warehousing and transportation sector. December's jobless rate fell to 6.1 percent, compared to 6.9 percent the year before.

"Even if there's a recession, we won't notice it here," Dean told the Tri-City Herald.

The transportation sector should continue to grow in 2008. The Port of Benton this week awarded contracts on a $2 million truck-to-rail shipping facility that will help move central Washington produce across the country. The goal is to have it ready for this fall's harvest. A state grant is paying for about half of it.

Things also are looking good out on the farm. At a conference last week, farm economists said demand continues to rise for hay and alfalfa worldwide, even as acreage devoted to growing forage crops shrinks. Alfalfa was selling at $150 a ton last month - an all-time record - and the outlook going forward is good.

"There's a great opportunity for forage growers in the next couple of years and there are new markets developing," said Ed Shaw, the director of the Canadian Hay Association, who was one of the speakers.

Opportunities also seem to be there for wine producers. The Port of Kennewick has announced plans to buy the 92 acres of the now-unused Tri-City Raceway and redevelop it for use by wineries and wine-related businesses.

And potato giant J.R. Simplot also is growing, buying up Pasco-based pesticide and fertilizer dealer H&R Agriculture as part of a plan to expand into new ag-related markets and services.

The boom in the Tri-Cities is echoing across the county line in Yakima, where the labor market continues to tighten.

December's unemployment report showing an eight-tenths of a percentage point drop in the jobless rate. The reason: 5,000 additional Yakima County residents started commuting to jobs outside the county last year.

The figures don't specify, but my guess is that most of them are driving down the valley to the Tri-Cities - although it's conceivable that a few are making 90-minute power commutes over the Cascades. 

Yet there is reason for concern in Yakima. Job growth is slowing, regional labor economist Don Maseck told the Yakima Herald-Republic. "The bottom line is the labor market had a sluggish year in terms of local job growth."

Something in Yakima that isn't slowing down is the continuing development of downtown. New wineries are moving into vacant spaces in the city's core, and bistros and bars are following. That's good news, opines the Herald-Republic's editorial board:

"It's a given Yakima's core will never be the retail hub it once was," they wrote this week, "but specialty retail outlets, wineries, restaurants, lounges and outstanding entertainment venues are moving to fill the void in an area that is witnessing a rebirth of public interest."

Speaking of wine country, in Walla Walla, the Enology and Viticulture Center at Walla Walla Community College has a new director: Valerie Fayette, a former marketing executive with Honeywell who was once a brand manager for Ste. Michelle in Woodinville. She replaces Myles Anderson, the former WWCC admissions director turned wine pro. (Myles co-founded both Walla Walla Vintners and the WWCC wine and grape program.)

Also, tourism boosters are planning a new event - Feast Walla Walla - to get more wine-and-food lovers from The Coast to go across the mountains and into local hotels in April. For $45, you'll be able to stroll under a big tent, sampling local food and wine, and checking out some of the locally produced art. (It kind of flies under the radar, with all the attention given to wine, but Walla Walla is home to a leading sculpture-casting foundry, which has drawn some high-level artists to the area.)

And coming soon to YouTube: "Sam McLeod's Guide to Walla Walla." Tourism Walla Walla is paying $15,000 to film eight web-isodes designed to catch the attention of would-be wanderers to Wally World. The goal is to put "a Walla Walla message out there in a Walla Walla way," local tourism chief Michael Davidson told my friends at the Union-Bulletin. "We needed a professional to make sure this looked amateurish."

The U-B reports that the video should be on YouTube sometime later today.