The concrete walls are up and the roof is on. The Billings Food Bank logos are embossed on the exterior of two walls. And the decking for the second floor at the Food Bank's warehouse is next.

By late September or early October, the food bank will move into its new home, 2112 Fourth Ave. N., on the site of the old warehouse, which was torn down last September.

Even during these hard times, fundraising has gone well, said Executive Director Sheryle Shandy.

"Honestly, if we'd known about the economic downturn, we might have waited a year," she said.

Still, Shandy said the food bank has raised $4.6 million out of the $5 million needed.

Last December, the Fortin Foundation of Florida gave $1 million toward the warehouse project. In April, the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation donated $50,000, and another $50,000 gift came Thursday from First Interstate Bank and its foundation.

Once the employees have moved into the warehouse, Shandy said they'll hold a party to complete the fundraising by offering 100 tables at $5,000 per table.

Jones Construction of Billings is the general contractor. The on-site, tilt-up concrete walls are the highest that the Billings company has built so far, Shandy said.

Originally, the warehouse was going to be finished in April. Then weather happened.

"They didn't get an early enough start in the fall to get the walls up. Then we had a Montana winter. Who knew they still existed?" she said.

The food bank, on Fourth Avenue North, and First Interstate's operations center, two blocks north on Sixth Avenue North, will open at about the same time this fall.

Gawkers paradise

You don't see this every day, so lots of people have been stopping by to watch as two huge excavators tear out the middle of West Park Plaza.

The major demolition work to carve a road through what was the mall's center court began June 23 and was to be completed just before the Fourth of July holiday.

"CMG, our subcontractor, put two crews on it and brought in two excavators, so it went great," said project manager Joe Clark of Langlas & Associates. "And, yes, we had lots of 'sidewalk superintendents.' "

The next step is to dig up the old concrete slab and pour footings for the new exterior walls along the promenade.

Then the interiors will be finished for Time Out Sports and The Den, which will move back into permanent stores from their temporary digs. The rest of the interior work will wait.

"Until the tenant space is actually leased, we won't build the interior walls because one tenant may want twice as much space as the next," Clark said.

Sutton's closure

As the last 80 employees were laid off Thursday, Sutton's Sportswear officially ended its two-decade run in Billings. Another 10 or so workers found jobs or left before the last time card was punched.

The newest owners, six people who haven't revealed their identities, bought the company from Harold Sutton in January 2007. Just 2 years later, they are losing the business to the bank.

Out and about

• Talk about mass layoffs. Try more than 400,000 people tossed out of their jobs in Russia last week as Vladimir Putin ordered all the country's gambling casinos to shut down. The only way any casinos can continue to operate is to move to four backwater areas, including in Siberia, all chosen by Putin. According to the New York Times, Putin said he was concerned about young people and retirees "who lose their last kopecks and pensions through gambling."
• Image 'N That Embroidery has moved again from Rimrock Mall to the Rimrock Mini Mall across 24th Street West and now has a five-year lease. The business can be found at 111 S. 24th St. W., below Deb's Dance Wear.
• John Smart, owner of the former Corridor Exxon, has reopened in downtown Billings after losing his lease for the North 27th Street property now owned by the Billings Clinic. Smart has moved to 1620 Second Ave. N., behind the former Frontier Chevrolet. He has renamed his business COR Automotive, which does repairs and sells tires. He doesn't sell gas anymore.
• If you own a gas hog, you have to wait for the U.S. Transportation Department to draft the rules for the rebate program to trade in your guzzler. Congress passed a $1 billion program offering owners $3,500 to $4,500 in credits if their car or light truck gets 18 miles per gallon or less and they buy a more energy-efficient vehicle. The regulations are expected by July 23, and then guzzler owners have until Nov. 1 to swap vehicles.
  General Motors must continue to accept responsibility for product-liability lawsuits even involving the "old company" after it emerges from bankruptcy. That deal was struck during negotiations between the company and the Obama administration, which gave GM bailout money. Three dozen attorneys general, including Montana's Steve Bullock, protested GM's attempt to escape responsibility for such claims, as well as legal disputes over the closing of GM dealerships.

Scams du jour

This bill-collection practice is illegal, but that didn't stop Chrysler Financial from cold-calling me on a rare June afternoon when I was home on a workday after working an early shift.

Like most telemarketers, she asked for me by name, "Is Jan Falstad there?"

Always suspicious of telemarketing calls, I asked who was calling. She gave me a name and said she was trying to "get a message" to one of my neighbors.

Incredulously, I realized that this Chrysler caller was trying to use me to help them collect a debt. When I asked her if that was her motive, she denied it and said, "We're just trying to get him to call us back."

I told the caller I had no business relationship with Chrysler, that I was on the federal "Do Not Call" list and that meant her call was breaking federal law.

Finally, my anger rising, I said that I had no intention of helping Chrysler collect a debt and hung up.

Calling friends and neighbors to try to embarrass someone into paying a debt is a common, but illegal, practice under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, according to Billings attorney John Heenan.

Under this federal law, creditors can contact third parties only to verify the debtor's contact information, like address and telephone number. Usually they already have that information, Heenan said.

"At that point it becomes per se harassment or deception," he said. "They're contacting you to embarrass him and to co-opt you into the debt-collection process, which invades your own right to privacy."

But Amber Gowen, spokeswoman for Chrysler Financial at headquarters in Farmington Hills, Mich., said her company sometimes has to ask for help to try to reach a debtor.

"It is our policy that when we do talk to a third-party, we are extremely careful not to violate anyone's privacy or divulge information that we are precluded by law from sharing with others," she said. "This action is legal and permissible and a common practice in the industry."

Laugh lines

• When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
• Speaking of China, even if you are one in a million, statistically there are a thousand others just like you.
• "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." - George Bernard Shaw

Contact Jan Falstad at jfalstad@billingsgazette.com or 657-1306.