Sound Transit will offer late-night service on Tacoma Link light rail New Year’s Eve.

The last southbound train from the Theater District will depart at 1:10 a.m. and the last northbound train from the Tacoma Dome will depart at 1 a.m.

Sound Transit services will operate under holiday schedules on Saturday. There will be no Sounder rail service, and Sunday schedules will apply for all ST Express buses, Central Link light rail, and Tacoma Link in observation of New Years Day.

Sound Transit Sounder trains and ST Express buses will operate on regular …

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The University Place City Council is scheduled Thursday night to award the construction contract to complete the underground parking garage that serves the new civic building within the Town Center mixed-use development.

The project has some urgency to it as the city has committed to have 80 parking stalls ready for use when the new public library opens Feb. 12. The library is located in the civic building.

The board of trustees for the Pierce County Library System had expressed concerns about the parking situation when city officials told them earlier this month there would be fewer stalls …

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Backers are in line to receive $30,000 toward construction of a new playground at Chambers Creek Properties through a corporate Internet competition.

They are asking people to vote for the Playground by the Sound project through the Pepsi Refresh Project, which is gives away more than a million dollars each month to help communities around the nation.

Playground by the Sound is seeking two grants through the competition: $25,000 for construction, and $5,000 for design and engineering.

On Tuesday, with four days of voting remaining, both proposals were No. 3 in their respective categories.

The top 10 projects …

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The state Department of Agriculture wants to treat the parking lot of the South Hill Mall in Puyallup this spring with a biological insecticide to eradicate a “reproducing population” of the destructive European gypsy moth.

The treatment would involve three to five applications of the insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, the department said in a news release. The insecticide is found naturally in the environment and is registered for use by the Environmental Protection Agency, the release said.

There are no homes in the proposed application area, the release said.

The plan isn’t a done deal. The department will …

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The Lakewood Fire District has honored a total of six firefighters for their recent work in Haiti.

Four Lakewood firefighters — Matt Wagner, Dan Bronoske, David Emmons and Travis Smith — spent 11 days in Haiti treating patients at an emergency room clinic out of a former amusement park in Port-au-Prince, the island nation’s capital. This volunteer mission was organized by Disaster Response Northwest, a nonprofit organization created by six paramedics from Pierce, Grays Harbor and Kitsap Counties.

Some additional information about their trip can be found here.

In addition, the district honored two University Place firefighters, Greg Reimann …

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Sound Transit  buses will operate with special holiday hours on Christmas Day this Saturday.

There will be no Sounder rail service, and Sunday schedules will apply for all ST Express buses, Central Link light rail, and Tacoma Link on Christmas Day.

All Sound Transit trains and buses, however,  will operate on regular weekday service on Friday, the official holiday.

Riders are asked to check Sound Transit’s website for potential service changes in response to winter weather conditions.

Riders can sign up to receive automatic e-mail service alerts for Central Link, Sounder Seattle-Everett, Sounder Seattle-Tacoma, Tacoma Link or ST …

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A man in Tacoma’s West End has become a Christmas Tree Santa Claus.

Joey L’Amarca discovered five good-looking Christmas trees in his front yard this morning and wants to give them away.

“It’s bizarre,” he said. “They are really nice trees.”

He doesn’t know who put them in his yard or why. But with Christmas only four days away, he said they might as well go to good homes full of kids.

The fir trees are full and 7 to 8 feet tall, he said.

L’Amarca said he doesn’t need a tree this year. He explained his children won’t be home …

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It’s official: Cascade Water Alliance will be able to use Lake Tapps as a municipal drinking water source and divert an average of 48 million gallons a day from the reservoir in eastern Pierce County.

The state Department of Ecology signed off on the water rights package in September, but presented the official agreement to Cascade’s board during a meeting this week, a news release said.

“Acquiring this water right is a significant step for Cascade,” Lloyd Warren, board chair, said in the release.

Cascade is a consortium of cities and water districts in King County.

A Cascade spokeswoman …

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