Badlands Journal

It is good that Rep. John Moss, D-Sacramento, is remembered for his authorship of the federal Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966, in an interview with his biographer, Michael Lemov.

The article reminds us of two great California State Legislature laws governing public access to government meetings and information pertaining to state government only.

Ralph M. Brown Act, 1953, describes its purpose and intent:

In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

California Public Records Act, 1968

6250. In enacting this chapter, the Legislature, mindful of the right of individuals to privacy, finds and declares that access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.

Badlands Journal editorial board

As it turns out the Invisible Middle Finger of the Free Market in Real Estate Fraud is a robot. Go figure.

Badlands Journal editorial board

5-26-11
propublica.org
Foreclosure Contractors Face New Scrutiny From States
by Marian Wang
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/foreclosure-contractors-face-new-scrutiny-from-states
While federal and state officials investigating flawed foreclosures [1] have largely focused on holding the banks accountable and bringing relief to wronged homeowners, officials in a few states have begun targeting the more obscure middlemen of the foreclosure scandal.

Prosecutors in California and Illinois have sent subpoenas [2] to Lender Processing Services, one of the largest firms that processed mortgage documents for the banks. (Read more about LPS in our guide to who’s who of the foreclosure scandal [3].)

As we’ve noted [4], the firm—which helps handle more than half of all U.S. mortgages [5]—has been accused of using the same “robo-signing [6]” practices as the major banks, such as signing and notarizing documents that appeared inaccurate or invalid. Bank employees have testified under oath that they relied on LPS to vet the information [7] in foreclosure documents.

Asia Times
How to Cut Housing Demand in Half
May 17th, 2011
By David Goldman
http://blog.atimes.net/?p=1794
The American Planning Association blog observes that 1.2 million households have disappeared in the current crisis. That could be the beginning of a trend. With an average of 555 square feet in residential living space per person, there is enormous room for housing demand to expand or contract. In tough times, people double up. As the Boomers reach retirement with little or no savings, many will do what Steve Vernon at CBS MoneyWatch suggests: two retired couples will share a three-bedroom house. Four retirees will have a combined income of $72,000 from Social Security, which means that the four residents of the house will enjoy the median income of American families. Back in 1973, America had 25 million households with two parents and two more children, and 35 million housing units with three or more bedrooms. Today it has the same number of households with two parents and two or more children, but more than 70 million housing units with three or more bedrooms. Split the American dream in half, and you solve the retirement problem — leaving a gigantic deficit of large-lot single family homes. Two retiring couples who can agree on buying a house in Phoenix or Las Vegas, moreover, can get quite a bargain.

Cardoza: the lies that keep on coming.

Just because something is repeated over and over again doesn't make it true. The propaganda machine of Rep. Dennis Cardoza, the Pimlico Kid, is in full gear again this month with an "edition" of something they call "Valley Views," suggesting the verbiage it contains is something other than the personal vision of Cardoza and his wealthiest backers in the region.

The screed begins with a discussion of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing of the Don Pedro Dam facility, shared by Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts. To read this "view," a completely uninformed voter might reach the conclusion that if it weren't for Cardoza's timely and energetic intervention, the federal government would close down the hydroelectric facilities at Don Pedro.

Just imagine how it feels when year after year some federal or state environmental agency or non-governmental organization like the American Lung Association,  announces once again that the south San Joaquin Valley has the worst air pollution in the nation and it is getting worse and worse, and year after year, the newspaper reporting the grim news -- in the interest of "balanced" reporting, contacts the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control Board's chief spokesman, known to readers of the Valley press as "Seyed the Mendacious," who contradicts the outside authorities with news that actually, as usual, they exaggerate.
Year after year, fending off all penalties for non-compliance, the air board, more properly called the San Joaquin Valley Uncontrollable Air Pollution Board, has finally achieved the aim of its paymasters in the finance, insurance and real estate special interest community: no governmental action not carrying serious economic consequences could arrest the increase of air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley.

It feels like the game is over. The Valley is now "developed" sufficiently that the yearly increase of deadly air cannot be stopped. It's done.
Forty years ago there was no blue purer than the sky over Bakersfield on a sunny day. That sky had value, but not for business. All Hail Business, which destroys and moves on if society is not so besotted with "free market" propaganda that it is incapable of defending itself against business.

Badlands Journal editorial board

State Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani, who represents Merced and parts north, recently attacked state Sen. Joe Simitian, who represents the rail SAnta Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties for attempting to steal money from the funds for the high-speed rail system. Galgiani, launching her campaign for statewide office -- Secretary of State -- is posing as the Mother of High-Speed Rail, a reputed statewide issue. Simitian appears to be trying to use $1 billion of the $9-billion fund to refurbish and improve the existing commuter trains and tracks running from San Jose to San Francisco. It has been expert researchers from his district who have pointed out the most glaring flaws in the assumptions of ridership in the high-speed flak and even its complete misstatement of the width of the right-of-way on the San Francisco peninsula.

But a girl with statewide political ambitions needs a statewide issue and high-speed rail is a lot safer than going after Simitian for his authorship of the bill for the new peripheral canal, which could get a girl with statwide political ambitions into a lot of trouble with a lot of rich and powerful people south of the San Joaquin Delta, where the vast majority of votes in California lie.

However, sometimes the flak provokes its opposite, something well enough reasoned and sufficiently complex to resemble truthful statement. Consider the two commentaries below, one by a Stanford historian of 19th-century American railroad history, the other a USC professor of engineering and public policy.

The last time we remember best seeing Don Bergman was in the parking lot of a church, sniggering with a group of men from out of town wearing identical black caps distributed to them before a meeting inside the church during which the men interrupted, jeered at, swore at and verbally threatened a woman in her mid-70s whose offense in their eyes was opposition to the Riverside Motor Sports auto race track. Bergman wasn't for the fancy pants UC Merced campus that night. He was a man of the mob.

"Gentlemen, start your engines," he told them.

In an earlier career as executive director of the city chamber of commerce, Bergman had a conflict with local motel owners, who resisted the idea of funding an Olympic swimming pool at UC Merced by increasing the motel tax.

"You are nothing but a buncha dumb immigrants," he told them in City Hall.

Badlands Journal editorial board

5-4-11
Merced Sun-Star
UC Merced Connect: Research studies Valley problems

For more information, see http://makeagift.ucmerced. edu/chancellors-associates. aspx or call Lisa McMullen at 228-4202.

Finance, insurance, real estate special interests in the north San Joaquin Valley, home of the worst foreclosure rate in the nation, are suffering high anxiety that the University of California might convert UC Merced, anchor tenant for the real estate boom and bust, into a liberal arts college.
Furthermore, this idea is being advanced on the floor of the state Senate by none other than that notorious liberal, former mayor of Berkeley and wife of the present mayor of Berkeley, state Sen. Loni Hancock.
Readers of the Sonny Star's latest brothel ballad are asked to get into the injustice of the story by recalling a quote by Ronald Reagan, while campaigning for president against President Jimmy Carter: "There you go again." That famous half whisper, that complex mixture of contempt and exaspiration, that famous Reagan attitude, the same that tear gassed UC Berkeley students from helicopters when he was governor, that same attitude, contempt and exaspiration for law that urged Reagan to enable the shipment, production, sales and distribution of crack cocaine in Hancock's district.
But Hancock's district contains even more. For example, it contains the first UC campaign, Berkeley, and the UC Office of the President, the headquarters for the entire UC system. Hancock is not acting as an adversary of the UC president or Board of Regents here. She is representing them, raising the trial balloon that must be sending all the local Mr. and Ms. UC Merceds straight to their cardiologists.