Badlands Journal

"We were giving people false hope," Cardoza said. -- Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Pimlico Kid-Merced/Annapolis

Nobody was a more vocal booster for those false hopes out front and more engaged in backroom deals to benefit the real estate boom in the north San Joaquin Valley than Dennis Cardoza. He was of the little yapping Senorcito UC Merceds in the state Legislature and in Congress the author of three unsuccessful bills to gut the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of a handful of finance, insurance and real estate special interests in his district during the speculative real estate boom that has busted, catching tens of thousands of people in his district, who are now upside-down on their mortgages. Cardoza, his family and his social circle all benefitted from the speculation.

Since the real estate boom collapsed, Cardoza's public utterances have grown increasingly absurd. His attack on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan is just one more example of his continual attempts to avoid the consequences of using his office to line his and his cronies' pockets.

Cardoza seems to think that HUD should be renamed HSD, Housing and Slurb Development.

Badlands Journal editorial board

The relationship between unemployment and environmental concern is treated in a paper by professors Matthew E. Kahn and Matthew J. Kotchen.

We suggest that "environmentalism" isn't a "good" of any sort. It is not a commodity any more than the people who have environmental concern, none at all, or some, are commodities. Nor is the environmental a "good," a commodity, except in the self-regulated, free market ideology of the two economists. They seem to have gotten so carried away with themselves that they fail to note what's most obvious: that high employment is linked to environmental destruction; high unemployment usually means that less environmental destruction is going on.

We are enjoying unusually good air quality this summer in the north San Joaquin Valley. However, we are anticipating the construction and operation of the WalMart distribution center within the next year or two. It will mean many, many trucks in town, which will permanently worsen our air quality, but a lot of jobs for construction and operation of the facility. With unemployment in Merced at Great Depression levels and with foreclosure rates still rising and home prices still falling, it's not much of a choice. But the people making the choice aren't thinking about "environmentalism" as a "good." In fact, people in this Valley generally know that asthma and respiratory disease are equal opportunity illnesses that attack rich and poor, employed and unemployed, and their young children and elderly parents alike.

Porky Stables

On June 17, residents of the 18th congressional district of California were informed by McClatchy Chain local outlets that a new star was rising in the world of horse racing, Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Pimlico Kid-Merced.

Boondoggle -- a trivial, useless or wasteful expenditure, usually of public funds.

In the current economic climate, critics have suggested that high-speed rail is a boondoggle. They couldn't be more wrong. The lack of funding may slow down the project, but it will eventually become a reality.
Projects of this magnitude must not be stopped by economic cycles. Our economy will rebound and one day high-speed rail will be an important part of California's transportation mix.

At first we were reassured by these wise, confident words from the McClatchy Co.'s Fresno outlet. We also dismissed the cynical comment that Fresno won't call this project a boondoggle right up to the time some other Valley city is chosen for the site of the heavy maintenance yard. Virtually every city along the proposed routes are bidding for that yard because it would appear to be the most tangible benefit in the whole project.

Why, in fact, "high-speed rail will be an important part of California's transportation mix." Who or what power would ordain it to come into existence? Who is it that even wants it? Isn't it the same small group of leaders that believed to fervently against reality that the speculative housing boom would never bust? Isn't it the same group of brainwashed leaders who always say the same thing at the same time and hope to hoodwink the citizens into believing unison means truth?

McClatchy's Big Eight

We didn't like this McClatchy article, "Health care overhaul: Tallying winners and losers." But we had to admit covering the results at the final bell of the year-long session of the free market for votes in the White House and Congress as if it were a wrap up article of a day's race card at Pimlico made some sense. But we had some bones to pick with it because for many ordinary readers, it will probably go down as pretty much the last word on the issue. We hope we get through the political campaign season without violence in the Valley.
The idea that Rep. Dennis Cardoza of Annapolis MD should get a few roses for his act on this bill is ludicrous. In a completely cowardly way, he refused to hold any town meetings on the bill last summer. He was stupid enough to crawl into the stinking bedsheets of water politics with Rep. Devin Hunes, Tulare Raver, and get politically sapped for his bad judgment. And he waffled on the bill until the last minute, like the proverbial "deer in headlights" pontificating sanctimoniously about proper House process and the suffering of members his own family all the way to the vote he had to make for the bill to avoid a future in the House broom closet if the Demcrats hang on this November. We think his vapors were authentic. People who spend their entire political careers denying the reality of history have a hard time dealing with historical situations.

It's a wonder UC Merced didn't also take credit for helping invent some of the grimmest real estate statistics in the country. It certainly has a right to that "honor" along with all the awards and recognitions it's claimed in recent Golden Bobcatflak.

Too humble, evidently.

Badlands Journal editorial board

12-31-09

Merced Sun-Star
Merced County's economic woes hit hard in 2009...DANIELLE E. GAINES. Reporters Jonah Owen Lamb and Corinne Reilly contributed to this story.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/1254070.html

The California High Speed Rail Authority held a technical advisory council meeting on Monday, Dec. 7, at a public meeting hall called the Sam Pipes Room, in the Merced City Hall. Two members of the Merced public, representing the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and Protect Our Water (POW), wished to attend. The regional director of the San Joaquin Valley unit of the rail authority had told the members of the public that a meeting would take place on Monday at a different location. The members of the public wrote to the regional director twice last week inquiring if they would be permitted to attend the meeting and asked her by phone. She replied that she had received the request and would talk to rail authority legal counsel. The members of the public requested that if they were not permitted to attend, that rail authority counsel provide written legal justification, considering that the authority was consulting with special interests like water districts, the farm bureau, insurance companies, etc. Not hearing back from the regional director at the end of last week or Monday morning, the members of the public called the rail authority headquarters in Sacramento and were informed of the time and different location of the meeting and that there should be no problem with public attendance of the meeting.

As Merced goes into the holiday shopping season starting next Friday, all economic indicators are thumbs down.

Official unemployment crept up a point from last month to 16.4 percent, with an increase expected for November. This means that actual unemployment is over 20 percent now and will rise toward 30 percent as the winter wears on.

In October 361 Merced homes received notices of default, down 33 from September; there were 459 trustee sales, up 61 from September; 273 homes went back to banks, 36 more than in September; and 50 homes were sold to third persons, up slightly from September and greatly from October 2008, when only nine homes were sold to third parties.

Citing unemployment as the driving force, the Los Angeles Times reported last week: "One in seven U.S. home loans was past due or in foreclosure as of Sept. 30, putting that quarterly delinquency measure at its highest level since 1972, when the Mortgage Bankers Assn. began reporting it. At the beginning of this year, 1 in 10 loans was past due or in foreclosure."

Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth (MARG), Tom Grave, Kyle Stockard and Joel Knox filed suit against the Merced City Council and  Real Parties of Interest Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P., Wal-Mart Stores East, Inc., and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on October 28, 2009 in Merced Superior Court, according to the court’s register of actions.

The case number is CV000593.

The case will be heard by President Judge of Merced Superior Court John D. Kirihara.

The law firm of Lippe Gaffney Wagner LLP represent plaintiffs MARG, Grave, Stockard and Knox.