Also note the prominent warning about the so-called ‘Riverside County Tax Authority’ mailer soliciting $167 to produce a copy of your grant deed. Larry will be happy to get you one for about $10 or $20 bucks. Don’t get conned. Check with the authority first.

Yesterday I wrote about AB 1672 which seeks to make the powerful and unaccountable Air Resources Board an elected body instead of the current patronage appointee body. Jeffries has five others in the hopper which, unfortunately, make too much sense to gain much traction in our Capitol.

According to Jeffries, “It is becoming increasingly clear that in addition to the economic and budgetary problems we face in Sacramento, we have serious problems with the way the people’s business is conducted. Too many decisions are made in the dead of night or behind closed doors. How can we possibly arrive at the right solutions for our state when the process itself is so badly broken?”

AB 1671 - Riverside County recently suffered a vacancy on our Board of Supervisors following the untimely death of a member. The position sat vacant with the county being unable to field a quorum on some issues while we waited for the Governor to appoint a replacement. AB 1671 gets the Governor out of what should be a local decision allowing locally elected and accountable county boards to fill their own vacancies or call a special election to fill mid-term vacancies.

ACA 29 – Would create a 2 year budget cycle in which the first year wold be entirely devoted to passing a budget and reviewing our spending priorities. The second year would be devoted to policy matter, programs and oversight. This would allow school districts, local governments and private industry more certainty in their dealings with Sacramento and their own budget process and would eliminate the annual budget wars that consume most of our year every year.

ACA 30 - Seeks to abolish the office of Lieutenant Governor. This waste of space office has few, if any, official duties, it sucks up unnecessary tax dollars for an antiquated and largely ceremonial position, and the duties could easily be assumed by the Secretary of State’s office. Lieutenant Governor has been referred to as the ‘easiest elected job in Sacramento’ and is a running joke even for those elected. The position is currently vacant and most people don’t even know it.

ACA 31 – The ‘Sunshine Law’ would require all legislative sessions (except in limited emergency situations) to be conducted between the hours of 9am and 9 pm. In recent years our budget battles have resulted in ‘lockdowns’ where our legislators were literally locked into chambers overnight until a bill was passed. This has resulted in some really stupid stuff getting passed out of sight of the public and the media. Media’s role is largely relegated to posting pictures of lawmakers sleeping at their desks while the public is prevented from knowing what’s going on until it’s too late.

ACA 8 – This is not a new bill but one that Jeffries is hopeful will see the light of day this year. This bill would require all legislation to be in print at least 24 hours prior to a vote. It would eliminate Sacramento’s propensity to dump hundreds of pages of a bill onto a legislators desk minutes before a vote is taken. This bill, designed to shine a light on back room deals, has been help hostage in a committee back room for over a year.

“All these bills are serious challenges to the status quo but I believe these ideas can increase public involvement and accountability, reduce bureaucracy, and start returning power to local governments and away from state government that has proven itself incapable of governing in an open and deliberative manner.”

Well, good luck with that, Kevin. Here’s hoping at least a couple of these get passed – but given the current state of affairs in Sacramento, I’m not too optomistic.

County Assessor/Clerk/Recorder Larry Ward has just released his 2009-2010 Annual Report and it’s chock full of all kinds of exciting stuff – and some not so exciting.

I’ll just tease you with a few details but for the full scoop you’ve got to follow the link at the bottom to find the details.

For example, did you know that:

• The Riverside County tax roll value (before exemptions) dropped 10.51% last year – from $242.98 Billion to $217.44?
• There are 500,292 single family residences in the County worth $120,318,983,044. They represent 57.54% of the tax base with an average value of $240,498?
• 253,364 of those received a reduction in assessed value last year averaging $144,432 and a total of $36,593,784,694 was lopped off the tax rolls as a result? That’s 15.44% of the total.
• Indian Wells has 4 of the 5 largest homes in the county at 22,597; 20,499,; 19,188; and 18,404 SqFt. Palm Desert snuck in #2 at 20,667?
• The Palm Desert place is assessed at $26,619,674 while the Indian Wells places are $16,611,951; 12,180,881; 11,935,337 and $11,736,743? (He doesn’t say if they applied for a reduction in value last year).
• There were 36,191 appeals last year, up from 12,330 in 2008 and 2,909 in 2007. Remember those days?
• In Murrieta there were 19,113 homes re-assessed under Prop 8. Gross Value Assessment rolls dropped 14.92% from $11,885,525,613 to $10,112,353,803?
• In Temecula there were 16,110 homes re-assessed. GVA dropped 11.33% from 13,537,557,997 to $12,003,546,129?
• The top business in the County based on Business Personal Property was Abbott Vascular. International Rectifier came in at #14?

Well, there’s a ton more great info available - the report runs to 40 pages of numbers, charts & graphs and a terrific summary of each of our cities. . You can find the whole shebang right here: Assessor/Clerk/Recorder 2009-2010 Annual Report.

Nice article in the on-line Sacramento Bee. Plug in your county and city and/or agency and see how much the recently passed state budget will be costing them. Of course it’s not a tax – they are just ‘borrowing’ an extra $15.00 per resident. I’m looking forward to the day they pay that back. They’ve been borrowing from cities and other agencies for years. Anybody who runs their business in a style that actually makes money is likely to see that money stolen – um, borrowed by the state.

On the plus side they remind us that -  Some of these lost funds will be offset by A) federal stimulus money and B) the ability of local governments to borrow lost property tax revenue against the state’s promised repayment. So the state taketh and forceth us to rely on yet more Obama bail-outs for subsistence. Like the federal gov’t is flush with cash. Oh, I forgot, they own the mints – they can just make more and it’s, like, FREE that way, isn’t it?

Database: See how much your local government will lose under state budget

Government entity	County	Type of government	Estimated amount state will borrow or take this fiscal year	Amount borrowed per resident
Wildomar	Riverside	City Government	$0	$0

Information available on the Riverside County Neighborhood Stabilization Program

Today marked the 6th Annual Riverside County Water Symposium. The event featured a series of panels and speakers discussing the water challenges facing our state today. The keynote was delivered by Michael Chrisman, California Secretary for Natural Resources.

Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley set the tone by stating that we are literally playing Russian Roulette with the Sacramento Delta. One little mis-hap, a flood, an earthquake, terrorist threat or an angry gopher could disrupt the water supply to 25 million Californians and dramatically impact the economy of this state for decades. As he noted, we’d be up a creek all right but it would be a dry creek. We can’t conserve our way out of this mess – we must address and resolve some of the fundamental problems with our systems starting with the Sacramento Delta. When the Delta fails – not if but when, it will make Katrina and Andrew look like childs play in terms of damage to the area, the ecosystem and the state’s economy.

I don’t think it comes as a big surprise that our water systems, much of it built 30 – 50 years ago, was never designed or intended to meet today’s demand. And while environmental concerns have acted to restrict the flow of existing water (see Delta Smelt), those same concerns have prevented us from developing new resources or re-working other solutions (peripheral canal). In the past 100 years we’ve relied on big projects, big technological developments and throwing big money at it. That’s not viable in the 21st Century where we face higher demand with fewer resources and less money.

One thing they all agreed on, we’ve witnessed the end of the era of cheap water. You are no longer assured of getting all the water you want – rather they’ll be working hard just to get you all the water you  need, and at a price you can still afford. After all, Western Municipal, which provides most of  Southern California’s water to our local providers, is implementing a 19.7% increase this September followed by another 21% jump in 2011.  Tiered pricing will become the norm with conservation being rewarded while profligate use will be penalized. After all, upwards of 80% of domestic water use is OUTSIDE the home with as much as 50% of that is wasted in run-off, over-spray, etc.  If homeowners worked their land like farmers, we could dramatically decrease water usage. But even reduced usage will eventually result in higher bills as infrastructure improvements are required.

Some positive notes – from John Rossi, GM of Western Municipal – ‘In every crisis is an opportunity’.  This may be the best time in 25 years to actually fund and implement some real solutions in the Delta in spite of California’s economy. But the timing is critical and they are forming coalitions to get active on this NOW. They are encouraged to be working with some of the groups that have been adversaries in the past but have a new view of what can and should happen to the Delta going forward. They are asking Sacramento to stop politicizing the issue. The resource is neither a Democratic nor a Republican resource and the resolution to the issue will be derived by working together. They also wish Sacramento would focus on getting it’s own act together and quit issuing new and/or redundant requirements and compliance reports about issues they have no clue. Well, good luck on that one.

They are further encouraged by the possibility of obtaining some bail-out funds for critical projects. However, as one noted, the structure of the bail-out rewards the inept. If you’ve managed your business right, you probably don’t qualify. (Hmmmm, where have we seen that before?) For example, one of the requirements to qualify for Federal funds is to have ‘shovel-ready’ projects – yet few associations or water departments can afford to plan and implement a project to a shovel-ready state without having had the funding mechanism for the project in place from the out-set. It’s one of those catch 22′s – you can’t develop a project unless you have money but you can’t have money until your project’s developed. Duhhhh.

Secretary Chrisman noted that we have recently had two prominent California water experts placed in high Federal office, which bodes well for some of our projects. The new Director of the Department of Water Resources has mandated that human costs be factored into consideration along with the customary environmental impact and structural costs. They’re also evaluating California Water Law, which currently ranks as the most complex water law in the country. Our combination of old British Water Law, adopted in the 1850′s, usufructuary, riparian and appropriative water rights creates quite a challenging environment to work in. He also noted that the Endangered Species Act has been used at times as a very blunt instrument to craft laws and they are petitioning for reconsideration of the Delta Smelt and other ‘endangered’ species.

As with so many issues facing California today, we are at a crossroads in our water supply. As Mark Twain opined, “Whiskey is for drinkin’, water is for fightin’ over.” It looks like we’re coming into the fightin’ season for California water right now and, as with all our endeavors, we as Realtors had better be at the table with them – or we’ll sure as hell be on the menu.

The main page for the Recorder/Assessor/Clerk office has also been updated to include more information on Fraud and an extended help section on Prop 8. Remember, the Assessors office will be re-assessing EVERY home sold in Riverside County since 2001 this year – some 550,000 homes. Owners will be notified of their new value by July and they have until September 1 to file an appeal of the re-valuation. Information here: http://riverside.asrclkrec.com/

Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Trust Fund
Government Code 27388

Effective February 25, 2009, the Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Trust Fund Fee will change from $2.00 to $3.00. The fee will be collected on the following titles (3 additional titles are added):

• Assignment of Deed of Trust
• Assignment of Mortgage
• Assignment of Mortgage/Deed of Trust
• Deed of Trust
• Extension of Deed of Trust
• Modification of a Deed of Trust
• Notice of Default
• Notice of Rescission of Declaration of Default (new title)
• Notice of Trustee Sale (new title)
• Reconveyance
• Release of Deed of Trust
• Release of Obligation of Deed of Trust
• Request for Notice
• Subordinated Deed of Trust
• Substitution of Trustee (new title)
• Any of the above titles being re-recorded

http://riverside.asrclkrec.com/

For more information on HELP, please click on their site:

Tell the Banks – produce The Note!

Don’t Leave Your Home – Squat.

That’s the advice of Representative Marcy Kaptur, 14 term Democratic Representative from Ohio and the House’s longest serving woman legislator.

Of course the ‘Produce The Note’ theory isn’t exactly new and it’s not exactly successful, but it’s a novel idea and good for a little free press. You can read a full article here: Kaptur – Don’t Leave Your Home.

You should know that Kaptur serves a slice of Ohio that graces the shore of Lake Erie from just west of Cleveland over to Toledo. Even in the good old days this area was referred to as ‘The Rust Belt’. Two of America’s Fastest Dying Cities, (Forbes.com) are in an adjacent district and another three are just up the road in Michigan. Unemployment bumping 25% and higher in some locales has produced an epidemic of foreclosures. She has been critical of the Presidents programs stating they do not adequately address the foreclosure issue in her district.

Of course we already know the Presidents programs don’t adequately address the foreclosure issue in California either. With qualifications including Fannie & Freddie owned loans (not many in CA), and the loan to value range of 80% to 105% (try 150%), fewer than 2% of Californians may benefit. . Two very different circumstances – same result – no help.

Anyway, the theory goes, Because of the way sub-prime loans were made, parceled, bundled into securities and sold and resold, the foreclosing bank may not actually have your original note. The contract between you and the bank. It exploits a legal technicality that says your note must be available for the final settlement to occur.

In a recent speech before Congress Kaptur suggested:

“Don’t leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don’t have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can’t find the paper up there on Wall Street.”  Possession is nine-tenths of the law, therefore, stay in your property. Get proper legal representation … [if] Wall Street cannot produce the deed nor the mortgage audit trail … you should stay in your home. It is your castle. It’s more than a piece of property. … Most people don’t even think about getting representation, because they get a piece of paper from the bank, and they go, ‘Oh, it’s the bank,’ and they become fearful, rather than saying: ‘This is contract law. The mortgage is a contract. I am one party. There is another party. What are my legal rights under the law as a property owner?”

“If you look at the bad paper, if you look at where there’s trouble, 95 to 98 percent of the paper really has moved to five institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wachovia, Citigroup and HSBC. They have this country held by the neck.”

Kaptur recommends calling the local Legal Aid Society, Bar Association or 888-995-4673 for legal assistance.

Is it working? There have been some intermittent successes but more often than not the only result is to prolong the inevitable. According to the American Securitization Forum, a group that represents banks, law firms and investors, the original note is almost always electronically stored and will eventually be retrieved. Judges are increasingly willing to accept electronic documents these days but it creates a delay, which, according to a spokesman for the Group, is what it’s all about. Homeowners are making lenders jump through procedural hoops at a time when lenders have fewer resources to deal with more paperwork. Assembling the paperwork and providing documents to a judges satisfaction takes time but does little to change the eventual outcome – foreclosure. But if homeowners can buy a little time sometimes that’s victory enough.

Why am I posting this now? Because we are seeing seminars on this, or similar, procedures cropping up in the marketplace. I recently posted on the high-profile squatter scam in Sacramento – it’s definitly another wave of potential fraud against the unwary.

I’m not here to validate the legitimacy of either the program or the practitioners - but if you are approached by someone touting this type of program, even if she’s a Congress(wo)man, always follow Kaptur’s advice and check with the Riverside County legal aid society, the California Bar Association or call 888-995-4673 for assistance. Even Congress(wo)men have been known to get it wrong from time to time.

Oh, and if you’re contemplating advising people to squat – you might want to read this ActiveRain feature article first: Fixin to Get Cooked In The Squat.