| Today's Feature Looking for a
better idea.
The Public Safety Committee has
directed Police Chief Greg Dagnan and City
Administrator Tom Short to get input from
business owners and residents living on and
around the square concerning the two hour parking
regulation.
Dagnan was also instructed by
the Committee to continue the practice of
allowing elected County elected officials to
bypass the current two hour restriction by
issuing "parking passes" to the twelve
individuals. The Committee has no written
ordinance to allow the passes, but past practice
will be followed until an overall parking
solution is put in place.
The Committee is attempting to
come up with a comprehensive solution rather than
dealing with individual requests for a variance
to the current two-hour parking district on and
around the square.
The parking issue has been
accelerated by the fact that since the first part
of March, the Traffic Enforcement Officer has
issued over 600 parking tickets. This is a steep
increase from previous months. The increase in
enforcement has produced a corresponding increase
in complaints.
Big Banks
Ramp Up Mortgage Mod Program
by Ben Protess,
www.ProPublica.org
JP Morgan Chase is leading the
pack of loan servicers participating in the
program Making Home Affordable. The bank is
expected to receive more than $3.5 billion.
JP Morgan Chase is leading the
pack of loan servicers participating in the
program Making Home Affordable. The bank is
expected to receive more than $3.5 billion.
The list of banks joining the
Obama administration’s foreclosure relief
program is growing—and so is the cost.
So far, the Treasury Department
has committed more than $13 billion to 11 loan
servicers participating in Making Home
Affordable, the administration’s plan to
modify mortgages for people on the verge of
losing their homes. The servicers include some of
the nation’s largest banks, which have
already received billions in government bailout
bucks.
The program will eventually
cost about $75 billion—$50 billion in TARP
money and $25 billion from Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac. Although it’s optional for loan
servicers to join the program, Treasury Secretary
Tim Geithner has said that banks must participate
to qualify for government assistance.
Leading the way is JPMorgan
Chase, which is expected to eventually receive
more than $3.5 billion. That figure is based on
the number of Chase borrowers potentially
applying for modifications.
"We expect to help 650,000
people avoid foreclosure," Chase spokesman
Tom Kelly told us. Chase started modifying loans
under the Obama plan earlier this month, Kelly
said.
Two servicers signed up are
both owned by Bank of America : Countrywide
received $1.9 billion and BoA’s servicing
arm got almost $800 million. And more are on the
way. (Servicers have until the end of the year to
join).
Some of the payments are
incentives for servicers to participate in the
administration’s plan. Servicers will
receive $1,000 for each modification and up to
$1,000 a year, for up to three years, as long as
their borrower remains current on payments.
But let’s be clear: The
money isn’t all going to the
servicers—they have to share much of it with
lenders and borrowers too. Lenders who own the
loans will receive $1,500 for each proactive
modification—those made while a borrower is
still current on mortgage payments. Participating
homeowners will get $1,000 knocked off their
loan’s principal each year for up to five
years if they stay current.
The $13 billion committed so
far is just an estimate of what Treasury will
actually pay. Treasury has said that the
estimates can go up or down, based on the number
of modifications ultimately made.
One major question remains:
When will the servicers be paid? Monthly? Yearly?
Per modification? No one we spoke
to—including Kelly, of Chase, and a Treasury
spokeswoman—had an answer.
Bailout for
Breakfast: Silence!
by Paul Kiel, www.ProPublica.org
This is the latest from our new
bailout blog. Check out our all-seeing database
of the bailout billions.
Torn between his duty to his
shareholders and his country, Bank of
America’s Ken Lewis chose his country. Or,
really, he says, he didn’t have a choice.
Late last year, when it was
becoming painfully apparent that Merrill Lynch
would take billions more in losses, Lewis tried
to back BoA out of the deal. The government
–- Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed
Chair Ben Bernanke in particular – forced
his hand, he says. And not only did BoA have to
go through with its acquisition of Merrill if he
wanted to keep his job, Lewis says. He was also
told to keep mum about the negotiations for more
government assistance to back the deal, the Wall
Street Journal reports.
But the story might not be so
simple. Lewis says Paulson told him, "We do
not want a public disclosure." New York
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office heard
Paulson make that claim two months ago. When
Cuomo’s office then questioned Paulson about
it, Paulson reportedly told them "that Mr.
Lewis may have misinterpreted some remarks about
the Treasury’s disclosure obligations as
referring to BofA’s obligations."
So maybe it was all a mix-up?
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