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Hat tip to jerry for sending this along:

From the Coast News:

Those who own property in the Encinitas Ranch might want to take a closer look at your Mello Roos Taxes. They are going to increase.

Encinitas City Council voted 3-1 April 27 to allow the Encinitas Ranch Golf Authority, or ERGA, to pay themselves a “contingency fund” of $100,000 a year for the next five years or more, before paying the full amount of the CFD bonds.

This means the golf course and Carltas Development Corporation will be passing more of ERGA’s portion of the CFD bond debt of $400,000 per year on to you.

Read the rest of this entry »

From msn.com

Local governments have been complaining for years that foreclosed homes are a blight on cities and counties, and that banks that take back homes often fail to maintain them. 

The California General Assembly is even considering a bill that would fine lenders $20,000 for each foreclosure to help cities pay the associated costs.

The city of Los Angeles filed suit Wednesday against Deutsche Bank, accusing the lender of being one of the city’s largest slumlords and seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution.  “It’s time to recognize that the fraud committed on Wall Street turns into blight on Main Street,” City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit.

 ”We must fight blight by holding banks accountable when they create vacant nuisance properties that pose threats to our residents and destroy the quality of life in our neighborhoods,” Trutanich said.

 The lawsuit accuses the bank of failing to maintain 166 properties and illegally evicting tenants from some of them. The suit lists the addresses of the properties and includes photos of the substandard conditions. You can read the lawsuit here and here.

(the lawsuit indicates that the majority of the properties were foreclosed in 2008 and 2009)

Deutsche Bank responded that the lawsuit was “against the wrong” party and that loan servicers, not Deutsche Bank, were responsible for maintaining foreclosed properties.

It was mentioned that there are local grants available for homebuyers, and  ’just some guy’ asked for more infomation.

From the City of Carlsbad’s website:

The City of Carlsbad administers both grant and loan programs.  This program offers down payment and closing cost assistance to low income households. 

The program provides zero interest “silent second” loans that must be repaid when the residential unit is sold.  There will be no monthly payments.  The assistance may be used to purchase attached or detached residential units within the city limits of the City of Carlsbad.  The home must represent the buyer’s primary place of residence.  The residential unit may not be used as income property.  The buyer is not permitted to rent the unit or any rooms within the unit to another party. 

The loan through the program shall be up to 5 percent of the fair market value, but not exceed $20,000.  To qualify for a loan under the program, the buyer must meet the stated income requirements and be able to qualify for a conventional mortgage to finance the remainder of the home purchase.  In addition, final monthly housing costs for the buyer may not exceed 35 percent of the gross monthly household income.  Other restrictions apply.

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An excerpt from an article by our friend Will Carless at the voiceofsandiego.com:

It snarls up the traffic, clogs the parking, puts local police and firefighters on edge and fills the air with the fetid smell of, alternately, frying confectionery, sweaty rodeo riders and horse manure.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds is not the ideal neighbor for tony Del Mar. This small, neat community of multimillion-dollar homes and posh restaurants has always had a love-hate relationship with the fairgrounds. Residents love taking their grandchildren to the fair, but hate the descent of weapon-toting out-of-towners at the annual gun show. Restaurateurs and salespeople at fancy boutiques love the summer crowds brought by the fairgrounds, but prefer the racing clique to the fair-going hordes, who are less likely to buy expensive sirloins or designer cocktail dresses.

At first glance, it’s hard to understand why the city of Del Mar would want to purchase the fairgrounds: The proposed sale is a daunting financial deal for the county’s smallest city and it comes as even Del Mar is feeling the raw financial climate. And why, oh why, would the city want to buy an institution that its residents have so many problems with and dislike so much about?

The answer is simple: At the core of the city’s proposal is reformation.

Del Martians may not like everything about the fair now, but they certainly don’t want the site turning into a hotel ghetto or a convention center. They don’t like the current gun shows, or the traffic, or the impact on their emergency services, but these are exactly the problems that an owner — as opposed to a neighbor — has the chance to control.

For example, the plan to put a condo-hotel on the site would have a big impact on local traffic. But the agricultural association responded by shifting the responsibility for fixing the traffic problem to the city, Dernetz said. The association told the city it would have to build — and pay for — traffic signals at every intersection on Camino Del Mar, the main road through town, he said.

“Do you know how much that would cost?” Dernetz said. “That’s one example of the arrogance and insensitivity they have to the impact of their operations on this community.”

The group backing the deal — a curious hodgepodge of small-town politicians, environmentalists, business leaders and millionaire horse-owners — says the fairgrounds has been badly managed by a group of well-connected political donors appointed by the governor, who have spent the last few decades picking fights with just about every interest group, politician and gadfly in Del Mar.

For example, the plan to put a condo-hotel on the site would have a big impact on local traffic. But the agricultural association responded by shifting the responsibility for fixing the traffic problem to the city, Dernetz said. The association told the city it would have to build — and pay for — traffic signals at every intersection on Camino Del Mar, the main road through town, he said.

“Do you know how much that would cost?” Dernetz said. “That’s one example of the arrogance and insensitivity they have to the impact of their operations on this community.”

Read the rest of this entry »

From the sddt.com:

The San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office is scheduled to auction off hundreds of tax defaulted properties next month.

Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister announced Friday that 469 tax defaulted properties are scheduled to be sold at the 2011 Property Tax Sale Auction scheduled for Friday, March 18, at the San Diego Convention Center.

The auction is being held in an effort to collect $2,432,354.26 in unpaid property taxes including penalties and fees.

“We currently have 76 improved properties, 278 timeshares and 115 unimproved parcels ready for auction,” McAllister said. “The numbers may change if owners step up and pay the defaulted taxes with penalties right before the deadline. Owners of delinquent properties have until 5 pm on Thursday, March 17, the day before the tax sale to bring their taxes and delinquent charges up to date, or their property will be sold.”

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From Channel 10:

SAN DIEGO — A three-judge state appellate court panel ruled Friday in favor of the desalination plant under construction in Carlsbad, saying the developer does not need to conduct more environmental studies.

 The ruling by the Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed a ruling by Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes that rejected arguments in a lawsuit filed by San Diego Coastkeeper against the California State Lands Commission.

Coastkeeper claimed that the lower court should have found that the commission was supposed to have required a supplemental environmental impact report. However, the justices agreed with Hayes that the environmental studies already completed were sufficient.

Poseidon Resources, the firm building the facility next to the Encina Power Plant, said in a statement that environmentalists are filing lawsuits to delay the project, which will convert 50 million gallons a day of ocean water into drinking water.

The ruling was the 10th to favor Poseidon, according to the company.

“The ruling is definitive and is the latest in a series of independent determinations that the project complies with state environmental law,” said Peter MacLaggan, a Poseidon senior vice president.

San Diego Coastkeeper believes the plant will devastate local fisheries and habitat.

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Here is a link to the full story, discussing both of the Poseidon desal projects underway in  Carlsbad and Huntington Beach, where they are now relying on government subsidies, due to cost overruns:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/06/poseidon-desal-deal-govt-may-rescue-junk-bond-project/

An excerpt:

If the CWA does decide to take over the Carlsbad desalination project, it won’t be the first time that Poseidon—which has yet to build a single desalination plant—failed to finish a project or have taxpayers pick up after it.

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We’re probably too far down the ‘extend-and-pretend’ road for protests to cause a change in course - but it’s good to see citizens expressing their rights, at least for 55 seconds:

The next installment of property taxes is now due.

The home sales closing from today forward will be paying their first half installment (July 2010 – Dec 2010), pro-rated through escrow.  For current homeowners, you can pay up until December 10th and avoid the 10% penalty.

To check your tax amounts due, click here to search by address or parcel number:

https://www.sdctreastax.com/ebpp3/(u4zmqt55kkxi2z45dwm0e5au)/Start.aspx

To check for Mello-Roos, look for amounts due the Community Facilities Districts (CFDs) here:

http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/pts/fcsasearch.asp

From the voiceofsandiego.org:

In the midst of a dramatic all-night budget negotiation, Sacramento lawmakers slipped in a bill that would give the state’s approval to raising the cap on downtown San Diego redevelopment to support construction of a new NFL stadium.

The bill would allow San Diego’s Centre City Development Corp. to raise its spending cap from $3 billion to $9 billion for downtown and continue sequestering tax dollars from the rest of the city, county and state.

The maneuvering came at an awkward time. For one, the city is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars supposedly studying whether downtown is blighted and needs to increase its redevelopment activity. It also comes as the City Council and mayor plea with residents to increase the city’s sales tax or face drastic service cuts. 

The bill was attached to the budget through a “trailer bill” that had been crafted to support the Williamson Act, which protects rural farmland from development. It also has provisions supporting redevelopment in the city of Richmond. We’re trying to find details of the bill.

I called Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña. She said she did not support the bill, declining to vote on it.  “I was just astounded,” she said. “This is a specially worded sweetheart deal that gave Williamson Act supporters, the city of Richmond and San Diego’s CCDC very special and preferential treatment.”

Sean Wherley, the spokesman for Sen. Christine Kehoe, e-mailed me that Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher authored the bill. Saldaña said last-minute dealing to pull together the votes to pass the massive California budget was pervasive and “this was Fletchers deal to get his vote.”

As debate about it proceeded, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), tweeted that the bill was “a last-minute budget bill allowing scandal-plagued Centre City Redev. in San Diego to use public money for NFL.”  And the Sacramento Bee quoted Assemblyman Chris Norby calling the maneuvering for the new Chargers stadium “corporate welfare at its worst.”

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/opinion/slop/article_08a00918-d2ff-11df-a209-001cc4c03286.html