11 Temmuz 2012 Çarşamba

Reflection Post 2: Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It- Jo Ann Gibson Robinson

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Gary Okihio's Impounded Reflection

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10 Temmuz 2012 Salı

9 Temmuz 2012 Pazartesi

Jeremiah Wright: America‘s Elite Colleges Infect Black People’s Brains With ‘White Racist DNA’

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It wasn’t your typical Sunday sermon, but then again, Jeremiah Wright isn’t exactly your typical reverend.

Speaking just miles from the White House at the 100th anniversary of Washington, D.C.’s Florida Avenue Baptist Church on Sunday, Rev. Wright accused some of America‘s most prestigious academic institutions of infecting black people’s brains with “white racist DNA,” POLITICO reports.

He started by using the Book of Isaiah and its message of the value of foundational stones as a metaphor, imploring parishioners to teach their children the real African-American history and not the one taught by “our enemies” who “distorts our history, disses our history.” He then reportedly rattled off a list of some of the most important black figures in all of history, including Nat Turner, Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston and others and said their stories must be passed on.

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Black Mobs Terrorize 1 of 'Whitest Big Cities'

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It has been called one of America’s “whitest big cities” – with 66 percent of residents describing themselves as non-Hispanic white in the 2010 census – but it is not immune to black-mob attacks on a pregnant woman, veterans, the elderly, young people, homosexuals, Asians and others.

Seattle has “fewer problems with racism than other cities,” said the blog So Seattle. “Ethnic tensions … seem less tangible.”

While Seattle may not have the day-in, day-out racial violence of a Chicago, or the peculiar racial lawlessness of small-town Peoria, more and more, people are paying attention to the increasingly visible and brutish mayhem black mobs are visiting on their victims.

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‘Firmly Committed’: Obama Reportedly Invites Egypt’s Islamist President to the United States

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The Obama administration has invited Egypt’s new Islamist leader Mohammed Mursi to visit the United States in September, according to an Egyptian official, clearly reflecting Washington’s changing view of Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Jerusalem Post explains [all emphasis added]:
Washington, long wary of Islamists and [a former] ally of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, shifted policy last year to open formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, the group behind Mursi’s win…

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Obama's 'Missing Year' at Columbia Found?

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Two separate database reports from the National Student Clearinghouse last year that contradicted President Obama’s claim he attended Columbia University for two years added to the intrigue generated by Obama’s unwillingness to discuss his time at the Ivy League institution, his block on the release of educational records, and the many political science students and faculty there in the early 1980s who say they don’t remember him.

Swirling amid the black hole of information are a host of theories about Obama’s whereabouts – particularly during the 1981-1982 school year – including speculation he was working for the CIA in Pakistan.

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You Wanted It, Here It Is

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Many have asked me to publish my vision for Downtown Salisbury. While I have been holding it back, enough people have heard about it and now that Mayor Ireton has created a petition against the City Council, here's my view.

Starting with the Downtown Plaza, close it on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. I would, (and have) encourage as many bars and restaurants as possible to open new businesses within the Plaza to encourage a sort of upscale trendy entertainment district/atmosphere. Dueling Piano Bar, Irish Pub, Jazz and Blues, Sports Bar/Restaurants. I would propose an open container law on Friday and Saturday night throughout just the closed Plaza area. We could create a shuttle service from each parking area Downtown to and from the Plaza every 15 minutes. This could be privately owned to help one of the local businesses expand or even encourage a new business to get started. A dedicated cab service location. I'd like to see outdoor jazz bands, blues bands local talent, etc.

Once established I would charge a $10.00 cover charge on Friday and Saturday nights to pay for Police Enforcement on the Plaza. I would remove all plants and trees along the Plaza and go to Nurseries, Landscapers, Florist Shops and local Clubs to create a new Botanical Gardens. Each company would have a plaque with their company name, Website and phone number to market their business. It would create a unique competition to out do each other as well as maintain each planting area. Rather than the taxpayers paying out for Public Works employees twice a week for several hours a day maintaining the Plaza, we could save quite a bit of money each year.

Once established, there's only a certain amount of real estate on the Plaza, which makes the idea quite nice. We could then start looking down Market Street and encourage Hotels on the River with restaurants and shopping on the main floor. This would continue all the way back to Rt. 13.

If you stand by the Book Store near Feldman's on the River and look up towards the Parking Garage, the elevation is actually quite steep. By the time you get up to the Parking Garage, (if you were to remove ALL of the pavement and soil) you could have two floors of parking at the same ground level at Division Street. Palmer Gillis showed me this idea quite some time ago and it's perfect. IF people wanted to sell off those lots, perhaps we could get TWO levels of parking FIRST and actually double the spaces there now before anything new is built on those lots.

I recommend this idea because once the Downtown area is revitalized we are going to need all the parking we can get. Once the Plaza area is established with new businesses we could easily afford to completely remove the majority of parking meters simply by using the $10.00 cover charge to get into the Plaza each Friday and Saturday night. If you have 3,000 people visiting, that's $30,000.00. It will not cost $30,000.00 to pay for Police Enforcement each weekend.

Other expansions can go towards Fitzwater and the north prong for development down the road. Now I know some of you are thinking, (because we live in an instant gratification world today) this would take a long time. I agree, it would. I have spoken to local businesses who are VERY interested in the concept. We would have to market to other businesses throughout the Washington and Baltimore area. However, once it starts to roll the Downtown Plaza can become a destination location. We can actually draw business from Ocean City, if it's marketed properly.

Remember, the Plaza will open up Monday through Friday business hours like nothing ever happened. I would encourage the Farmers Market, arts and crafts and other interests on the Plaza every weekend with no cover charge, of course.

We can make the Plaza new and fresh with beautiful plants and trees. We can encourage economic development, while raising property values at the same time. Some might ask, what will happen to those businesses currently on the Plaza. Nothing will happen to them. Other than their property values will go up and IF they choose to relocate and sell they will have more money then ever before to do so. Keep in mind, the ONLY time things would be different is Friday and Saturday night.

Change is a difficult thing to accept. We have watched Annapolis, Cambridge, Berlin and many other local Downtown areas explode with such a concept. This idea would create and maintain interest in the arts as well as entertainment. Real estate values would go up as other businesses interested in opening up would be competing for a small amount of available real estate. We could remove parking meters and encourage people to spend more time Downtown.

Ladies & Gentlemen, it's a PROPOSAL. This would be an idea that could be brought to the City Council for their review. IF the Council turns it down, so be it. I would NOT petition them because they, (or you) disagree with the idea. It simply creates an OPTION. An option the local media won't even allow me to express.

We have asked you for years now, do YOU have a better idea? I wanted to deliver something that did NOT cost YOU the taxpayers a penny. No grants, no federal or state loans. NO affordable or section 8 housing projects. NO EDU giveaways. NO discounts on impact fees. A business man's concept that actually has fiscal responsibility to it.

I look forward to your comments. There may be some things I have forgotten in which I'll add in comments later. I encourage your ideas and opinions and I look forward to seeing them throughout the day.

8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar

Wisconsin Vote Underscores Challenges for Democrats

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June 6, 2012

Wisconsin Vote Underscores Challenges for Democrats

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Gov. Scott Walker’s victory Tuesday night in a recall election in Wisconsin raises tough questions for President Obama and Democrats nationally as they scramble to assess what it means for the enthusiasm of their voters, the power of their ground game, and their ability to compete against the huge sums of money Republicans have been raising.Even though Mr. Obama kept his distance from the state in the final weeks of the union-led recall effort, the president’s party, his campaign team and his labor allies exerted an enormous joint effort in the state that proved ineffective against an organized and well-funded Republican apparatus.More than 40 offices run by the Democratic National Committee and Mr. Obama’s campaign deployed more than 100 paid staff members alongside union and state volunteers for months in what amounts to the first real test of the president’s ground game before November’s election.There were numerous crosscurrents that likely contributed to the outcome: particularly skepticism of the recall process and anger over the ballooning cost of public employee benefits at a time of economic distress. There is little doubt that the election was more about Wisconsin than about the battle between Mitt Romney and Mr. Obama.But the state is one that Democrats had been confident of winning in November, given Mr. Obama’s 17-point margin of victory in 2008. And the failure of a determined, well-planned Democratic effort to oust Governor Walker highlights the challenges the party faces in November as it goes up against Republicans who proved that they can put vast financial resources behind their political efforts using “super PACS” and other vehicles.That Democratic effort on the ground — so successful in the 2008 presidential race — failed to turn out the voters that the Democrat, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, needed to defeat Mr. Walker in a rematch of their 2010 contest. Turnout was up by about 400,000 from 2010, but many of those voters cast ballots to keep Mr. Walker in office.The labor movement had forced the recall by directing a wave of anger against Mr. Walker’s bid to end collective bargaining for state workers. But Mr. Walker benefitted from a surge in contributions from wealthy conservative donors from around the country who raised more than $30 million to Mr. Barrett’s $4 million.“The fact that you’ve got a handful of self-interested billionaires who are trying to leverage their money across the country,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior campaign strategist, said in an interview. “Does that concern me? Of course that concerns me.”Mr. Obama’s Wisconsin state director, Tripp Wellde, blamed what he called “the flood of secret and corporate money spent on behalf of Scott Walker” for fueling a “politics of division” in the state that overwhelmed Mr. Barrett.Mr. Obama’s campaign sought solace in exit poll data that showed that not only did voters prefer him to the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. Romney, but many said Mr. Obama would do a better job on the economy and for the middle class.Mr. Axelrod said the support for Mr. Obama among voters leaving polling places suggests Wisconsin residents were uncomfortable ousting a sitting governor but are supportive of the president’s policies and are not inclined to vote for Mr. Romney in the fall.“In both the pre-election polling, which forecasted Walker’s win, and the exit polls yesterday, a majority of Wisconsin voters supported the president over Governor Romney,” Mr. Axelrod said in an interview. “I think that’s pretty meaningful.”And Democrats on Wednesday sought to portray the vote in Wisconsin as a special case featuring two local candidates and issues — like Mr. Walker’s push to restrict collective bargaining rights — that limit the parallels that can be drawn with Mr. Obama’s race against Mr. Romney.But before the vote, Democratic leaders had bragged about what they predicted would be their superior on-the-ground turnout efforts. In an interview late last month, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, called the Wisconsin recall a “dry run” for the party and for Mr. Obama’s campaign.“All of the Obama for America and state party resources, our grass-roots network is fully engaged,” Ms. Schultz told CNN’s Candy Crowley.“It has given the Obama for America operation an opportunity to do the dry run that we need of our massive, significant, dynamic grass-roots presidential campaign,” Ms. Wasserman Shultz said on May 27, adding that the effort “can’t really be matched by the Romney campaign or the Republicans because they’ve ignored on the ground operations.”Republicans quickly seized on Ms. Wasserman Shultz’s comments on Wednesday morning as evidence that the president’s campaign machinery may not be as effective as the team at his Chicago headquarters thinks it will be later this year.The Republicans also said the failure of the union-led recall in Wisconsin proved that Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes are up for grabs in the presidential election between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama this fall. The state is one that Democrats had been confident of winning, given Mr. Obama’s 17-point margin of victory in 2008.“It’s good news for us five months down the road,” said a beaming Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who also leads the Republican Governor’s Association, on Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.In a memo released late Tuesday night, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee called the results “an absolute disaster” for Mr. Obama that will force his campaign team in Chicago to spend time and resources competing in a state the president won easily in 2008.“From the White House to Chicago, Democrats are nervous this morning,” Mr. Priebus said. “After yesterday’s victory, Republicans have the infrastructure and enthusiasm that will help us defeat President Obama in Wisconsin.”Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney’s campaign, said the Wisconsin vote underscores the power of the broader Republican argument in the presidential race about the size and role of government. Noting Wisconsin does not automatically lean Republican, he said it now returns to its role as a battleground.“I don’t think we should assume that because there was a victory yesterday, there will be a victory in November in Wisconsin,” Mr. Gillespie told reporters on Wednesday at a Bloomberg News breakfast. “I do think it’s in play, and that’s telling.”Among the biggest concerns for Democrats is the impact of money in the recall campaign. State law allowed unlimited contributions to Mr. Walker’s campaign, mirroring the free flow of money into presidential campaigns via federal super PACs that were allowed under the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.In fact, some of the same corporate interests and personalities who are active in financing Mr. Romney’s campaign nationally helped funnel cash to Mr. Walker, including David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, two billionaire industrialists.That suggests that Mr. Obama could face similar challenges in other battleground states in the fall, when huge amounts of money from the same conservative interests will be designed to overwhelm Mr. Obama’s organizations.Mr. Axelrod said Wednesday morning that the prospect worries him. He posted on Twitter that “Billionaire Koch Bros ALONE gave Walker nearly double what Barrett raised IN TOTAL & lined up millions more.”But Mr. Axelrod said he was confident that the president’s campaign would be in a better position to respond aggressively than was Mr. Barrett in Wisconsin.“We start off in a better place, and we’re not going to get outspent eight to one,” Mr. Axelrod said. “We are not going to have just a month to run our campaign. You cannot draw that parallel here. We’re in an entirely different situation.”

Summers Suggests Temporarily Extending the Bush-Era Tax Cuts

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The Caucus - The Politics and Government blog of The New York Times

June 6, 2012, 11:06 AM

Summers Suggests Temporarily Extending the Bush-Era Tax Cuts

12:15 p.m. | Updated
Confusing economic comments – first by former President Bill Clinton, then by Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s first National Economic Council director – have emboldened Republicans to press for the immediate extension of all of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, with a claim that they have bipartisan backing.On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program Wednesday, Mr. Summers, one of the president’s closest economic advisers, was asked about President Clinton’s comments on the tax cuts and the poor jobs report of last week. Pressed for his advice, he said: “The real risk to this economy is on the side of slowdown, certainly not on the side of overheating, and that means we’ve got to make sure we don’t take gasoline out of the tank at the end of this year. That’s got to be the top priority.”The Bush-era tax cuts expire Jan. 1.But Mr. Summers, in a later statement, said he was not contradicting Mr. Obama, who has vowed to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire.“I fully support President Obama’s position on tax cuts. I have often said and continue to believe that promoting demand is the most critical short run priority for the American economy. Extending the high income tax cut does little for demand and poses substantial problems of fairness and fiscal prudence,” he said in an emailed statement.Mr. Summers later in the MSNBC interview clearly supported tax hikes on the rich, but was less clear on the timeframe.“You’ve got to look to the people who’ve gotten the most gains from the economy over the last 30 years, and who have also gotten the biggest tax reductions,” he said. “It’s not taking from them. It’s simply asking them to do their fair share at a time when the country has to pull together to work through some difficult problems.”The back-and-forth over the Summers comments mirrored the flap over Mr. Clinton’s. In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Clinton appeared to say tax increases and Republican-led spending cuts should be temporarily set aside until the economy regains its footing. Those comments angered the Obama re-election campaign and were quickly followed by a retraction. A Clinton spokesman on Tuesday said the former president does not believe tax cuts for the wealthy need be extended.Regardless of intent, the political damage may have been done. Public opinion polls have consistently shown strong majorities of Americans favor deficit reduction that includes spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. But Republicans, who oppose any tax hikes, are on offense – thanks in part to the mixed Democratic messages.House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio cited both Mr. Summers and Mr. Clinton, who “came out for it before he was against it” in calling for the extension of all the tax cuts “for at least a year.” The Bush tax cuts expire on Jan. 1.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, said President Obama justified the extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years in December 2010 because of a struggling economy. At 1.9 percent, the growth rate in the first three months of this year was slower than the end of 2010, when the economy grew 2.8 percent.“We have to do everything we can to grow this economy,” said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader.But Republicans gave no indication they are willing to cut a broad, anti-austerity deal that would include postponing deep spending cuts to domestic programs. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority whip, said the government has grown enough. He added Republicans will not come to the table until they believe they have a White House negotiating partner.“You need somebody on the other side who wants to make a deal, and the No. 1 way to do that is to put people before politics,” he said. “And this president this year has done nothing but politics.”

California primaries show Democratic divide on education

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California primaries show Democratic divide on education

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Analysis & Opinion

Essential reading: Greeks stop paying taxes, Nancy Pelosi’s rich tax, and more
Oracle suit gives Google a chance not to be evil

Can unions bounce back?

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WEDNESDAY, JUN 6, 2012 09:42 AM EDT

Can unions bounce back?

Tom Barrett's defeat in Wisconsin was a devastating blow to labor -- but not a death knell

BY JOSH EIDELSON

TOPICS: WISCONSIN RECALL Can unions bounce back?

Tom Barrett concedes the race at his election night rally in Milwaukee.(Credit: Reuters/John Gress)

MADISON – Last year, Wisconsinites reinvigorated the labor movement as they defied their union-busting governor. Last night, Wisconsinites voted to keep him office. That result cements Wisconsin as the place that best captures both the vitality and the vulnerability of the current U.S. labor movement.
There’s much to mourn in last night’s result. What it reflects: the triumph of big money in politics and the traction of anti-union resentment. What it inspires: even more aggressive attacks from employers and politicians. What it cements: public workers’ legal right to bargain will be anemic in Wisconsin for years.
At an election night party in Madison, the president of a New York union local told me Walker’s victory will inspire Governor Cuomo to go even harder after his union. A Madison school nursing assistant told me it’ll drive her co-workers to leave the profession before their pensions are gutted. And people pondered why so many of their fellow citizens would side with a governor who’d promised to “divide and conquer” union members.
In Wisconsin, what long seemed stable – the political and legal support for workers’ right to negotiate with their boss – turned out, when tested, to be precarious. That’s not the only place that’s happened to unions recently. When Boeing managers bragged about retaliation for strikes, fury from Republicans, complicity from Democrats, and the rusty wheels of the National Labor Relations Board conspired to leave the workers in the lurch. As more employers have been locking out their unionized employees – denying them work until they accepted concessions – workers have found that just having a union contract isn’t enough to keep your boss at bay. Since teacher-bashing became a hot trend in “education reform,” mainstream Democrats boast about defying teachers’ unions, while reassuring them that unlike the GOP, they want them to keep existing. (When I asked Democratic Governors Association Chair Martin O’Malley, who was in Madison campaigning for Barrett, about his fellow Democratic Governor Dan Malloy’s proposal to curtail teachers bargaining rights, O’Malley said he wasn’t familiar with “the nuances of collective bargaining” in Connecticut, but that unlike Walker, Democrats “don’t wade into this with our primary goal being to crush the teacher’s union.”)
Over the past week, canvassers recounted visits to Democratic voters who said that while they didn’t support Walker, they didn’t believe a recall was necessary (of course, some national Democrats agreed with them). Some were probably just pro-Walker Democrats who were being polite; others may really have believed that none of Walker’s offenses was severe enough to disrupt the tradition of four-year terms. Either way, that reaction’s a reminder that an injury to many – the frontal assault on public workers — wasn’t seen by all as an injury to them.
But even as Wisconsin highlights labor’s vulnerability, it shows how dynamic a true labor movement can become. The recall effort itself offers one measure of what labor and its allies accomplished: triggering the third such election in U.S. history, fighting Walker to a close race despite marked asymmetry in cash (and national party support), and seizing control of the state Senate. While Walker’s survival will embolden other anti-union politicians, they’d be far bolder already if labor had just rolled over as rights were stripped away last year.
But the uprising in Wisconsin has accomplished far more than instigating an election. It’s pushed state senators to meet a higher bar: fleeing the state to slow the bill. It’s muscled class and labor back into our culture and media. It’s forged a new wave of activists, and it’s moved working people all over the place.
Last week, it included workers at Palermo’s Pizza in Milwaukee, who went on strike to win union recognition. Workers told me that last year’s occupation in Madison helped inspire them to defy their boss and strike, even in the face of management wielding immigration audits as a weapon. The Palermo’s workers aren’t affiliated with an international union; they’re working closely with Voces De La Frontera, an immigrant rights group whose connection to unions was deepened when they occupied the capitol together last year. That occupation, Voces De La Frontera’s Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told me yesterday, created “a lot of room for creative and broader partnerships, and just a broadening of the labor movement.”
On Monday, when I asked one of the Palermo’s workers about how his struggle related to the one that had occupied the capital, he told me matter-of-factly in Spanish: “It’s the same.” He wasn’t offering charity or quid pro quo. He was showing solidarity, that sense that of shared purpose and shared stakes that last year kept farmers and firefighters occupying their capitol together.
Wisconsin foreshadowed other labor uprisings that followed. Like the Wisconsinites, more workers defied expectations, or defied the law. Port truck drivers classified as “independent contractors,” not employees, went on strike despite the law and massed at their state capitol to change it. Longshore workers ignored injunctions and occupied train tracks rather than let them be used to do their work without their union. Tomato growers forced Trader Joe’s to negotiate with them – not through any legal authority, but by organizing consumers and wielding the power to boycott.
With legal collective bargaining rights set to stay hamstrung in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell told me yesterday, “collective action, collective voice doesn’t change. In fact, without the protections of the collective bargaining, collective voice is sometimes the only voice you have in the workplace.”
Soon after Scott Walker declared victory, South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach told me that the tasks now facing Wisconsin’s labor movement would have been necessary even if Walker lost: “We would have to rebuild our unions. We would have to do a lot of community outreach and coalition building…We have to embolden our workers” and take on “workplace actions that could lead to other forms of power.”
The U.S. labor movement is at a Wisconsin moment in the best and worst sense: it keeps showing strength and weakness in unexpected places. Wisconsin shows that labor can still be a militant, growing, mass social movement – and that it has to be one in order to survive in the face of existential threat.

Josh Eidelson is a freelance journalist and a contributor at The American Prospect and In These Times. After receiving his MA in Political Science, he worked as a union organizer for five years.MORE JOSH EIDELSON.
‏@LOLGOPWeird. People won't pay for unions that aren't allowed to bargain on their behalf. Doesn't sound like an evil plan at all.

Don't Let Congress and Broadcasters Keep You in the Dark

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Don't Let Congress and Broadcasters Keep You in the Dark

A House Appropriations Subcommittee just voted on a measure to decrease transparency for political ads aired on local television stations.If signed into law, this bill would deny the public better access to information about the wealthy corporations and individuals that are inundating our airwaves with misleading political ads in 2012.The FCC decision was a milestone in the fight for better democracy. Yet as with any hard-won reform in the age of big-money politics, this change in being attacked by unscrupulous members of Congress, who put the interests of corporate lobbyists before those of everyday Americans.Please sign this letter to your members of Congress and demand that they serve the public first.In this post-Citizens United era, we can't let broadcasters hide their political profits.

7 Temmuz 2012 Cumartesi

Born back ceasely into the past

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So yes, Amherst did have a July 4 Parade yesterday. Hundreds of parents, kids, grandparents, friends, family and their dogs descended on the South Amherst town common as they have for over 100 years to participate in the July 4 Children's Bicycle Parade, a grand neighborhood block party painted in red, white and blue.

And 30 years from now some of these children will bring their children, as the baton is passed...

Confused Watch Dog

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So about six months ago the Gazette published a front page story declaring a car dealership "apparently out of business" based on a tip from a blogger (not me), an empty car lot, and a office that was closed on a Sunday.

The very next day, probably in response to a threatened lawsuit, they published--also front page--a puff piece about the new and improved used car scheme the former VW dealership was about to morph into.

Yesterday the Daily Hampshire Gazette published a belated investigative piece about the used car dealership closing up--this time for good--leaving in its wake disgruntled consumers out thousands of dollars in deposits and cars that cannot be driven because of missing titles.

In other words, the kind of thing that if exposed a few months earlier could have saved their readers (and non readers) a major headache.

And I could not help but notice in yesterday's article they never mention the prominent incidents from only six months ago. Hmm...

Gazette apology puff piece 12/13/11

Bring 'em On

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War Memorial Pool 7/5/12
UPDATE (4:45 PM). Okay, it's finally official. Because you can now read the official press release on the town website. About time!
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BREAKING NEWS: (4:00 PM) So I just spoke with Pat Desmarais (apparently the only one left at the LSSE office) and she confirmed the pool will be open Sunday 10:00 AM to ~~3:00 PM~~ 6:00 PM and it is indeed free, free, free, FREE
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The War Memorial Pool looked ready for a refreshing dive (not that they have a diving board of course) around 5:00 PM this afternoon. Buoys are out, water is clear, new fencing is up all around and the concrete looks uniformly cured. Probably will not open tomorrow, but if town officials wish to reclaim some badly needed credibility then Saturday is a must.

Let's hope they do not wait until 5:00 PM tomorrow to make the announcement.

Meanwhile the "South East Street Massacre" continues unabated. Main Street/Pelham Road is next, and the trees are already starting to quiver.

Live Free or Die

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A symbol of freedom and a symbol of the cost of freedom
Assuming all 1,664 men Missing In Action from the Viet Nam War are dead, it is still of paramount importance to fly this black flag as a reminder that--all these years later--their final outcomes are still unknown.

Yesterday the town put up a new, larger POW/MIA flag to fly in tandem with the larger US flag purchased last year and originally scheduled to fly only on ceremonial occasions, but now flying daily...as it should.

Google Stain

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Lately I've been getting a slew of hits from a site called "something awful" (about half way down page 6). Yeah, the name--with a hand grenade for an avatar--definitely got my attention.

Fortunately my sitemeters act like informative high-tech sensors on the Starship Enterprise, letting me know how readers come to me, what search terms they use, and where they are from. When someone posts a link to me on another website, like a message board or Facebook, it is especially noticeable.

Apparently a Cowardly Anon Nitwit who can't spell my name correctly tried to link me with an amoral idiot who founded "Blabermouth," a for-profit website that posts mug shots and arrest records--all public documents of course--but then goes a tad beyond the pale by blackmailing those individuals posted with threats of added exposure if they do not pay $100- $200 to have their names and photos removed from his website.

As usual the law has a hard time keeping up with new technology, so it may actually be legal...at the moment. Either way, peer pressure and public shaming seems to have torpedoed the nefarious enterprise. Fortunate for the founder because--considering the demographic he was hustling--a safe bet termination of the physical kind was just around the corner.

Since starting my "Party House of the Weekend" series almost two years ago, I've had numerous requests (by email, Facebook messages, phone calls and in one case a knock at the door) to delete published names and in a (very) few cases have actually complied: When offenders verify they have paid the fines and actually seem remorseful about their irresponsible, obnoxious, illegal activities.

Growing up in Amherst fifty years ago I vividly recall my mother, a public school teacher, worrying about anything negative that could forever stain your "permanent record." I was never quite sure if she was talking about school files, which only cover K-12 activity, or police logs...or both.

These days, with the mighty all-powerful Google, it really doesn't matter--especially when you join forces with the First Amendment and Massachusetts Division of Open Government.

For better or worse, public exposure is only a click away.

5 Temmuz 2012 Perşembe

Miami Dade Housing Choice Voucher Program Building

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HUD's fourth largest Section Eight or Plan Ocho program in the nation is managed by Miami-Dade Public Housing Agency MDPHA. It is a management nightmare! I remember the old Coral Way offices and waiting hours to see a Landlord case worker. The county decided to outsource the management of Miami-Dade Public Housing Agency MDPHA's Housing Choice Voucher Program. Miami-Dade awarded a multi-year contract to Quadel Consulting. They are responsible for:

Section 8 Voucher Program
Section 8 Home Ownership Program
MDPHA Family Self Sufficiency (FSS) Program

This allows the MDPHA to save money and increase processing efficiencies.

Landlords, this is a great program to use for renting your investment properties. When a unit becomes empty, the clock starts ticking. You are losing MONEY! You need to lease this unit as soon as possible! Adding Section 8 or Plan 8 to your marketing funnel, increases the probability of finding a qualified tenant.

I put to together a simple video below that shows you the outside of the Miami Dade Housing Choice Voucher Program Building. Go down there NOW and set up an appointment to discuss the Landlord Program. Address is: 7400 NW 19th Street, Bay H, Miami, Florida 33126. Don't expect an appointment right away. They will schedule you via a 3-4 week window. Sorry, it is what it is!

Related Links, Maps, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:

Miami Dade Housing Choice Voucher Program Building Map.
Quadel Consulting Web Site.

Top Blogs

Written by Bob Burns.
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	Change! Nothing Stays the Same. MREIA's President Telephone #: 305-300-6242 email: rkburns@investmentpropertiesmiamiflorida.com MREIA's Web Page: www.miamireia.com

Hypersmash

Top 20 Most Common Reasons Why Units FailSection 8 Inspections.

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One of your hats that you wear as a real estate investor is being a landlord. As a landlord, your job is to maintain the properties and keep them rented.

Keeping your properties fully occupied throughout the year increases your cash flow and provides a better return on your investment ROI but can be a difficult task! The longer a Unit remains unoccupied the less ROI landlords are going to have.

Below are several channels available to landlords to find qualified tenants:

Retail Market - Newspapers, Word of Mouth, Church, For Rent Signs on property, internet, etc...
Multiple Listing Service MLS - Database Realtors use to find rental properties for their clients
Section 8, Plan Ocho, Sec 8, Plan Eight, Plan 8, Section Eight - Government subsidized rental payment plan.

The more channels you have, the greater possibility of finding a qualified tenant for your unit. SPEED is essential for success. Any delay will hurt ROI.

Section 8 will eliminate a lot of the drawbacks of being a landlord but you have to follow HUD's guidelines to be successful.

One part of the guidelines is the unit or property must pass an interior and exterior inspection. If you fail the inspection, more delays and your ROI will be affected. Being prepared for the inspection will help make the rental transaction a smooth process.

From my experience with Section 8, below is a list of items that will fail a HUD inspection:

Smoke alarms missing or not working.
Lack of ventilation in bathroom.
Outlet covers missing or broken.
Infestation by bugs or vermin.
Absence of handrails where 4 or more consecutive steps.
Utilities disconnected (must be connected).
Hazards (i.e. tripping as a result of floor covering or exposed electrical wiring.
One window in each room must open and have a screen.
Chipping paint on the outside of the building – gutters, outside surfaces of building.
Hazardous hole or trash in the yard.
Door not sealed properly (light can be seen coming through).
No hot or cold running water.
All windows must have sash cords or balancers and must stay in the open position without assistance.
All ceilings must be at least 7 feet in height in areas used for living, sleeping, etc….
All steps to landing or basements have handrails.
Baths without windows must have power fan or gravity vents in high rise buildings.
Open electrical distribution box must be covered with appropriate cover.
Windows in bedroom too small and will not qualify as areas for sleeping.
Security bars (rejas) can’t be opened from the interior will not be allowed to remain.
All bedrooms must have a built in closet.

I provided pictures of potential failure points below. Can you identify what would cause a failed inspection item?

Click on each image to view a larger photo!

Have you any experience with Section 8 inspections? Share them with US!

Related Links, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:

Our Section 8 telephone interview - Podcast
Our Sec 8 Power Point presentation given to the Miami Real Estate Investor Association MREIA

Written by Bob Burns.####

Yeah Baby!
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Real Estate Investor
Telephone #: 305-300-6242
email: rkburns@investmentpropertiesmiamiflorida.com

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Secure Your property for before Rehabbing!

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After completing several property rehabs in Miami-Dade County, Florida, I wanted to try something out of the county but still in Florida. My parents lived in Sarasota, Florida so I thought this would be a nice place to start. Distance would be an issue but my father was down for the winter and he could check up on the progress being made on the individual properties. Also, my Dad is an electrical contractor which brings many rehab benefits but that is a future REIC posting.

I found a duplex FOR SALE fairly quickly on Debbie Street, Sarasota due to the advantage of attending Sarasota REIA group meetings on Florida's Gulf Coast. Other than the distance, four hour drive, I felt this would be like any other rehab.

I decided to start in February with a two week property visit. Well during that time, several problems arose that I didn't experience before, like:

Most of the properties were on well water. Hard on the pipes, fixtures and tasted awful. Our duplex had city water service which was a blessing but caused me a problem I had to resolve.
Septic Tanks! No county sewer systems had been installed. The drain field was the front lawn and it was clogged.
Clothes Washer waste water line emptied onto the backyard lawn.
Pine trees over fifty high. Pine needles build up on the roof and lawn.
Gravel driveway that the neighbors thought they could use to park their cars.
Drug addicts lived about 50 yards away in an apartment.
On and On and On....

But the one problem that cost me the most in time and money was the city water lines.

Apparently it was very expensive to get connected to Sarasota's water system due to high impact fees. Impact fees are the city's way to tax you for hooking up to the water system network. You have to pay for the following:

Impact fees
Installation fee for digging up the street and installing the water meters.
Hire a plumber to run lines from the city's water meters to the duplex's water system.
Had to pay twice since it was two separate water meters, one for each unit of the duplex.

Luckily, my duplex already had these meters installed by a previous owner. The problem was the neighbors knew this and thought they could help themselves to the city water from our duplex. They would go to our outside water fixture and fill their 5 gallon water containers.

By the end of the month, I had a very large water bill which I couldn't figure out why? My rehab contractor said he never used too much water. I thought I had a water line leak from the meter to the duplex.

One day in July, my rehab contractor said he saw one of the neighbors filling up their containers and told me about it. I was flabbergasted but realized that this was going to be an ongoing problem!

Below is picture containing the anti-theft water system parts and installation video.....

Related Links, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:

Section 8 Inspection Checklist
Sarasota REIA on Facebook
Sarasota Real Estate Investor Association on Twitter

Written by Bob Burns.

####

Life is a Beach. Go Find Yours!
Bob Burns Print Signature Photo

Real Estate Investor
Telephone #: 305-300-6242
email: sec8@planocho.com

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